Translating Chinese Report Cards

At school, we have to type up monthly reports for students, in which we evaluate their behavior and skill level, make comments and assign a grade. As may sound familiar to some back in the US, Chinese grading tends not to reflect a student's actual performance or ability; rather it reflects social expectations about grading, and (as in the US), letter grades like A, B, C, D and F have lost much of their meaning. Since my school caters primarily to the rich (and takes a lot of their money), it's in teachers' best interest to be circumspect when grading--especially since the better part of our bonus relies on student satisfaction (or the satisfaction of students' parents).

Thus, the grades I've been assigning have assumed a sort of code, as follows:

A is for "awesome" or "absolutely the best student it's ever been my privilege to work with. And it's also for "average," as all the parents waiting in the lobby or at home are fully expecting to see one on their little darlings' reports. It should of course be assigned to those above the 90th percentile, but here it's wiser to assign it to the top 90% of the class.

B is for "beating." This is what most Chinese students would expect to receive after taking this mark home. Fortunately, it's also for "blame the teacher"; since most of the Chinese kids I teach are infallible in their parents' eyes just by virtue of being born, any failure to learn must be due to a failure on the part of the teacher. Because of this, B is also for "Bye-bye fifty kuai"--what I can expect to find myself saying if the school calls these students' parents in their survey.

C is for "cao," as in "Wo cao,"* what any student (i.e., any student in the bottom five percent) will say when receiving this grade. C is also for "complain bitterly about the teacher" and "change your child's class"--the parents' natural reaction to such a grade.

D is for "Don't," as in "Don't even bother giving out such a grade"; the guaranteed resulting 麻烦 (mafan, trouble) is more than it's worth.

F is for "Forget about it." If I even think of handing out such a grade (and think through the resulting screaming match in the school lobby, I'm reminded of another F-word: "Fired."

The comments section of my reports have taken on a sort of special double-talk for the worst students: "[Insert name] shows a clear potential to learn English, and he/she does well at in-class tasks when he/she tries. He/she is often distracted in class, however, and this is interfering with her/his overall progress. If [Insert name] makes a strong effort to participate in class, I am sure/feel confident that his/her English will show further progress." Had I to write this out honestly for one student, it would read as follows:

"Your son spends most of his class-time either trying to pick fights in class or barking like a dog. Since he has good vision and his imitation of a dog is uncannily accurate, he does have the potential to learn some English sounds, such as 'a' or 'I' and learn to recite them upon seeing the written letters. Even dogs, after all, can make such sounds and even be trained to make such sounds when presented with visual cues. Your son probably will not improve, because he probably won't make any effort whatsoever. Were he to make even the slightest effort, it is nearly guaranteed that his English would improve, since his English level is as of now the lowest it could possibly be."

*"Wo cao" may be translated a bit too strongly in most places. It isn't uncommon for one of my six-year-old female students (a cute little girl with two front teeth missing and her hair tied up in five or six little pigtails) to loudly exclaim, "Wo cao," after getting the wrong answer to a question. Such usage suggests to me that either the transations I normally see are wrong or that Chinese kids have fouler mouths than the kids on South Park.