Teaching English in China

After I graduated from collage I did not know what I wanted to do, but I needed to find a job that could help me find what I want to do in the future since I did not know what I wanted to do. I Found a oppertunity to work in China as a ESL teacher working with young children. Now people have asked me about what it was like in a place that is a completely different cultural.

When I found the company I figured I would also be working with people who speck english as second language, but I didnt know that we where considered not on the front lines also we only help with continuing the precess though we would also be working with first time speackers of a language and was put in a class with other students who had a little more experience. This company was so unorginized that even though they told me that I would be trained for three weeks and have the opportunity to work with teachers who where experenced. Well i was able to work with teachers for the first week and was had a class with experenced teachers for a week and it was not always a long class it seemed as soon as I could start asking questions some one would come in and take have me do something different. So I was not able to have a full training or even training now that I think about it.

As it turns out a teacher was leaving two weeks from the time I arrived and I was going to take over his classes, so two weeks after I was "trained" i was throwing to the wolves and expected to work with students and perfect from the start. Now the promise they gave me was that i would be learning from the start and did not have to have experence other then know how to speack and write english. When I got there I was asked if I had classroom/puplic speaking experience luckily I had some experence since I worked with people all the time in collage. I did not like the fact that they lied to people they told us one thing in order to get us over there and as soon as we got over there we where used the whole time and did not get the experence or training we wanted or needed.

Another thing is the FTs or Foreign teachers where not allowed to interact with the local teachers we where pretty much kept apart from the local teachers the only time we could talk them is when we where in the office or already knew the teachers, but when they had meetings in the mornings on days that we had the mornings off it seemed like they did anything they could to keeps the teachers apart. Also the rule was we had to speack English the moment we entered the building we where the local teachers on the other hand where allowed to talk in chinese the whole time. They also could talk about us when they where in front of us and did not care that we knew they where talking about us.

So after about month and a half and trying to stay with the company longer to show that I can teach we went on holiday and found out that there was a virus. I spend five to six months in a cultural that said they wanted to learn from us, but treated us like we where low on the totem pole. I do not mind being alone in fact I love working alone because I feel comfortable working alone, but I do not like the fact that I am expected to solve problems like teaching a classroom of students who are use to working with one type of teacher over me who is use to working with adults who already talk english. Also its not fun being told that your not loud enough personly I do talk loud enough because one I cant I can project as a puplic speacker, but thats in a room that already is built as a classroom and can carry sound, and two what is loud is it loud vocal or in your face be the creepy fake cheerfulness loud? Because thats the feeling I got and I do not project that kind of loudness its not really who I am I am the creepy goth girl who likes to talk about psycholgy, books, horror movies, witchcraft, the paranormal, and games. I can be the cheerful girl, but when is feels like you are in a a fake world then it turns into a creepy feeling the whole time.

The whole time I was there I was alone not just literally, but also cuturally, and in the language devides. You are literally in a place that is different the only thing I can compare it too is being in a reality TV show where there is bright pastels all over the place. They also seem to be trying to forget about the old way of life the younger generation is turing more towards westren civilization ideology and beliefs while the old generation is trying to keep the old way of life going.

Being a teacher was fun, but there was times it felt like I did not accomplish something since I was working with a group of students since I had to focus on the "problem student" while the student who wants to learn is left to themselves and feels left out. There was also the feeling that people over there do not understand the type of teacher I wanted to be they wanted some who was basicly a copy of what they wanted not my own person.

Now that I am looking at the compoany to see how it is doing I found out that the company does not care about the people who work for them or their students they only cared about the money. I am not unhappy with being a teacher over there or feel ashamed for living over there. I did not enjoyed the fact that they do not understand the people that worked for them even though they worked side by side with those teachers day after day.