Job Discussion Forums

[kev7161]

The new school year is upon us and I was curious as to what subjects you are teaching this year and/or what grade levels you are teaching? Primary? Junior Middle? Senior Middle? University?

I'm still at my same private foreign language school teaching my kids as they enter 3rd grade (primary). Same ol' things: Math, Science, Language Arts (Spelling, Reading, Grammar, Phonics, etc.), Computer keyboarding, a little Art.

It looks as if most of our regular posters are college-level teachers. Are you at this point satisfied with your job choice (whether a new location or a return to last term's place) and location? Did you take the job out of desperation or did you well-educate yourself on the school before signing that contract?

I'd just like a sense of what everyone's doing this go round.

[latefordinner]

I'm at a new place, so I don't yet know exactly how it will be. It's a vocational technical college; i.e, higher non-schooling for those who messed up in middle and gao schools and aren't bright or resourceful enough to get real jobs. FAO seems bright and competent; the school has a fair size FL department, especially considering that it isn't a language school; the one CT (a team leader of sorts, though I don't know how the hierarchy works yet) I've met and talked to was responsive and helpful. I'm cautiously optimistic. Oh, mine are second and third year students who hope to work for foreign companies. Should be half way motivated.

[Songbird]

Wow, Kev, that's a lot of different subjects you're teaching, and therefore a lot of different lesson plans! How do you do it all? I take my hat off to ya .

Me, I'm happy, they decreased my writing classes this year and gave me more oral classes, which I hinted to them before the holiday. Writing still sucks but at least now I can cope better. I have 2 of these, and 5 oral classes. They gave me the best oral classes, which I'm happy about, but I think they should have given me the lowest of the low as I'm the only fully 'native' speaker here. Students last year told me they had some problems with understanding the others here because they're not native. Anyway...

I'm back in the same college, I actually signed a 2 year contract. If the conditions (and pay rise) are right, I want to stay on next year too. It works out well as I'm also studying a Masters part time so I'm kept pretty busy.

Good luck to all this semester!

[william wallace]

Tsinghua....maybe . After getting screwed by Jiaotong sleeze/misguided U.C Riverside...who knows ????????????????????????????

[eslstudies]

William, is that Tsinghua as in pijiu?
Me, I've got secondary kids aged 15-18, 60% Chinese, the rest Japanese, Korean, various African, central American, and others. Some of you guys are either qualified, or could become so, to teach ESL in your home or another English speaking country. Think about it. You won't fund retirement doing what you are now.
I'll be back in China in a few years once the house is paid off. Freedom and security for me.

[tw]

[latefordinner]

Heh heh, so busy answering "who" and "where" I didn't answer the question asked, "What are you teaching?" <slaps self upside the head, twice for good measure. I'd be dissapointed to get that non-answer from one of my students> Business English. Or rather, oral English (I've yet to understand just what that is) for use in a business environment. The text we have covers such topics as Looking for a Job, Making an Appointment, and Business Dress Code. Not the same stuff being studied in their Business Management or International Trade classes, I'm sure. As for what I'm teaching, that depends on my own assessments these next 2 weeks.

[Anda]

Well I start the new semester on Monday and should with any luck have my roster by Tuesday if you get where I am coming from! I'm told that I have twelve forty five minute classes a week this semester but I expect that they will add a teacher�s class for two hours to that pretty quickly.

Same college as last year and I'll be teaching year four and five which are the last two years for students at my college. Some however will go on to do a further two years at a teachers college in Nanjing and then become elementary public school teachers.

This semester I will be using children�s stories and short scripts for reading aloud plus written conversations on the blackboard. My classes consist of 55 students per class so there are limits to what I can do.

Got a twelve month contract this year on a full pay rate, so not too bad! Lots of time free!

[william wallace]

No Tsinghua...So, I'm back to joining the kids on the breadline for skanky crap, demeaning work.

[lostinasia]

I still can't help but wonder what encourages people to continue teaching in China with such attitudes ... if it's so pathetic and demeaning then why do it?

Are there more sinister reasons, lack of ability to get a "real job" in your homeland, is there something more evil that keeps people here doing a job they clearly have no respect for?

[arioch36]

Teaching 16 hours, still too many, but for two classes I teach both writing and oral, which is nice. Best was when I taught oral and movie to the same students

Don't start for 3 more weeks

Not sure why. The writing/oral is freshman, so they start late, but the others are grade 3. Don't know why they are starting so late

[kev7161]

Don't freshmen spend a couple weeks at the beginning of the term in "military training"?

[latefordinner]

Overheard at my last campus:

Yi, er, san, si
Qingdao pijiu hen hao he
Wu, liu, chi ba jiu
Women xihuan he pijiu
ba jiu shi, shi jiu ba,
Wanshang wo yao he duo le

[Lobster]

Another year at the teacher's college. Seven hours a day with the same class. Forty-two contact hours a week. Arioch, I loathe you and your 16-hour weeks! I can't even get smashed on my day off because I need to get up at 5 the next day (sob). They have drunken prawns, why not a drunken lobster? Because Mrs. Lobster says so, that's why!

RED

[Mister Al]

Lobster, ye must be mad

Anyway, teaching UK contract law at local univ. 16 x 40 minute periods a week. 4 classes- so plan for 4 periods and repeat. Might do 8 periods a week overtime teaching Busines Environment to two of my law classes. A breeze, really