Job Discussion Forums

[roquentin]

Hey all. I've been offered several jobs teaching kindergarten in Taipei and I am considering signing a contract. I have no experience teaching kids this young though so I'm not sure what to expect. Am I correct in assuming the students will have no prior knowledge of English. How difficult is it communicating with them? What kind of teaching materials are generally used? During the course of a five hour day what is expected of a teacher?

Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Ki]

Your co-teacher will help you get adjusted though everything is dependable on which school/chain you work in. Most schools will require you to teach and your co-teacher to help out with behaviour, lunch, nap time, etc. If you are there all day you will find that you end up doing less actual teaching in your five hour day and more helping with their day-to-day care, especially for the three year olds. Kindy is certainly not for everyone but for others it can be a great job.

Some kids enter into a kindy, about 3, without any English skills at all. Others will have a surprisingly good knowledge of English.

Oh yeah, I probably should mention that teaching kindy is illegal.

[BigWally]

As close as I can make the phonetic translation for you:

Ahhnn Jeen! (spoken with a sharp downward tone) - Be Quiet!

Dzwoh Shaa! (same downward inflection) - Sit Down!

Might make a good first impression on the kids if you can repremand them in their language. Worked wonders for me, and got all of my students attention right off the bat.

edit to add phonetics: Ahhnn Jeen! - "Ahh" sounds just as if you had a nice drink of beer, "nn" just adds a hard "n" sound to the end of it, like in "no!"...."Jeen" sounds just as if you were talking about blue jeans, but drop the "s"

Dzwoh Shaa! - "Dz" is a tough phonetic to say, but sounds just like its typed, the "z" sound almost takes all the power out of the "D", but the "D" also stops it from sounding like "zoo", "woh" is as if Keanau Reeves just found out he knows Kung Fu "Whoa!"...."Shaa" is like saying the first part of William Shatner's name, but put emphasis on the soft "a" like apple

[Dr_Zoidberg]

[BigWally]

One other one of note, if you were getting upset:

Diyem Diyem! (again, downward tone) - SHUT UP!

(this is actually Taiwanese, and used by elders, typically parents or grandparents towards children, effective with small children regardless)

Because its hard to translate the phonetic via text. In this case: Diyem, the "i" has a hard "e", such as in "be", the "y" a standard "y" sound as in "you", and the "e" has a soft "e" such as "egg".

This is more forceful than "Ahhnn Jeen", and can be said very loud and authoritatively.

[lou_la]

Good pointers Wally! Ones to ask my co-teacher for help with though I think. Admittedly, I've only had this class for three days, but they definetly have a completely different attitude to English speakers rather than Chinese. They know what I'm saying, but untill my co-teacher says it (in English) they ignore me. And my older classes are little devils until one of the chinese teacher comes in. Instant quiet, i swear.

There will be a great difference between the ages in kindy - my school has Xaio ban (3 year olds, my class), Jong ban (4) and Da ban (5). The little ones obviously need more help from the chinese teacher becuse they've only been at school a few months, but the da ban kids understand a lot more than I thought they would. I also have a class of 6 year olds that are straight out of english kindy, and they are fairly conversant.

See if you can go and observe a class or two before accepting, it might give you a better idea of waht to expect.