Tutoring & Teaching Tales from China............

[Rhonald]

If the classroom is dull, then you can liven it up by teaching them the "Saftey Dance" song... oops thats right you do have a hat so wrong group 

[Paul Todd]

That damn hat, will I never live it down Still, a lesson on hats, could be a good idea Rhonald  That's the beauty of teaching English here all you need is a hook to hang the lesson on then you could move it on to geography or culture or in any direction you choose! Now where is that damn hat!

[Paul Todd]

Well who would of believed it, I've been a teacher here for 1 year and it's time to renew my contract already. The universities " Foreign teacher liaison officer"(that would be one of the few staff here that can speak passable English!) contacted me last week and asked if I intended to stay for another year. I told him I was considering it but had a few concerns and that I would talk to him latter about them. The next step was to call my manager ( That would be my wife) and tell her what was happening. She immediately sprang into action and called the school and then drove up to have a face to face meeting!
Within an hour I had a raise in salary and a guarantee of my teaching hours never exceeding 9 hours a week and full medical insurance! Plus we were taken out for a very nice meal that evening all paid for by the university. Latter at home I asked her what she had said and she told me that it was basically a list of how good a teacher I was, how they were lucky to have me, how I could easily find work at another school, you can imagine the rest. They rolled over quite easily she said, with a wicked grin!
So it's off to the hospital on Monday morning for my medical,then I will leave the rest to the University to sort out. It should take about a week to get my new Foreign experts book and then with that they will get me my new residents permit valid until this time next year.
It's been a steep learning curve but a very enjoyable one. I have made many new friends in the teaching staff and I consider the students to be my friends too. On the whole they have been a joy to teach and have given me an incite into how they view China and there place in it. I am still surprised by there attitudes to things and I think China can be proud of the values these students have.
It has also shown me that Chinese teachers have a much harder time than we do. There salaries are a third of mine and there work load substantially greater. For every lesson they do they must prepare a lesson plan in full, write it out and submit it to the office for approval. Failure to do so will incur a substantial fine and an unfavorable entry into their school records. Foreign teachers have no such requirement and are free of any interference. In one year apart from my very first lesson no one has monitored my teaching at all.  I can recommend teaching as an enjoyable and rewarding way of living here in China......Lets see if that changes over the coming year!

[halfpint]

Paul i'm curious, what was your background before this?  Were you a teacher before you went to China?   Alan

[Paul Todd]

I did a small amount of teaching in India and Cambodia years ago,but nothing as formal as I'm doing now. I think a lot of the time here they just want a foreign teacher on the staff to make the school look good. Your a great selling point after all! From what I have been told the private language schools are very easy to teach at, almost just conversational English where you choose a topic and chat with the students for 45 minuets. Of course the hours are longer than state schools and the holidays shorter, ha I think you can guess where my priorities lie!!!

[sara]

    i know the salary for an English teache in EF of gz is about 12000 yuan/month if they need you have a degree and used to be a teacher because the EF asked a student to pay about 18000yuan/year.
    you will have 8000yuan as an  English teacher of the middle school with a free house in gz if you have a degree. you would better get work visa before you come here.
    you will get over 10000yuan/month as an English teacher in the college or university in gz.
sara

[David E]

Paul

This subject of teaching English in China contines to be a talking point between Ming and myself.

I am sure you are as aware as I am of the Chinese Woman's philosophy..."slowly dripping water will eventually wear away a piece of Granite " !!!!

Ming has not made any forceful demands on me in this area, but I know that if she had her preference, I should come to live in China with her.

I am sure that my only rational source of employment would be teaching, although I could afford to live OK on my investments, I think I would go stir crazy if I did not have some meaningful work to do.

I am English by birth, and my spoken and theoretical English is excellent. I have both English language and Literature at English GCE "A " Level. So I "speaka da lingo" and also have a full understanding of the classical grammar and syntax.

My "real" qualifications are a Bachelor in Organic Chemistry and an MBA, I lecture part time at a local University as an Associate Professor of Business Management.....this I do for fun, not for a career !!!

I dont want to work 100 hours a week for beer money, but I wonder if there could be any sort of "fit" between me and my qualifications within the Chinese Education system

Got any comments

Cheers...David

[Philip]

David, feel free to shoot me down for pedantry, but your English is only almost perfect. You still persist in writing "your" for "you're". I say this as I am trying to teach my wife the difference at the moment. So many people, including teachers!, do this, I will probably have to roll over some day soon and give up, as it finds its way into the dictionary. Sorry, I need to take my medication now.

[halfpint]

Interesting David, I've been going  through the same thoughts.  I know I could live in China and have enough to provide me with a decent income, so I wouldn't really have to work there.  At the same time, I think I'd go stir crazy if I wasn't working.  So would I go there and teach?  Can I use my business degree and experience to enable me to do earn a good  income without  being able to speak the language?   

It may not be an issue as my girlfriend would prefer to move to Canada.  We both have young kids, we've talked about it and we both think raising the kids in Canada is probably the  best route.  On the other hand, sometimes I think my 9 year old would gain a lot by spending a year or more in China, what a great experience that could be for her.  After all, she is half chinese 

[RobertBfrom aust]

David , with those Qual's it would be a walk in the park for you , but on the serious side somewhere in the back of my brain ha ha , I can remember uni's having a program with tutors earning very big yuan teaching business management english which would be a shoe that fits , at 10 to 15 hours a week plus many , many perks , regards Sujuan and Robert .
ps; don't tell though otherwise it will open a pandoras box .

[David E]

OK Philip....nothing/nobody is perfect...mea culpa !!!!

But being as I am a pedant (!!!!!) I went back over  a couple of hundred of my posts and I am dammed if I can find where I have wrongly used "your/you're ?? As I understand it, "your" is the possessive pronoun for both singular and plural, whilst "you're" is a modern usage bastardisation of "you are"...please point me in the right direction...my English teacher would roll in his grave to know I made such a mistake 

I did find a couple of other mistakes...to my eternal embarrassment, but not that particuar "crime" 

[Philip]

Hi David, you wrote "I am sure your are as aware as I am..." in your previous post, instead of you're (as in you are) as aware as I am. The only time you should use your is as a possessive, as in "your house" Spell checks will not notice this. Here endeth the lesson.

[David E]

Philip

You are right...my mistake...OMG !!! Back to the drawing Board  ...should have typed "you are aware....the 'r' crept in due to lack of attention !!!

[Paul Todd]

David with the qualifications you have you could easily find work teaching here. My original plan was to find a school that would give me all the paperwork I required to work legally with the fewest hours possible. That way I thought I could take on lucrative private teaching work with no fear of a knock on the door by the police. Well that was the plan! I now work for an average of 6 hours per week, hardly a punishing schedule and have found other things to do as well!
It is entirely possible that you could find a job teaching here with very few hours without too much trouble at all. The fact that you are not desperate to find gainful employment defiantly plays in your favor. If the conditions are not suited to your requirements you can happily turn them down until the right opportunity presents itself. It is a huge market and we are in short supply,especially in the "smaller" cities.
As for grammar......if you teach older students they will have had that drilled into them for several year and are experts at it, so no worries there. What they do need more than anything else is someone who can speak the language clearly. I have met on more than one occasion Chinese English teachers that I have had real problems understanding. You can imagine the sort of mangled English their students have been taught!
One thing I have noticed is that some schools will want you to stay on the premises even if you only have a couple of lessons that day. This is worth bearing in mind when you are looking at prospective schools, along with age and class size of course. I find it immensely interesting spending time with my students and very fulfilling too. They are hard working,open and honest a real joy to be around.

[mustfocus]

Guys,

Forgive me but it's more than just the "your" and "you're" issue that exists here.  The number of mis-used words here drive me nuts... but until now I have kept quiet because I have been seeing the same thing happen in other forums...

Imagine how surprised and afraid after I read a news article about teachers getting disciplined for failing students who used "SMS Speak" in their english essays.  Apparently the parents complained about the failing marks.  When the teachers showed them the essays, the response from the parents was still "How dare you fail my child"...

Ah well...sorry for the (short) vent, but I had to get that off my chest...