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tofit
Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 47
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 Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:16 am Post subject: Introduction- Want to Teach in China |
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My name is Andrew
I'm from Midwest USA, I'm 23 years old.
I have a GED and 2 years of college under my belt.
I'm interested in teaching english in China, and soon.
Teaching is a great oppritunity to learn leadership skills. This is something very new to me, and I want to come prepared. Getting a degree to earn $500 a month seems like overkill. The best training comes from learning from experienced teachers in the course you plan on teaching, and from actual teaching experience.
I would like to network with all of the teachers in china right now. I'm a teacher in training. If I don't find a job before I come to china, I might still be interested in visiting your classroom as a 'guest' assistant teacher.
I'm interested in meeting all of you. If you want to chat via MSN or Yahoo contact me : [email protected] |
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Calories
Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 361
Location: Chinese Food Hell
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| Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 4:39 am Post subject: |
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Get a TEFL certificate and a job teaching Oral English and you'll do fine. You're right, you won't make much more than $500 a month but, you shouldn't work more than 15 hours a week.
Now, I'll sit back and entertain myself with the posts that will come telling you that people without degrees shouldn't come to China. |
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Shan-Shan
Joined: 28 Aug 2003
Posts: 1074
Location: electric pastures
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| Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 4:45 am Post subject: |
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| Getting a degree to earn $500 a month seems like overkill |
I completely agree with you here.
Should there be anyone out there who is currently enrolled in an undergraduate program with the sole intent of "using" their degree as a key to teach ESL in China, I offer my prayers that your misplaced sanity quicly returns. |
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tofit
Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 47
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| Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:22 pm Post subject: |
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Are you two currently teaching in china?
You say I should teach oral english? What grade level would be the best to start with? What grade level do they have the ability to speak some sentances and understand english to a certain level? |
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tofit
Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 47
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| Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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| From reading other posts i have gathered that you need to be ready to teach all grade levels. I'm sure each grade level already has a text book to teach from. Are there any teaching tools you wish you had brought with you before you left for china? |
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Shan-Shan
Joined: 28 Aug 2003
Posts: 1074
Location: electric pastures
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| Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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No amount of non-ESL teaching preparation is going to prepare you, Andrew. You can read books, practice teaching English to your dog, or even watch a dozen "lessons" via youtube. The first class is always the first class.
There are no standards in China. "Grade levels" mean about as much as "a harmonious society"'; "Oral English" might be anything from where you stand in front of 80 people utterly disinterested in you and what you have to say, to a conducting a small intensive class of dedicated students dying for a visa out of China who are rapt with attention, clinging to every syllable cluster.
Might I ask why you have so much enthusiasm to do a job you've never experienced in a place you seem to have never visited? It's not a criticism -- just a curiosity. |
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tofit
Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 47
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| Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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Well so far I've taught my love birds how talk, and understand meanings to certain words, and names. I have tutored asian friends i met online. I plan on comming to China regardless to wether I get a job or not. I would love to explore the culture, language, and business oppritunities in china.
I really don't want to end up in the 'looniest teacher you ever met' post. |
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Sinobear
Joined: 24 Aug 2004
Posts: 1269
Location: Purgatory
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| Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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FYI: To teach legally in GZ, you would need to have two years prior teaching clearly stated on your resume.
Cheers! |
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Lhorde
Joined: 20 Oct 2006
Posts: 30
Location: Shenzhen
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| Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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Well, to the dismay of some  , you could always try Yangshuo. Since you are going to China anyway.. |
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Mr. Kalgukshi
Mod Team
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
Posts: 6613
Location: Need to know basis only.
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| Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 12:56 am Post subject: Deleted |
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I just deleted a posting for including a personal insult and issued a final warning to the member.
Please stay on topic and away from any insults if you want this thread to continue and retain your posting rights.
For those of you who have this board confused with others you may visit where you are free to insult other posters, this board does not fall into that category.
If you think I am kidding, you may just find that you are in error.
For those members who have been posting in a civil and respectful manner, please forgive the interruption and please continue your discussion.
If there is a repeat of inappropriate posting on this or any thread, please use the Report Post function to alert a Moderator.
Thanks. |
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Steppenwolf
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 1769
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| Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 3:10 am Post subject: |
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| tofit wrote: |
| From reading other posts i have gathered that you need to be ready to teach all grade levels. I'm sure each grade level already has a text book to teach from. Are there any teaching tools you wish you had brought with you before you left for china? |
Not necessarily - but it might be in your own interest! My experience confirmed that.
My first teaching experience was a big eye-opener and disappointment: college students whose English was totally, totally dysfunctional. And they were among China's best - supposed to be teaching English in their future... Yes, some had a fine command of it but the two-third majority were just also-rans or total laggards, and all passed the finals.
My trauma was made deeper by their unique way of "studying" English Literature.
I was eventually informed that I only had to "tell" my students who was the "best author", the "second best" and the "third best" in each century from the 16th down to the twentieth! English authors, of course.
This was in stark contradiction with the textbook given me: one poster above erroneously claimed there is no curriculum, but that is not true. There are national educational objectives - though they never get communicated to us. Chinese teachers teach to those goals, and theyexamine the English not of their own students but of students in other schools - at least in some schools.
It'w the FTs that get a raw deal by having to teach a totally undefined subject, to students who are totally unequipped to follow you.
After a couple of other levels I ended up teaching in a kindergarten, and so I could put to use my insights from higher school levels. In general, Chinese parents (and headmasters) want you to go by a book even at preschool level - imagine this counterintuititve idea! Books, books and more books, and students mustn't stray from the rigidly set lines: a primary school pupil told me he regularly has to memorise dialogues and in the test he might be asked "what's your name?" and "how old are you?", to which he must reply "Kevin. 10!" Not "Banks, I am 13 years old!" Because his own name and age are not being asked. Can you imagine a dumber way of learning English?
Those textbooks... Another irritant! Most are bilingual; sometimes the instructions to the teacher are in Chinese (which you will in all likelihood not be able to understand, so you cannot read up on how to use those books).
Your students have a love-hate relationship with those books: they never read up before class; they only memorise new words. And they love taking them to the loo to use their time there kind of productively. |
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tofit
Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 47
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| Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for the insight stepphenwolf. So my students might be able to read the book, but would probally not understand it.
Is the FT class just supplimental to a chinese/ english class? |
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Steppenwolf
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 1769
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 3:06 am Post subject: |
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| tofit wrote: |
Thanks for the insight stepphenwolf. So my students might be able to read the book, but would probally not understand it.
Is the FT class just supplimental to a chinese/ english class? |
"Be able to read the book" is a polite way of assessing the "success" of Chinese English teaching - read but not understand anything.
They understand words but not sentences and even less, whole paragraphs or texts. They look at an English text as a sum of words; know the meaning in Chinese of every single word and "you understand it".
What can an FT do under such circumstances? Teach them to understand whole sentences! Expose them to spoken English that gives them no time and chance to translate verbatim! How youdo that is your own mystery!
You may be surprised to learn that students here memorise entire pages or essays and recite them in front of their teachers.
I was the listening recipient of such a reciting exercise some time earlier this year; the student reproduced almost every word used in the whole 200-word (or so) text - but note this, please: she spoke perfect Chinglish, using singular forms of nouns when the plural would have been required and vice versa, never bothering to use past or future tenses, and generally making all those little and not-so little mistakes Chinglish speakers are noted for.
My conclusion? She had memorised the words but had internalised a CHINESE-translated version; in reciting she thought in Chinese and uttered English equivalents that readily came to her mind.
And she was not a middle-school student any more -middle school and even high school were eons behind her! Even as a self-paying adult at a language mill she could not get rid of this unique Chinese approach to "understanding" English! |
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tofit
Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 47
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| The Chinese see visualize language differently from the way English speakers do. The Chinese use symbols to represent words, so when they say or hear a word they picture the symbol that represents it. When English speakers say or hear a word they picture an object associated with the word. This makes me think that using drills or games which helps chinese people associate words with objects rather then their chinese translation would help them learn english more effectively. |
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kev7161
Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 5880
Location: Suzhou, China
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| Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 11:14 pm Post subject: |
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Quite true, of course, but in the English language we also have adjectives, adverbs, and a heap o' synonyms to help us paint a picture in our mind. Any good writer or speaker can use English effectively to place you in whatever despcriptive situation they are writing/talking about. So, one would think that the English language could be just as appealing to a Chinese person as their mother tongue . . . but I could be wrong.
By the way, I'm from the midwest too (Kansas) - - where's your home? |
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