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Re: Teaching in China

Posted By: Mike <thatfamousguy@hotmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, 11 July 2012, at 9:53 p.m.

In Response To: Teaching in China (Greg)

I've finished one semester of teaching at a vocational university in southern China. It has 6,000 students, and they all think it is a tiny school. It's not top-level; it's for kids who didn't test well enough to enter a great school. It only has two foreign teachers, so we both have 14 different classes, each of about 100 students. This is way too big for teaching oral English.
We're pretty free to teach how we like. There is a textbook, but when I choose to burn through the lesson as quickly as possible and then do something else with the majority of the class time, that's fine. In fact, if I were inclined to push the envelope, I suspect I could get away with quite a range of stuff in the classroom; however, I'm just trying to do a decent job of teaching.
There are many bad students, who don't show up, or sleep in class, or play on their phones the whole time I'm talking. Some just simply don't care about English -- they are in school to get certified to run some machine in a factory or something. The school's making them take the English class, but they won't make use of it.
Also, I don't get to give any grades. So I am essentially a powerless teacher.
However, I find that Chinese college kids are very respectful in class. Even the ones who don't care are never particularly making trouble -- they just aggrivate me sometimes with their lack of interest.
I chose this university on the promise (from the other American teacher) that we have a good boss who looks out for us. And I think that's true. From what I hear, that can be hard to find in China. Also, I only had to teach 14 hours a week last semester, and prep time was minimal, because I was teaching the same lesson over and over all week. We are also free to pick up extra tutoring gigs on the side if we wish (which would not be true if you worked for a private school).
I'm in a minor city, and in a neighborhood far from downtown. So there are few other Americans around, and the area is very poor. To get to where there is anything of quality for sale, I have to travel for 25 minutes or so.

Messages In This Thread

Teaching in China
Greg -- Thursday, 5 July 2012, at 11:20 p.m.

Re: Teaching in China
Mike -- Wednesday, 11 July 2012, at 9:53 p.m.

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