Job Discussion Forums

London10 · Joined: 28 Sep 2005 Posts: 35

When one works in a chinese public school (high school for ex) does one work as the actual teacher or the teachers assistant, the latter similar to Japans JET or Koreas EPIK? If one is works as teh actual teacher does one tend to get an assistant?

therock · Joined: 31 Jul 2005 Posts: 1266 Location: China

Generally in a public school the foreign teaching will teach solo. If the school is really good you might be able to request an assistant, but this is rare. If you get an assistant, the assistant is for you, not the other way round where you are the assistant to the teacher.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

Bear in mind that you are not supposed to be "teaching" per se but practising orally what the Chinese English teachers have taught your students; it is - maybe erroneously - assumed that your learners only need speaking experience and exercise under the guidance of a native English speaker; the students are supposed to have acquired more than enough to handle you.
Which nearly always is a bad miscalcuclation!

Super Mario · Posted: Fri Oct 28, 2005 7:10 pm Post subject:

"School" is a generic term. At tertiary level you are certainly on your own. At secondary and primary levels I have no intention of ever finding out, although my Australian school's partner [private] in China employs 10 FTs for small group spoken English: no Chinese assistant there.
Interestingly, the English of these 15-17 year olds was way ahead of many of the tertiary students I encountered in China!

amandabarrick · Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 391

Teaching solo without an assistant is the norm in public high schools in my neck of the woods. If teaching at the high school level, you can usually get by without any Chinese, without an assistant, etc... If at a primary school I would hope they have an assistant for you, as the students would not understand most of the instruction you give.

AB

YearOfTheDog · Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 2:52 pm Post subject:

I teach in Primary Public schools and I don't have an assitant of any kind.

I do know some choice phrases in Chinese. I have never found the need in the past year to have an assistant in the class, and when the school does choose to put a teacher in my class. I find them a pain in the a$$.