First Lesson in China

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This is where the benefit of going through an agent really becomes apparent. Most agencies hold an orientation week, where you are surrounded by other foreign teachers. This gives you the chance to overcome the initial trepidation, to get used to the idea that you will be spending a year of your life living in a completely foreign country.

When I first came to China, I tried to do it alone, flying to Hong Kong and taking a ferry up to my new school on the mainland. Unfortunately, this resulted in an absolutely nerve-shattering two days spent in Hong Kong, unable to contact my new employer and tell them I was coming. It was an experience I look back on fondly, but one that I would not like to repeat.

Even if you do manage to avoid the initial nervousness, there is another, far more terrifying experience waiting for you— teaching.

Teaching, What you You Came Here For

An astonishing amount of people, myself included, go through the entire application process without thinking at all about the classroom lying in wait. It wasn’t until I was handed my first timetable that I began to ponder the disturbing question of what I was going to actually teach. By that point, my first lesson loomed only a few days away.

In terms of content, the first lesson doesn’t pose much of a problem. I imagine that most first-time foreign teachers, and quite a few experienced ones as well, start off with introductions. By this, I mean introducing yourself to your new students, and having them do the same in reverse.

If you have been hired as an oral teacher, have them stand up and tell you about themselves. If you are teaching writing or grammar, have your students compose a short essay. This is a nice, simple ice-breaker that gives you a chance to see how good your new students really are.

Of course, it is dependent on your students having some grasp of the English language before you get there, something most students at middle school or above do have. If you have agreed to teach in a kindergarten then, well, you asked for it.

The substance of your first lesson should be simple to come up with but that doesn’t make it any less petrifying. It may well occur to you during those agonizing 40 or 45 minutes that only a short while ago, you were sitting on the other side of that big imposing desk, dozing happily and wondering exactly what the boring old man or woman at the front was prattling on about.

My own first lesson was given to a group of very serious college students, between the ages of 20 and 22. I was 21 at the time, and quite unprepared to have become an old man overnight.

Teachers in China occupy a respected position in society. This, coupled with the added pressure of being a foreigner and thus a curiosity piece, places an uncomfortable weight of responsibility on the shoulders of a first-time teacher.

You will probably come to realize this during that first lesson, looking at the bright and eager faces staring back at you across the room—and trust me, there will be many bright and eager faces. Class sizes in China generally range from 40 to 60 students which can leave you with the impression that you are giving a speech not a lesson.

Your first experience on the other side of the classroom is likely to be a nervous and in all probability not very professional one but don’t be discouraged.

In truth, everyone starts the same way. Ok, so maybe there is someone somewhere who walked out of university, took a teaching job, got to his or her first class without the slightest hint of nervousness and began to teach expertly without any training or experience—I would love to meet this person one day, preferably while holding something blunt and heavy.

I like to think of teaching as a little similar to riding a bike. Not in the sense that you never forget how to do it, although that may well be true. My point is rather that when you first get on to a bike, regardless of whether you jumped straight on or had some lessons first, you are going to fall off.

However, if you keep trying, it probably won’t take you too long to be able to keep the thing moving for a while before you fall off. You will probably be amazed at how quickly you become comfortable with teaching.

As long as you are willing to make a few mistakes, take some advice and make a fool of yourself on a daily basis, the act of teaching will soon become as natural as falling off a cliff.

Once you have successfully negotiated the first lesson, that just leaves the small matter of the other 600 or so you will be expected to teach in the course of the year.

Some Chinese schools will provide you will textbooks and course materials. However most will not, instead looking upon teaching from a textbook as something the Chinese teachers are quite capable of doing and expecting something a little more creative from you.

If you are teaching oral or conversational English, you can safely relax for the year. A blackboard, some chalk, a few pieces of scrap paper and a little inventiveness are all the materials you will ever need. A variety of activities like hangman, scrabble, bingo, role-playing exercises and dialogues will keep your students entertained and educated for the whole year.

If you ever get stuck or are just too lazy to think something up on your own, then you can find hundreds of excellent ideas on the Internet. If any of my former students ever check out the ideas cookbook at http://www.daveseslcafe.com/, I’m in trouble.

For those of you who have signed up to teach writing, reading or grammar, you have my condolences.

Your lesson planning will not be as simple as finding words to use for charades. Make sure that your school has a textbook and a course already planned before you get there or you will have more than a few long nights in front of a computer looking for interesting ways to teach the present progressive tense.

If you are anything like me, you might also be spending a few long nights making sure you understand the present progressive tense.

How things really are

There are a few things that you will probably find while teaching in China which you might not have anticipated.

If you are teaching in a college or university, be prepared for students with enough dedication and seriousness to make the Tibetan monks look positively frivolous in comparison. This came as something of a shock to me, being as it was so totally alien to my own university experience.

Another curious practice I discovered was that in some schools, your students will be asked to grade you on your teaching ability at the end of term. I remember doing this at my own school, but as my classmates and I took precocious pleasure in always giving the lowest possible grades and as the same teachers generally returned next term, I never really took it seriously.

In China, it is taken very seriously. Get a bad grade from even one class and you will probably be looking for another school at the end of the year.

Another complaint which foreign teachers often make concerns school administration or “leaders” as they are commonly referred to. To put it bluntly, they are used to being obeyed without question and, as they often have little or no background in education, can make some rather unreasonable demands.

I was once asked by a school to conduct an English Corner, an extra-curricular activity where a group of students get together in an informal environment and speak in English. I have done this on numerous occasions so I happily agreed, only to discover that the school leaders had decided to get every student involved, a total of 1,840.

Not being entirely convinced of the practicality of this suggestion, I spent a few weeks in fruitless argument before finally giving in. The resulting English Corner, with five teachers trying to coordinate almost two thousand students screaming at each other in English, will be a familiar scene to anyone who has ever tried herding cats.

Not So Bad

I realize that I have focused almost entirely on the negative aspects of teaching in China and no doubt some of you are already questioning the wisdom of even considering working as a foreign teacher.

I must point out that I have glossed over one small detail—the time you spend living and working in China will be thoroughly enjoyable and totally unforgettable.

The memories of this time will undoubtedly be the ones that come to mind in years to come, the ones you thrill and then probably bore after the second or third telling, your children and grandchildren with.

Living in China is a worthwhile and fulfilling experience and something I would recommend without hesitation to anyone. Admittedly, this probably has more to do with the beautiful and exotic country you will get to live in, the interesting friends you will make and the fantastic adventures you will certainly have than with the job itself.

Teaching can be an incredibly rewarding job, but for most graduates, including me, an English language teaching position is a temporary thing and not a career. View it as the price you pay for an extraordinary experience.

Ian Williamson is working as an English teacher and freelance writer in the Southern China. He moved from his native Scotland two years ago, immediately after graduating university. He originally planned to spend only a few months in China, but enjoyed himself so much that he has been there ever since.

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