TEFL Teaching Time

It will surprise you to learn that no one has ever suggested teaching as a vocation to me… not something that would come naturally… not that I often prefer the company of children… or potentially still have a childs mentality myself!

LIES! ALL LIES!

Even people I’ve not known long comment, “yeah… you would be a good teacher”. Is there a label on my forehead I’m not aware of? Why do these people think this? Since before I can remember my parents suggested I become a teacher, so obviously I decided not to even consider the occupation. Having spent ten years in recruitment and three years hard-core administration, I finally decided to give what everyone considered ‘my calling’ a shot, low and behold… I LOVE IT!

 I’m learning and honing week by week. Identifying different ways to engage the kids, how to best explain an idea, an object, a subject. Today I finally made use of my puppets, and good heavens, how much easier it was to get the students to understand plot by a short finger-puppet performance!

I have two types of classes, the high school with years 9 and 10, ranging in abilities and sizes… my larges class has 63 kids squished into a room, the smallest is about 45. The way the Chinese education system works is that the kids are rated based on their performance across all subjects, those that perform at a higher level are in a higher class ie Year 9 Level 1, or if they aren’t performing well they will be in Year 9 Level 6. Pretty humiliating for the students, kind of like – well… do your best but you aint gunna do much with your education. The other issue is that it doesn’t take in to account that some students may perform better in one subject than another, so within my classes I have kids that are close to fluent in English, while others haven’t a clue beyond responding to my daily greeting: “Hi! How are we all today?”. This definitely raises some challenges in trying to keep the entire class engaged and feel like I’m contributing to their knowledge of English some how.

The other type of class I have is called GAC, or Global Assessment Centre. This is separate to the school and are parent-paid classes, kind of advanced tuition in the language. At the moment I just have the one class of Year 7 / 8’s, about 15 kids, but soon I start Fundamental English which will be preparing students for exams that will determine whether they’ll be able to study in Australia, or England or America.

The best thing about my high school classes is that I get to choose the topic! The first lesson we were instructed to create a powerpoint presentation on ourselves, who we were, where we came from etc. I thought, “yeah… I got this”, I showed it to Alan, the teaching liaison for internees and I hate to say it, my hubris took over and when he suggested I put more in to the powerpoint, that I include more animals because this is of interest to the kids, I shrugged off his commentary and thought myself far more knowledgeable… certainly… than what I was and currently am.

My first 40 minute session? My first powerpoint… within 10 minutes I had nothing else to talk about! I was thankful for his presence, I looked at him desperately imploring some kind of assistance… I was drowning! Alan took control and I watched while allowing my mind to tick over… how could I emulate this, what did the kids respond to, how could I improve?

That night I spent a couple of hours developing my powerpoint, pictures and short clips from youtube, a ball, some games…

Two days later Alan and another teacher came to watch my performance and at the end… “Wow!... that was an excellent lesson. So much better from the first. Well done!”

Since then I’ve worked to improve the classes, to engage the kids. We’ve talked about movies and books and music and currently we’re discussing the NARRATIVE. They loved learning about food, I believe animals from around the world will also be met with delight.

If the kids don’t understand a thing I will draw it, perform it, sing and dance and throw a ball. They learn more when they laugh and I get a few giggles here and there. Not that it’s a recommendation but I’ve been told that I’m their favourite teacher. They love learning English, they want to do well. You see the frustration on their faces when they are trying to express themselves but are unable to find the right words.

It is a gift to even be here. Walking back from class my students, and those whom are not, wave and smile and HELLO TEACHER! Or HELLO FIONA!

I cant explain how much I enjoy getting in to the class room and seeing the light in their eyes when something finally makes sense.

It’s certainly not all roses and champagne… My class of 68 for instance is difficult to manage… especially with the teacher that oversees the class, often HITTING the students, or grabbing their pages from their table and pushing them off the table to scatter across the floor. Today she came in the front door, me mid-sentence, raise her leg and kicked a desk at a student… KICKED IT!

I was playing the ball game (you throw a ball to a student, they need to complete a sentence, then throw the ball to another student). During one class the student threw the ball so hard at another student that it bounced off the kids head and out the open window! Next thing I know three students are chasing after it, scoot up on the ledge and disappeared out the window!

NO! It’s not that bad… your life is worth more than a cheap ball falling from a window…

My fear of suicidal students was finally alleviated when one… two… jumped back through the window, one bearing the way-ward ball. The second then pulled across and locked the window and within a moment or two the third student appeared, unawares that the window had been closed and tried to cross the threshold with a THUMP and sudden eruption of laughter from the class.

Another time I’d spent a good seven hours creating nine sets of ‘memory cards’, hand written and hand drawn, no mean feat if you know my lack of artistic ability! I thought, ‘oh what a treat for the kids, they’ll love a game!’. I divided them out to the class as a treat for their positive performance during the first half hour… suddenly… a student was up, he was shouting, the student next to him was attempting to calm him, the class were staring, bemused… amused…

“NO! NO! NO STAR!”

“No star?” I said, he was waving about one of the flag memory cards… I’d made a pack including the US flag, Australia, England, Spain, China etc…

“What flag is this???” the angered student demanded,

“Ummm… well that’s Russia”, I responded

“NOT RUSSIA! NOT COMMUNIST!”…

“I never said it was”

“NO STAR!”

Thank heavens the bell went at that time. I took the cards from the kids including the offending flag pack… I jumped online when I got back to my office and apparently, I’d drawn the Russian flag from when Russia was still a communist nation… hence the kids rather dramatic reaction – the Russian’s had thwarted the cause and only China remained a truly communist nation.

Man… politics gone mad!

Needless to say, I’m still using the flag card pack but Russia has since been removed.

Every day is a little adventure and each class, whether the topic the same or no, is a unique experience.