Teaching in Retrospect
It only takes a few weeks of being back in your hometown to feel like everything you’ve done prior—all that time spent fighting for the attention of hungry Chinese students—never happened. Or it did happen, but everything you thought you learned from the experience… well… never happened. Or it did happen, but… nah, I think I’m done with that joke.
Your time as a teacher is easily justified as wasted, especially during those final evaluations when only one or two of the students can repeat a concept you spent the whole semester drilling. But most teaching positions in China are very impersonal, anyway, and your job isn’t so much about teaching a specified amount of content as it is just giving the kids a chance to have a teacher who isn’t Chinese. In a way, foreign teachers are there to break cultural boundaries, not necessarily teach, but if a little English is learned along the way, more power to you!
Some of my students still stay in touch with me, though, so I didn’t walk away with nothing. And as a young fish out of water standing in front of a class of 50 restless Chinese kids four times a day, your comfort zone naturally grows. Maybe you find you’ve only become comfortable addressing non-native English speakers, but progress is progress! When you tell people you taught in China, they’re just impressed by the word “teach,” if they’re impressed at all, but to you, it’s not that. To you, it was a lesson in confidence and endurance and resisting the urge to crap your pants and run home crying when things go bad.
Things go bad a lot.
As much as I liked my ILP classes (the first teaching I ever did in China), those kids were awful. Class time with the foreigners was “release hours of pent up energy that our Chinese teachers would beat us for” time. They would fight each other. They would pull their pants down. They would yell and throw things at the teacher. They would literally tear the desks apart. But through all that, I finally learned to just be patient and focus on creating a better lesson instead of trying to create better students. That comes later, and it’s pretty much an uphill battle, anyway.
If there’s one thing you learn as an English teacher in China, it’s patience. There’s patience, because the kids’ English is bad, and there’s patience, because their behavior is bad. It was different, though, trying to be patient with my primary classes of 50 students as opposed to the ILP classes of eight. I’ll admit, I lost my temper sometimes. Things were said. Books were thrown out the window. Nonetheless, I’m a much better person now than I was five years ago, and China has played a big part in making me that way.
Loading ...
Responses to “Teaching in Retrospect”
Comments RSS Feed – All CommentsAndrew Dunkle — 12 March 2010 @ 1:44 am
Interesting post. I definitely felt the same way after spending two years teaching English in Taiwan. I did not come back the same person and I felt that that was a good thing, because now I really like who I have become.
Hopfrog — 12 March 2010 @ 6:26 am
As someone who is planning to do this and who has never taught before, that first day and that first class must have been an exhilirating or terrifying experience.
I am always excited when you talk about your teaching in China, for selfish reasons (I want to pick your brain and learn your lessons) so let me take this opportunity to ask you and any other teachers who visit here some questions.
What would be the one thing you wish you could have done differently?
Do you wish you would have been stricter or more tolerant?
Couldn’t you use your “foreign devil” mystique into scaring them into behaving?
Did you teach a variety of ages? If so, what were your experiences with each?
What is ILP?
Any other tips or advice is always appreciated. It sounds like its going to be tougher than I ever imagined.
Clark — 12 March 2010 @ 11:16 am
ILP is a volunteer organization in Utah that sends teachers to China and Russia for five months at a time. Those students were probably 8-9 years old, though I did teach a junior high class once a week. In Changzhou, the primary students ranged from 9-12 and the middle school students 14-15. I also taught at the training school for a while, where I worked mostly with high school students and adults. So I’ve seen quite a bit of the spectrum.
I like working with younger students, because they have no problem doing silly things like singing or dancing. As soon as you hit middle school, everyone is too self-conscious to play a game with you. But they’re better behaved and know more English, so you can actually have a somewhat normal class. If the training school wasn’t so cutthroat, it may have been the best experience, because adults are more eager to learn, and you start to establish some really good friendships.
One thing I regret about teaching is not spending enough time with the students after class. That’s why I still remember the ILP kids so well. We always played together after dinner. Time is limited, however, since the students run such a tight schedule at the school. And, particularly with the primary kids, when they see you outside, they all run over to you and start screaming and climbing all over you. Not exactly my idea of quality time.
The problem with using the “foreign devil” technique is that the kids don’t see foreigners as a threat but rather as an amusement. Even when I was being serious, they took my angry face as a joke and thought everything I did to discipline them was hilarious. I probably could have been more strict, but I felt like I was striking a fair balance near the end.
Mom — 12 March 2010 @ 11:37 am
I like the person you have become! :)
Lance — 12 March 2010 @ 5:54 pm
It takes guts to put yourself into those situations. I know I never could. I’m pretty glad you were able to avoid crapping your pants…
Did you receive any teacher training before being thrown to the wolves?
Clark — 12 March 2010 @ 9:19 pm
I’ve had some pretty close calls, though, Lance. The only training I had before I left was a two-day session with ILP that didn’t prepare me AT ALL for what it would really be like. As Hopfrog said, that first class was exhilarating AND terrifying. The kids were off the wall. I had no idea what to do with them. I really wanted to go home afterward, but I stayed with it and am glad I did.
Comment: