A teacher is anyone who teaches:
I have been here for a bit more than a month and I have yet to meet a single teacher - in the Western sense of the word. Most of my colleagues are either undergraduates/graduates in areas that are not connected to education or don't hold any type of TEFL certificate. Some English teachers in China don't have a high school diploma. The reason for this is that English teachers here are not expected to be what we expect teachers to be in Canada.
English teaching has virtually been entirely de-professionalized. As such, English teachers are not regarded as real teachers/professionals. I once had a parent who speaks English come to me and ask me why I had no job back home. He thought I came here because I could not find a basic job in Canada. His attitude changed entirely when I explained to him that I had my English teaching degree but decided to learn about teaching practices in other countries, even if it meant less money in my pockets. Many Chinese hold the view that people working as English teachers in China have somehow failed professionally back home and that their only way out of being entirely destitute is to work in China for little pay. Unfortunately, some past and present foreign teachers have influenced this perception negatively. Could you blame a society that sees most English teachers don't have any kind of certification, are passing through and are often overtly rude and demanding for not having a positive perception of foreign teachers? On the other hand, foreigners are being hired by Chinese school owners who know full well that their employees have little to absolutely no qualification to teach English so they should also be held responsible for this situation.
Edutainment:
It would be more appropriate to see English teachers as edutainers. Teachers are basically hired for the following reasons:
- Being a novelty for young learners.
- Being a "perfect" input for American/British English.
- Being entertaining.
- Being able to go through the material (if it exists).
It makes perfect sense for your employer to want you to work with these parameters in mind. A private English language school must be able to make ends meet and as a foreigner you are a major attraction. Parents expect their child to learn things perfectly and because you are seen as a "perfect" source of English, it becomes a requirement for school owners to hire foreigners.It is not rare for me to have people just stop on the street to try and talk to me in English to practice. As a school owner, it would be logical for me to hire foreigners and tell parents that their child will be able to experience Western culture with a foreigner.
The Chinese also put a HUGE emphasis on perfection and making no mistakes, at least aesthetically . This translates into an environment where students will not participate much in fear of being judged by others. For them, it is better to pretend to know the answer and say nothing than to risk being wrong and lose face. As foreigners, our job is to put our students at ease, make sure they have fun, but also paradoxically we are hired because we are a source of "perfect" English and we should correct everything "wrong". Most people expect us not only to correct grammatical mistakes, but also pronunciation, which is unrealistic/tricky/impossible with students aged 3-6.
Sometimes, we have parents coming with their child hours in advance to "wait in the lobby". What this translates into is children that come into the teachers' office to practice English. This is the same thing that happens when you walk into the street and strangers start talking to you. Some students enjoy it, others have to do it because their parents make them. Here are two of my students:
Rote learning is
Being that students are expected to achieve perfection, the logical consequence of this goal is that they will have to learn English through rote learning (practice makes perfect line of thinking). As an edutainer, my job here is to find activities that will increase student participation and reduce student misbehavior. Here is a list of do's and don'ts you need to keep in mind if you entertain the thought of teaching English in China in a private school:
- Rote learning is regarded as the main and most valid way of learning, if not the only one.
- If you are provided with material such as books and props: You will use them. You are expected to provide/create/pay for any material you may want to use that is not provided by the school and have it authorized by a higher-ranking teacher/supervisor.
- On material: If it is provided it is EXTREMELY unlikely that you will be allowed to bring it home.
- You will use a reward/punishment system to manage discipline. Your Chinese co-teachers are expected to help you with discipline : sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
- Activities will have to be kept short and fast. In order to reduce impatience, we have to teach fast and change our activities frequently. This means that you may only have 2 words to teach for a 20 minutes period but will do 5 or more different activities during that period of time.
- Songs: If provided by your school, it will likely be tailored for your specific "unit", meaning that the tune and lyrics will be new to you. Nevertheless - even though you can't bring anything home to study - you will be expected to know these songs before classes, even if you are given your teaching plan some hours before teaching.
Self-introduction,a story and a game:
A friend teaching a group of very young learners. I would like to thank him for allowing me to put this up as I am sure it will be both entertaining and educational for members of my family, my friends and also other teachers who want to learn about the reality of teaching in China.
Students have to practice together their self-introduction (then perform alone in front of class - not shown here):
Same friend telling a story and making sure students memorized the words correctly:
Students during the final activity:
What to look forward to:
If you are, like myself, a teacher that prefers a "progressive" approach to teaching and learning, you may think that such an environment would be bad for you as a professional teacher (if you have a degree or higher). Still, I want to give you the following reasons why it is a good idea for you to come here and teach:
- The students: The vast majority of your students are very polite and curious. They want to learn more about you and your culture and will want to please you any way they can (by being good, by playing with you during breaks, by giving you some of their food/candies and so on).
- Your employer: While this will vary, you may be lucky and have an employer like mine. He is a nice man and will help you any way he can. He shows his appreciation for your efforts and your work in ways that are superior to what I experienced back home on average.
- Your school: If you work for a school like mine, you will be provided with both material and techniques. While this may reduce the scope of what you usually do in your classes back home, you won't have to worry as much about producing new content all the time. You can thus spend more of your free time doing what you like.
- Teaching schedule: Working for a private school means that you will mostly teach on evenings on weekdays (2 hours) and up to 8 hours per day on weekends. Sometimes you will also teach some hours during the day at public schools but you will receive a financial compensation for doing so. The average teaching schedule is about 15-20 hours per week, plus about 10 hours of preparation. I like this , but it is up to you to see if this sort of arrangement is good for you.
- Wage and apartment: My employer provides me with an apartment (free of charge) with free water/electricity/heating/high speed internet. It is actually nicer and bigger than what I ever had back home. It also is fully furnished and I had to provide little to nothing in terms of furniture. As for wage, expect to get between $800-900 USD per month, regardless of your working hours (as long as you teach every classes you are expected to teach in your schedule). While this is not much money in our Western countries, it is plenty here. Because I have free housing, I can manage to send about $600 back home to pay my loans every month!
- Food: Food is plentiful and inexpensive. You can have a meal for as low as $1-2 or even cook yourself and make it up to 5 times cheaper!
- Learn Chinese: By being here you can learn Chinese and visit China. This employment provides you, in practice, with the equivalent of a subsidized Chinese learning program and an unlimited "vacation" in China. Of course you have a lot of work to do, but if you enjoy teaching for its own sake, then you are likely to love being here!
- Issues: As a professional teacher, you may experience many caveats (some of which I talked about above). Nevertheless, if you are flexible and can learn to work with them in mind, you will see that your experience as a worker will be more than satisfactory. As a professional, you should think about the possibilities: You can experience a different teaching approach and this contrast to your usual way of teaching will probably help you grow as a teacher as long as you get into the mindset that you can analyse this situation and learn from it.
More to come (soon?) .
-Yan
