Teaching English to the Chinese

So I’m earning my keep by teaching English at a Chinese university along with 20 other English teachers, most of whom are American – I’m the only Brit. We get an apartment and a salary to plan and teach about 18 periods a week (14hrs of classroom teaching) which affords us plenty of free time. 

Chinese students

I teach eight different classes of Chinese students from freshman to seniors– they range from twenty to about forty-five students in one class – so roughly about 250 students in total! I’ve encouraged them to choose English names as it makes it easier for me to remember them – there’s no way I’d remember 250 Chinese names!  Many students have asked me to give them a name so I’ve “christened” over 100 of them which has been quite fun. It keeps me amused in class when I look down the register and it resembles my friends’ list on Facebook. Some students have unfortunately chosen their own names, one girl asked to be called Cinderella which I quickly advised her to shorten to Cindy. One boy asked me to call him Adolf, to which I replied without thinking, “After Hitler?” Unfortunately I didn’t know what to shorten that to.

Each class varies in personality depending on their major and like most of my colleagues I have a favourite class that I look forward to teaching each week.  More often than not, the students are shy and will not respond or volunteer if you ask them a question. It’s not that they don’t understand as their level of English is upper intermediate, more that they are afraid of losing face if they wrong. It is quite frustrating when I ask a question and nobody answers – they won’t even nod or shake their head, sometimes you can see them mouth the answer but they won’t say it aloud. Even though I’m in a room of 40 people I feel like I’m talking to myself! Now I make a point about picking people to answer questions, works a treat if the students have fallen asleep or chatting in the back. I was covering for a fellow colleague the other day and I couldn’t believe my eyes when one of the students pulled out a pillow and put his head down for a snooze! The blatant cheek….!

Amy and Tracy took me to Korean BBQ

However, I do have some students who are real gems such as Michelle and Vanessa who volunteered to show my cousin around the city whilst I was teaching and also Right, Tracy and Amy who took me out for dinner last week and insisted on paying for everything. Other English teachers have also commented on the generosity and friendliness of the Chinese – one teacher and her fiancé were invited to the family home of a Chinese student for the Mid-Autumn festival and they said they never have experienced such kindness as they did that weekend. Nothing was too much trouble or cost. I'm looking forward to spending more time with my Chinese friends, learning about their culture and hopefully repaying some of the kindness that they have shown me.