Job Discussion Forums

[Chris_Crossley]

I have just completed my first semester plus summer school at a mainstream primary school. It is standard procedure for all expatriate teachers (of whom there are six, but that number will allegedly go up to ten in September!) to have a TA in class. In the school, all the foreign teachers and the TAs are happily respected and we all seem to get along just fine.

I have taught three classes. Oddly enough, though, while two of them have the same TA each, the third have three different TAs timetabled to be with me! However, even the latter situation has never caused any problems. Indeed, there have been none of the problems which the previous posters have described, ranging from the purely frustrating to the utterly nightmarish, partly, I suspect, because there is a strict selection process for the TAs, all of whom are very good people and very professional in their jobs.

The only real differences in what they do in class appear to be with regard to their willingness to impose discipline on classes which become just that little bit too noisy, especially on hot summer days, which the city, in which I work, is notorious for. Two of the TAs are, despite their relatively young ages, highly disciplinarian in their approach to this problem (not to mention excellent English speakers), while the other three (all for the one class) are a little bit reluctant to be really strict with the students, though they can be when they need to be. Not that there have ever been any discipline problems in any of my classes throughout the semester because there are no bad students, even amongst those whose English skills are very poor even if they have been supposedly learning English for two whole years now.

Hence, I can be thankful that I do have a good bunch of teaching assistants on hand. Indeed, my only real "gripe" (sort of!) is when they all want to band together and have a natter in the dedicated English teachers' office during breaktimes, as if we expat types didn't exist - though, fortunately, if you need to speak to any of them, they'll listen to what you have to say and help where necessary.

There have been the odd few occasions during the semester when no TAs were available because they had to attend a meeting, etc., etc., but, even in those instances, I usually choose one of the really able students to be my TA and, just as a joke, the other students always address that student as if she were the TA herself! Even so, because the classes and I generally get on well together, I usually can teach them and keep them on track and get through pretty much everything I need to do in the lesson.

When I first started at the school, the aforementioned couple of disciplinarians used to give me a lot of "advice" about teaching the classes since I had had no primary teaching experience beforehand (though I am a qualified high school teacher back home). On occasion, I did find their "advice" (and their comments about me) somewhat patronizing and irritating, as if I were some total greenhorn out of college or a teacher trainee (of whom the school did have quite a few assisting me as TAs during the semester), though, as my experience increased, they were generally quite happy and the flow of comments eventually trickled to almost nothing. Hence, that's progress for me!

Generally speaking, my experience of TAs has been positive, so that's certainly a plus. Undoubtedly, some of the earlier posters would wish that their experience of them could have been just as good, yet, sadly, not all institutions, be they in the public or the private sector, have people as professionally dedicated TAs. My school, fortunately, does.

[Newton]

I've taught with and without TA's. For my longer classes it's nice to have someone else to keep things under control and occasionally translate, but with the shorter classes I liked doing it on my own.

Most of my TA's were good, though I did run into some problems with assistants with less than exceptional English. My biggest annoyance is when the TA's second guess you, either deliberately or by accident. For example, you explain some activity to the TA so they can translate for the kids, and they go and tell the kids something different, because either a) They didn't understand what you said, or b) they don't like your idea and so replaced it with one of their own.

[Chris_Crossley]

I have just completed a 7-day-long summer school at a private school, which, oddly enough, is (allegedly) only open at weekends during the off-peak season (never heard of THAT before!).

I taught for three 2-hour sessions per day during those 7 days, and I had two TAs assigned to me - one for two groups on just one day, and another TA for just one group on just one other day. In neither instance did I ask for one - they were just foisted upon me for no given reason. Not that I objected, though.

Their participation level was utterly disparate. The first so-called "TA" was a witless boy who just spent almost the whole time seated on his posterior for almost 3 1/4 hours (out of 4) while I was actually teaching, and merely translated the instructions for just one pair work activity when I asked. He was about as useful as someone who could speak only a language that the students were not even studying. Why he was even asked to be my TA in the first place, I'll never understand. Considering I've been teaching in China for 2 1/2 years, I could have done perfectly well without him. Still, I was happy that he never came back into my classes.

The other TA was actually a member of the front desk staff, and actually did translate instructions and gave prompts to the students without my asking her to say anything. It was as well that she did so, because my group was composed of senior high school students, most of whom were terrified at the thought of speaking a foreign language in front of their mostly mute peers. If only they had started studying English when they were in primary school, I dare say that they would have become very confident speakers by now. However, she was asked to come not to my first lesson of the summer school, but to my last. Why? Since I had managed perfectly well for all the other lessons, I found this extremely odd. Perhaps she was checking up on me in order to report back to her bosses?

I did say in a previous post that I normally teach in a primary school, where TAs are always present with each foreign teacher in class. Hence, it was a change to teach classes without their presence, even though I had taught in a private school for two years beforehand without TAs.

I personally don't mind having TAs, just so long as they don't actively interfere with what I am trying to do or delude themselves into believing that they know everything there is to know about teaching.