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[Iguessitsme]

Hey guys,

I work at a public school in Shanghai and teach grades 1 and 5. Grade 1 is pretty easy to control as they are obsessed with stars and stickers, and after a while start to police themselves. Grade 5, not so much. They aren't young enough to do stars and stickers with and they're not quite old enough to have to really start taking school seriously, especially oral English. You can tell them to be quiet and they generally are, for about two minutes. My school also wants us to be able to deal with problems ourselves instead of getting their Chinese homeroom teachers involved. I teach oral English in a semi-discussion format, so there's quite a bit of talking going on in the class, which I encourage, but a lot of it is also peripheral Chinese that has nothing to do with the topic. I was just wondering if anybody else teaches grade 5 (or similar) and what they do to ensure a nice, respectful, and fun learning environment? Cheers.

[alonzo9772]

I have a random question. How do you get a job in a Chinese public school? I have never seen a job posting for a public school there. However, I hear that being a teacher in a public school in China is tiring because of the large class sizes. I hear of some teachers having to take care of 100 students for one class. Is that your experience?

[Iguessitsme]

I actually work for a private company and they matched me up with a public school. I don't think public schools actually advertise jobs to the public. I lucked out pretty hard with teaching hours and class size. I have about 35 students in a class, which can be a lot, but in reality isn't too bad. At least in my experience. I'm required to be in school from 8-4, but am only in class for about 2.5 hours of that time. All in all, it's not too bad. A lot of my friends work at International/Bilingual schools and they get paid more, but they work a lot harder and a lot longer. IF you can find a good public school, I think it's the way to go!

[papuadn]

[getbehindthemule]

OP, I can symphatise with you...
I'm also in a similar situation to yourself (as in somewhat lucked out) and am very happy to be. It's so much less work and pressure than working in an International school (the extra money is definitely not worth it imo).

I also work for a public school (approx. 42 students/class=35mins).
I much prefer teaching the lower grades (G1+G2), even though one needs a lot of energy. The vast majority are very interested and excited by my lessons and great feedback comes back to the school from the parents.
Grade 3 is pretty good also but once they get to Grade 4 it's a little bit different.
I teach Science, so those that have a genuine interst in the subject are a joy, but the ones that have little to no interest are quite difficult to manage. I try my best to keep my lessons interesting using multiple resources and to create a fun learning environment, but it's not always enough. I'm finding some of my students doing homework for other subjects in my class of late.
There are numerous reasons for this imo: The students are developing differently, pushing boudaries etc. They are realising that the other subjects are far more important. They are already focused on the middle school they are set on attending.

Like you, I encourage a lot of talking in class, trying to keep it English for the most part. But far too often with the older grades, I feel I'm not minimising TTT enough.
I sometimes use the students who are very advanced in the subject and/or the students that have good english to act as a teaching aid to try and grab the attention of the distracted ones. Eg. translate for the class, draw a diagram on the blackboard, etc. etc.

[Iguessitsme]

Interesting. I'll give an example. The majority of my grade 5 classes are productive. Most students are intrinsically motivated to learn. They generally want to learn and actively take notes. There is a lot of discussion in those classes, and quite a bit of Chinese as well. But I'm cool with the Chinese because it seems to be more of a reaction to the topics or pictures or some other educational stimuli. They're excited to share with their classmates and me.
Whereas in my other grade 5 classes, the students seem to have the ability to discuss topics like my better classes, but choose not to. It's like pulling teeth to get them to talk in English and contribute to a discussion. When I call them out individually and make them answer, they usually show a proficiency equal to students in my better classes. So level doesn't seem to be the problem. It seems that they're uninterested and unmotivated to learn English. They would much rather play around with each other and speak Chinese without acknowledging anything from the lesson. I'm wondering if anyone else has had a problem like this with a similar grade and what they've done to remedy it.

[getbehindthemule]