Job Discussion Forums

wigan4 · Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 34

I'm not an entertainer, either, although I would say my presentations are almost always the least pretentious and most devoid of jargon in whatever context I'm working.

But if I have freedom to choose my 'content' (within reason), then I can always be prepared with plenty of lessons and/or activities that are fun and relevant. Even though I'm probably two years away I can start doing them now--and that was my primary concern.

If there's a book, great, I can look it over when I get it and plunder it as I see fit and weave whatever I think is constructive and 'works for me' into the overall context of my plan. But the main thing is I don't have to wait until a day or two before the course begins to devise my 'plan.'

I see now why I was struggling, with nothing in particular mandated this really is a grab-bag of independent techniques for promoting english conversation, which makes it easy to have lots of stuff in hand with plenty of lead time.

Do you typically--as a beginning person--teach three or four sections of the same 50 people 5 days a week?

I keep seeing 15 or 16 periods a week as about standard, which looks to me like 3 sections five times a week plus maybe an English corner or something? Is that the drill?

tw · Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 3898

wigan4 · Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 34

Ok, so 16 hours would probably be 8 double periods a week--that's even better.

danielb · Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 490

You would likely only see the same class once a week unless you teach them more than one subject.

tw · Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 3898

wigan4 · Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 34

Ok, so now I'm really starting to get the big picture. I see each group of students once a week for their 'Oral English' or 'English Conversation' class, about 2 hours, as a supplement to a more technical and 'linguistic' course in English taught--I assume--by a 'regular' PhD in English, etc.

My job is to give them the opportunity to use and practice English and the opportunity to hear native English and to correct pronounciation, etc.

2 Hours is good--it seemed to me like it would be difficult to really get into projects, presentations, etc, in only 50 minutes.

You could almost say my responsibility is to conduct their English Lab, within which context I have freedom to use whatever 'experiments', excercises, etc I want.

As his friend said to Dr Johnson, "I try to be philosphical, but I can't help it, cheerfulness keeps breaking out!"

It sounds great! Who cares if your pay is a week late when you're having that much autonomy and fun?

tw · Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 3898

wigan4 · Joined: 15 Jun 2005 Posts: 34

I expect to put in more than a little effort--that's why I started this thread. I needed to know exactly what it was I needed to be putting my effort toward. Until I was able to have this discussion I really had no idea what the expectations were for 'Oral English' and I had no intention of going over there on a 'how hard can it be' basis.

Remember, I'm not some 25 year-old kid who's never really settled down to a profession and is looking to bum around the world on a shoestring, if I were I'd have never bothered to start this thread. I'm hoping to find a good situation, bring my wife over, and settle in for 5 or 10 years in one spot. But we'll just see how it goes. I still have a year and a half of school before I really pursue this.

profM · Joined: 18 Jun 2005 Posts: 481 Location: in political exile

I agree with the reports about university teaching. You need to keep the students happy with your efforts. You need to coddle them to a certain extent.

Contract details should also be addressed under this heading. I would like some feedback on this as well as offering some advice to the initiator of this topic.

1. The contract usually comes in two parts: the standard part from the central government and then the additional part from the university. The second part may contain clauses that limit your salary to only certain months of the year or even to partial months. You may not be paid for the month of February (spring festival) and you may not be paid for July and August. You may only be paid for part of September, January and June. You may only be entitled to get paid for about eight full months of the calendar year. WHAT IS THE EXPERIENCE OF VETERANS IN CHINA AT STATE SCHOOLS ON THIS?

2. The second part of the contract may state that you can be terminated without penalty to the university if your teaching is not "satisfactory," which means simply that if some influential students did not like you or felt threatened or damaged by the demands of your syllabus or tests or grades, your contract can be terminated between semesters.

3. You may have to pay for heat or air conditioning out of your salary and it can be expensive.

4. You may need to determine a fair airline ticket reimbursement to include in the contract.

I just signed a one-semester contract and am about to sign a one-year contract at another school so I don't know all the details, but I hope the veterans that look at this forum will give their experience

tw · Joined: 04 Jun 2005 Posts: 3898

peabocardigan · Joined: 14 Jun 2005 Posts: 63

kev7161 · Joined: 06 Feb 2004 Posts: 5880 Location: Suzhou, China

"Conversational" English is a misnomer. Sitting around and having "conversations" with 30+ students is pretty much unheard of. "Oral" English is much more realistic. Your job (I assume) would be to teach them simple, useful phrases they can use in real life. You help them with their pronunciation. You review basic grammar points they should have already learned from their English Grammar classes (it's not "I very like . . .", it's "I like ______ very much"). There are some textbooks out there that are handy. The one I've used with my middle school students has a good mix of "conversation" topics, pronunciation, dialogues, grammar, writing exercises, games, and reading comprehension. It generally takes me a month to go through an entire unit (about 8 45-minute classes) because there are so many different activities. Plus, I can easily come up with some of my own "beyond-the-book" activities as well. Between every two units, I generally show a video or try and do a game with the kids or even some sort of English/Art hybrid activity.

I just wish (and maybe someday it would happen), that the Chinese English teachers who teach the mechanics of English, the Chinese or Foreign teachers who teach writing, and the Spoken English teachers could all work in tandem. Wouldn't it be cool to have a textbook series that has three different texts: one for mechanics, one for writing exercises that lets them use what they've just learned in their grammar class, then one with Oral English exercises that go along with the other two books? Can you imagine students coming to your Spoken English class and getting to use concepts they have just learned in their other classes? How well would that cement the concepts in their minds?

Sure, you can grab the Chinese teacher's text and create lessons of your own, but some of those texts sure are boring and that might get tedious after awhile. I'm generally pretty creative but sometimes I run out of fuel (that's why I like my {recently wrapped up} text I was using). Sometimes I need the direction of a good textbook.

Midlothian Mapleheart · Joined: 26 May 2005 Posts: 623 Location: Elsewhere

Edited to remove offensive content.

Middy

Midlothian Mapleheart · Joined: 26 May 2005 Posts: 623 Location: Elsewhere

Edited to remove offensive content.

Middy

Sheep-Goats · Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 527

If you have a MA (even an MBA counts) you're qualified enough for most uni jobs in China. If you care about your teaching quality I'd say take a CELTA course, teach at some miscellaneous univeristy for a couple of years while reading as many EFL publications and journals as you can, then take a DELTA course to polish things off and try to start publishing. If you feel like going back to school you can get an MA TESOL -- this is a good idea especially if you think you'll be teaching English until you croak as it allows you to move to almost any country in the world and retain your university-level status -- that MBA won't let you into any uni in Japan. A PhD won't be necessary for reliable uni-level work in China during your lifetime, but if you start on a MA and find you enjoy school, why not get that PhD some time? It's the coup-de-grace in more competitive markets, and you might get tired of China a lot faster than you think.

The quality of the students and their interests will vary greatly depending on your university, and what your classes are like will largerly depenen on interest / students (if you're any kind of a decent teacher at all). I mean, if you get a job at Peking U (maybe the hardest school to get into in the world -- every year 3,000,000 kids try and they accept 400 or so) your kids will be excellent English speakers and perfect students -- but it's more likely that you'll be teaching very basic English to very eager students who see your class as the one they have during the day where the teacher isn't a total ponce.

Your classes will be very large and you'll have to get good at getting the students to see the value in talking to eachother to make their classtime at all productive, if you're teaching conversational English, which you probably will be for one of your classes at least.

Also, you really need to work on your writing. I know it's the internet and all, but a paragraph is usually longer than one or two sentences.