Job Discussion Forums

[afireinside]

Hi everyone! Well my partner and I have just been offered jobs (about 30) in China and we have accepted the one we liked best. High school aged, 5000 each a month, 18 hours, apartment etc. We have no experience or university degree but are more than capable of teaching. May I please ask what to expect in regards to teaching such as first day jitters, I get so nervous! I believe nerves are good as it shows you care but first day seems so daunting. We have been to China eakrlier this year for 3 weeks and absolutly loved it, so we know what to expect. What clothes are acceptable for teaching? If there are any other first timers out there PLEASE WRITE BACK! We are very excited but any advice would be much appreciated. THANKS!

[lowes13]

Hi and welcome

For this reply I will assume you're going to teach oral/conversational English which will be simply a matter of trying to get your students to speak and practise their English as much as possible.
With your first class I would suggest you start by introducing yourselves and telling your class all about your country, reasons for coming to China, your hobbies etc etc. During that first week of class this approach will enable you to more comfortably settle in to the job and thus give you time to better plan your next classes.
Be prepared to meet the youngest looking and least mature high school students you've ever come accross, not a negative comment by the way.

As to what to wear I wear jeans, T-shirts or shirts and a jacket which is perfectly acceptable, Chinese teachers tend to dress a little more formally.

Try not to be too preoccupied or concerned I'm sure you'll find it all very easy and indeed much easier than you may now think. Plan your lessons as though you yourselves were going to be students and try to keep it interesting for them.

Enjoy

[Roger]

Even bnetter - first lesson it is THEIR turn to introduce themselves. You can introduce yourself in the two minutes before the chime rings at the endof the lesson!
This way you get a somewhat reliable idea of where they stand in English! If you introduce yourself and your country, 90% of what you are telling them enters their heads by one ear and exits by the other. They understand less than 10%!

[Old Dog]

Here's my 5 cents worth - in no particular order/as they come to mind:

a. Your students will be shy. Unless you are in the big cities where they may be rather more blasee about these things, you'll be strangers to them and they won't want to say much. And remember you'll be a stranger for quite a while.
b. Most of your students will not understand you at first.
c. Speak slowly and more clearly than you've ever spoken in your life.
d. Don't dream of playing games until you know how to control a class or you'll have a riot on your hands and the Dean or whoever will come running (to your enormous embarrassment) or the Chinese teachers will be silently unimpressed. Unless you are amazingly brilliant teachers, you won't be able to play games without riot until you've had quite a few years' experience.
e. Understand that children do not like riot, however much they may seem to do so. In commenting on your teaching, as they'll be asked to do, you'll get very negative comments from them on this point.
e. Don't try to teach too much. In fact, for the first lesson or so, don't try to teach anything.
f. Read the textbooks they have used this year and in previous years to get their vocabulary level.
g. See what questions are asked of people in new situations in the texts the children are familiar with, ask them those questions and expect answers similar to those given in the texts - even if you have to ask questions from texts used several grades before the grade you are teaching.
h. Don't ask for opinions. Be satisfied if you can get your students answering simple questions about themselves and their families.
i. Explain yourself in terms of their textbook vocabulary - otherwise they will smile, look as if they understand and so be totally polite but absolutely uncomprehending.
j. Be warm in your manner and supportive of any attempt to answer but don't try to be funny or play the fool out of nervousness or out of despair.
k. Base your first lessons in which you try to teach something on the vocab., grammar and content of the student's main textbook.
l. If you are really stuck and want a lesson that allows children to get used to your voice speaking the vocabulary they have learnt, devise a carefully controlled quiz on the material they have covered in their first term.
m. Be determined to be a teacher, not an entertainer. Be a teacher whose lessons are warm and interesting and involving.

Before you come, practise speaking slowly and very clearly. Purge your speech of idioms and slang.

[millie]

That Old Dog has got hold of that grammar bone and just won’t let it go

However, good advice and you could gain a lot from careful consideration of all of the above.

As well, there is one website that might be of some help to you.
(To be honest I get rather concerned when people see the internet as a source of all teaching solutions.)

Anyway, do have a close look- very useful for those thrown in at the deep-end with not much of idea of what to do.

http://www.amityfoundation.org/Amity/teacher/resources/toolkit/toolkit.htm

BTW: I do not have a religious agenda to push and you might wish to avoid just a little of material on that website.
M

[mandu]

be yourself

[senor boogie woogie]

Hola!

Be prepared for over 40 students. Maybe 50 or above.

What I try to do in all my classes (from babies to professional adults), is to have the student listen to me, repeat what I have said, then do simple conversation. This is your job, to expose the student with a native speaker and have those students comfortable with what you are talking about and respond in kind. This even works with the kiddies such as:

Senor: (Holding picture of an elephant) What's this?

Kids: An elephant!

Senor: What color is he?

Kids: He is gray!

Senor: Big or small?

Kids: Big, he's a big gray elephant.

BUT, I have about 20-25 kids in class, and they are somewhat easy to control. I taught at a boarding high school in a provencial city my first year and it was a nightmare, 55 kids per class. No respect from the students. Most did not listen, did not care and were insulting to me. Non existent staff to help with the problems. The school was like a minimum security prison, complete with glass topped walls and gates. There was nothing to do there but study, eat awful food or play football or soccer. No AC in the summer and no heat in the winter.

Even if the 55 kids were ALL nice to me and quiet, teaching conversational English is still difficult to impossible. The room is susally too small to split them up into discussion groups, and I would have to listen and correct 27 sets of students if I paired them off. I am not going to go into the god awful book that was assigned to the course.

Come to China and have enough money in your pocket to scout around various positions in an area that you would like to live in. Most of these jobs can be found online, no need to go through a headhunter who is going to sell you to an employer. Remember you are more important to mthem and they are to you. You are ones willing to come to this insane, dirty country making $600 USD a month. These school bosses make so much money off the backs of the instructors as it is, so it is good to shop out a good school that you are comfortable with. DO NOT accept the first job that flows down the pike.

Senor

[hesterprynne]

1. Lie to the students about your lack of a degree. I know of teachers who got ousted immediately after the students complained about their lack of qualifications.

2. Please slowly. No- slower. SLOWER. SLOWER!!!! PRACTICE THIS! Speak clearly. Speak loudly. Speak in the present tense. Use plurals sparingly. Use a limited vocabulary. You will begin to see when you arrive which words the locals don't know. Scissors, extra, intelligent- they will instead say knife, more, clever.

3. Do not introduce yourself at length. My school always asks new teachers to do this, and it backfires. The students will not understand you. They will perceive this as a lack of preparation on your part. They will complain about your "accent". Instead prepare for them a list of questions and answers for them to ask you and to ask each other. You may quiz them on these. You may do a Jeopardy-style game at the end of the class using your answers, and awarding points to the team which gets them right without using the handouts you give to each student to keep.
You may do a spelling game, such as survival spelling (detailed on www.esl-lounge.com) using the new vocabulary you have introduced. Write any new words used in the handout as pinyin. You can do this using a dictionary, without any knowledge of the language.

4. Wear comfortable yet attractive shoes. Wear long slacks. Wear a nice shirt. Invest in a backpack which is healthy for your back and good for carrying books and papers.

[hesterprynne]

Forgot to mention. Have each student write a detailed self-introduction. Take these home and study them. Keep them. Do not return them. You will quickly see what they lack, how they think. These will be things you will work on over and over again. Do a google search for "Chinese student writing". You will begin to see how their perception of language is influenced by their own language. Never underestimate this influence, particularly when it comes to how they learn new words.
Something fun I always do with at least one class. Take some words they don't know and a song they do. WORDS: abdomen, obese, rotate. SONG: Happy Birthday.
Show them how to create a song to help them remember new words.
To the tune of Happy Birthday with accompanying gestures-
abdomen is your stomach, obese means very fat, rotate is go around, I have just learned three words. Sing it loudly and you will probably get applause. Don't forget, the correct response to applause in China is to clap back to the audience.