How can I connect English teaching with moral lessons?

[crabinsand77]

Now in China we are all learning "Eight honours and eight disgraces" and I was asked to use them in my English class. really puzzled by this. can you help me?
Eight Honors & Eight Disgraces

Love, do not harm the motherland.

Serve, don't disserve the people.

Uphold science; don't be ignorant and unenlightened.

Work hard; don't be lazy and hate work.

Be united and help each other; don't gain benefits at the expense of others.

Be honest and trustworthy, not profit-mongering at the expense of your values.

Be disciplined and law-abiding instead of chaotic and lawless.

Know plain living and hard struggle, do not wallow in luxuries and pleasures.

[KATRIX]

Learning English doesn't mean studying phonetics and grammar only. I'm sure that on your lessons you try to make your students speak out and express their opinions. So why don't you propose them to make up dialogues or polilogues or group-discussions? Let them choose a topic (for example "Work hard; don't be lazy and hate work - what's your point of view?"), give them some time and then let them make a presentation! These kinds of group projects work out in most cases! :lol:

[eric_p_m]

Dear Crabinsand77,

My first reaction is to advise you to take your copy of Eight Honors & Eight Disgraces and use it as a paperweight. Instead of taking something directly translated from Mandarin Chinese into English, you should interpret the sentences using the culture of the language you are teaching.

As foreign language teachers, we should utilize the target language's culture as the medium of communication inside and outside of our physical classrooms. The selected text you have been mandated to utilize is political in nature and propaganda at best. You are better off to research and allocate authentic language training resources which are in the target language and written by a native speaker about values and morality issues.

For example, try the following resources on-line:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality

Sorry... I forgot that the Chinese government had banned the world's free encyclopedia a few years ago to tighten control over the information Chinese citizens were capable of viewing. Try the following URLs:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041206/lakoff
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... i_n9562655

As an educator, you should welcome cross-cultural communication into your classroom with open arms.


Sincerely,

Eric Paul Monroe

http://www.eric-tesol.com/