The good, the bad and the interesting
As I’m working through a Ladybird Children’s Classic edition of ‘The Railway Children’ in order to find inspiration for a lesson on adjectives and story telling, I thought I should start to write about teaching in China; as this is the main purpose of my stay.
I’ve taught four lessons so far, as we plan one a week and teach that lesson twelve times over to the same age group. However towards the end of the week the lesson is usually quite different to how I began to teach it; sometimes because I find each class respond to my lessons differently so I adapt them to who I am teaching, or because I am bored and after 8 lessons I need a little change! Initially, I assumed all classes would be similar in terms of their ability and interest in English, although I should have known that when there are over 600 students in a year group this would not be the case…
My first lesson was daunting as I had no idea where they were in terms of English, all I knew was that they would be very shy when asked to speak. The prospect of engaging 60 students and then asking them to stand in front of their classmates to practise English speaking (which is not something they concentrate on here as listening and writing are the only aspects of an English exam) only became apparent as a real challenge to me on that first day. I had hoped that by starting of with an ‘Introduction to English’ lesson they would feel confident in telling me facts about London, England and would perhaps want to ask me some questions. Instead, I was literally faced with 60 vacant stares looking up at me, unsure as to why they were suddenly being asked to stand up to speak by a teacher only two or three years their senior.
I soon realised they were not ready to speak freely in English but I could already see some of the students had massive potential; as I walked around the classroom and heard them speaking in English and writing with perfect spelling I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to show what they could do. At first I found this incredibly frustrating and so by my third lesson my lesson plan has already been adapted and began to take a different shape. Once I accepted it was me that would have to change and adapt rather than them, I began to enjoy teaching. As I become more confident, so did they and by the end of the week my classes were telling me about The Beatles, Chelsea FC, Adele, Kate Middleton, David Beckham and fish and chips which was a massive improvement from my first lessons where I was told “London is in England” and not much else. Since then, I have taught famous London landmarks, directions and food - which is when I think I really grabbed their attention! It was nice to see the students who are usually asleep at the back of the class asking to see pictures of pasta and sandwiches.
I am happy that now into my fifth week of teaching I have got to know my classes well. I follow the same lesson plan with all of them, but I now know what to expect from each class and so I can change the lesson to make it easier or more challenging, more studious or fun depending on how they like to work. Although there are still some classes I feel I have to work extra hard with, I never go through a lesson without someone making me smile or laugh. I also think now I am comfortable to teach them they are confident when speaking and now they really take me by surprise with how much English they know.
It is the students that are really making the experience here as good as it is because they cannot do enough for you and whenever they can spend time with you or invite you somewhere, they will. This also gives them a good chance to show us how good their English really is, and at times I feel like I’m just spending time with my younger sister and her friends as I would at home. They have a long school day; 6.30am to 11pm Monday to Saturday, and classes until midday on a Sunday so we really appreciate any time we can spend with them.
