Job Discussion Forums

[nogreasyhippies]

Hi, im almost new to China, im arriving in October. So far I have a couple of good leads on offers, however, when asked about class sizes the answer came back "Class sizes average fifty students" Is this normal? the position is in Hebei Shi Da Teacher's University in Shijiazhuang. Does anyone have any experience teaching here? The recruiter's name is AiHua Services through a dude named Jason Hinsley. Does anybody have any experience with either of these? Cheers

[Anda]

My college averages 55 a class. Some institutes have four students per class but some have big classes. For instance one I know charges 10 RMB a student per class so they have to have 10 students just to cover the wage for one of us on 100 RMB an hour so they have 20 a class and you mostly have to work evenings. I had a class for 220 a couple of weeks back. Public schools are big mostly. So you can take your pick but institutes can be a real headache to work for as for one thing you only have a couple of weeks off a year.

[kulhavy]

Welcome to China. 55 students per class is the norm.

[eslstudies]

My spoken English classes averaged 20. Reading and writing were up to 45. Class size depends on whether you're merely an income generator for the school, or if they treat EFL seriously. Mostly its the former, but you can get lucky.

[james s]

Average abooot 50-55/class, eh?

Sounds abooot right, eh?

[tw]

For colleges and universities, it is common to have 45-55 students per class. However, I did have two classes with less than 20 students at my first university in Dalian, but that was because they broke one class of stdudents into two groups. In Changchun I had five classes of students, all freshmen, and each class had under 30 students. I have been told that my classes this term will all have about 50 students -- combined classes, the worst. But it's even worse when they cram three classes of students into one session and you have to face up to 120 students.

[latefordinner]

college were I was last year had 30 to 35 students in each "oral English" class. Lecture style classes are of course larger, but science labs, language classes and such are usually aout 30, sometimes a bit less.
The middle schools and primaries that I've been in were larger, ranging from 45 +- to over 70. I'm at a new school this semester, waiting to see what this year's classes are going to be like. It does affect my methodology a bit.

[kerrilee]

My uni had 26-90+ in each class.....last semester they merged some large classes meaning we were due 120 in a class but lucky many did not show up and we didn't tell.......One girl had a class of 130 for ORAL English!
I also had one kindy class, mixed ages, of 52 for a few weeks.....lucky that one got so outta control they split it in 3 finally!!!!! Good luck....I myself am off to Vietnam, despite my university trying to promise me small classes this semester.....in the middle of nowhere outside Dalian!

[arioch36]

I'm honestly surprised when I hear about these large class sizes, I first came to Henan seven years ago. Henan (mostly) has an undeserved bad reputation. Only one school I taught at had a policy of 50-60 students for oral English. One school, the thirs year students had 46 students, and the school apologized for this. The rule for that school and most others here in Henan is 35 students per class at the beginning of the first semester.

For non-english majors they sometimes try to put two or more of these classes together. The school I'm at now was the first to ever do this. One class of 140 students, four classes of 80 students:all 2 hours a week
one class of 25 students 6 hours a week.

Too my surprise, I didn't quit. I put some reasonable effort into it, and the students, especially of the 80 students, mostly worked hard, though there were many things that could be done, no individual attention, etc.

Then I told my school that to test for oral english I would need an extra 16 hours of overtime, or no final scores. That, and some encouraging the STUDENTS and class leaders to talk to their own department, the school has now the policy of no such classes.

[nogreasyhippies]

So with these large class sizes, can anybody give me a rough idea of how a class with 50 or more students would go? Having just finished a CELTA I can't really see how i can apply the methodology to teaching such large classes.

[7969]

[tw]

You can throw almost everything you learn in CELTA out the window when it comes to teaching Chinese public school students. For one, I strongly doubt CELTA tells you how to teach a class of 50+ students.

You have about a month left. I strongly suggest you make good use of the time and come up with lesson plans you know will work well with 50+ students, or it's going to be a very, very long semester.

[7969]

[kev7161]

[Cognition]