Teaching tips: from the frontline of TEFL in China

Equipped with over a month’s teaching experience in Beijing, China, LoveTEFL blogger Dave gives his tips on how to manage lessons and students.

I have been teaching for just over a month in China, which is interesting after having spent ten years teaching guitar back in the old country. Some of the skills cross over, and some things are surprising. I am lucky in the respect that I am lucky enough to be placed in a school with only 4 students per class, giving me a good opportunity to discuss things at length and look after the needs of the students. This appeals to my teaching style, which has almost always been one on one up until this point. I have two different classes, one of which has got some of the most sweet children. They are teenagers from 14 – 16 but still children who, in China, are not under the impression that they are adults. They love stories and they love their teddybears and they cover their eyes when ‘rude bits’ appear on the TV. They are also manipulative and they will beg me to let them not do any homework or to let them just sleep or watch a movie in class and I always tell them no of course, but if they pushed a little bit more I’d probably say ‘just this once’ and let them do it. Fortunately they have no knowledge of my inability to stand up in the face of ‘you are our favourite teacher can you please teach every class’.

The teaching was the bit that I was most terrified of and the first time I went into teach, I was as nervous as if you told me that one of the students was a werewolf that changed, not by the light of the moon, but by an inability to understand spoken language. I felt like I would be standing at the front of a class who would instantly turn on me and put me in some sort of Chinese Wickerman (I imagined it would be made from bamboo and chopsticks). As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, this has only happened once and it was ages ago so I thought I’d be safe. It took a few classes to relax and some of the teaching assistants still like to come into my class to steal lessons on pronunciation which, knowing the Northern Irish accent as well as I do, I try to discourage.

One of the biggest challenges for me is empathy; I remember what it meant to sit in school and learn a language. It’s hard. So having the freedom to teach them language through discussing the plot of Iron Man 3 really makes life easier, for me and for them. One of the girls is in love with some actor I’ve never heard of and her writing has improved just from getting her to write essays on this man and why he is so brilliant.

A lot of people on the internship have ended up teaching little kids, teaching the word watermelon for a solid week and others like my friend Kurt have ended up in a Sesame Street run school that made them do a puppet show for 100 people. I consider myself to be lucky with these kids cos they understand the benefits of learning English.