I Quit My Job And Became a TEFL Teacher... Here's My First 24 Hours in China!

Welcome to my blog. Here I post all my braindumps about being an ESL English teacher.

If you've thought about doing the same, then I hope my experiences will help you through your own quest to go overseas and teach English. And if you haven't, well I hope you like my weird and wonderful travel adventures.

In this post I'll log my first 24 hours in China.

Well my first hour in China did not go according to plan. I flew from London to Beijing. It was a pretty easy flight to be honest. But it was an overnight flight, so I arrived in Beijing somewhat lacking in sleep. My body thought it was 7am, but in Beijing it was actually 2pm.

When I booked the flight I thought I was cutting it fine having a 1hr 45min connection to get at Beijing. But I have been there twice before, and last time I made a very tight connection.

This time I was out of luck. I was so late that not only had the gate closed for my connecting flight, it had actually taken off!

Thankfully the Air China counter staff did a good job of getting me booked onto another flight, and at no extra cost. It did take me a while to find out where my suitcase had gone though. I hate getting connecting flights, as I'm never too sure when I will be reunited with my suitcase. And to make matters worse, it's not always consistent. Sometimes it's at Beijing, sometimes it gets sent through to the final destination.

While in Beijing I was fortunate that the airport had wifi and I also got my home mobile roaming to work. I had to hastily rearrange the airport pickup at my final destination. If you're intending to work in China, then make sure you get WeChat installed on your smartphone! It's an absolute essential.

Thankfully the connecting flight eventually took off and I was on my way again. It was so late when I got to my final destination of Ningbo!

I was met in the arrival halls by two of my future students - a girl and a boy. They had a sign with my name. They called me Professor. I felt so honoured! They tried carrying my suitcase but I was so ashamed it was so heavy!

We got in the school's limousine and headed to the campus.

It was 11pm and totally dark but I could make out the usual tall apartment buildings that all Chinese cities have. One thing immediately became apparent - Ningbo was freaking big. Even for a tier 2 city, it was a fair size. It took something like an hour to arrive at my future school, even with barely any traffic on the road.

Eventually we drove through the school's grounds and came to the building that would be my home for the next 10 months.

It took us a way to find a door that would let us in.

We found the right floor, and then the right room.

I was in my new home from home!

First impressions were of how big my room was. This is no estimation to say that my teacher's accommodation bathroom is actually bigger than the micro-flat I lived in back in London.

What else did I have?

I had a small kitchenette, with a big fridge-freezer and a microwave oven. I had a desk for working on. And the bed was a big double. There was plenty of storage space - way too much for a guy with just a 21Kg suitcase of stuff.

The bathroom was nice as well. Unlike my last apartment in China this one came with a Western toilet, and it was clean!

The shower looked good as well.

Finally there was a washing machine. Another thing ticked off my box of "where do I...." list.

By this time it was pretty late so after getting the wifi password I thanked the students and remembered to give them the small box of chocolates I had brought with me for precisely that purpose.

I tried to get to sleep but jetlag made that pretty darned difficult.

After an hour of two of sleep I got up again and decided to start unpacking.

By this time I had realised the shortcomings of coming to my new home in the middle of the night. I had no towel, and not that much food. Thankfully I had the foresight to buy a couple of bottles of water in the Beijing airport departure lounge.

As I started unpacking my suitcase I had discovered that the packet of Longjing green tea I had brought to China with me had literally exploded. Green tea leaves were in absolutely every part of my suitcase. Very soon they would be all over my apartment floor as well.

God knows why I brought tea to China but it seemed a pity to waste it.

I managed to get a little more sleep before dawn. I was woken up to music and a lot of shouting. Well that's not unusual if you live in China. If you take one tip from this blog then it's this - always pack earplugs if you're going to Asia, especially China.

I looked out of the window and found that the freshmen students were doing military drills outside of my apartment building.

At 06:30.

Could you imagine American or British students doing this at their university?

Ha ha.

The good thing about university military service for freshmen as far as being a teacher is concerned is that while your students are marching up and down for several days you don't have to go to any classes. How many freshmen classes you get is up to the school administrators. Sophomore students don't do military training. However, their end of terms typically finish earlier due to important exams. So you'll get a break from teaching them at the end of the semester.

Later that morning I got a WeChat message from the admin lady who deals with recruiting and looking after foreign teachers. I was told to report to her office. I managed to find it OK and at least I could start the ball rolling on the long process of getting the work permit documentation together.

She then took me to meet the two different departmental representatives who would be responsible for my teaching commitments.

I scribbled down a few notes and came away with armfuls of course textbooks.

They took me to lunch in the school canteen. I had no idea how the ordering system worked. I ended up with some bony fish, some vegetables and of course some rice. Oh, and a cucumber. Cucumbers are tiny in China, whereas they're really big back in the UK. Just one of the many everyday differences you'll encounter if you also decide to go and teach English in China.

After lunch I had a sleep, then ventured out on my own for a look round the campus.

Eventually I found the so-called business street. It had a few restaurants and - most valuable of all as far as I was concerned - a supermarket.

I always like looking around supermarkets in or near Chinese universities. They stock exactly what students need in their day to day lives. Sadly since most most students have little money the food tends to be on the cheap and low quality side. Also because Chinese students aren't allowed to cook in their dormitories, the only food tends to be of the instant variety, or non healthy snacks.

Some schools have more of a choice of stores in and around the local neighbourhood. But as I would subsequently find out, our school doesn't have a lot in the local vicinity that would interest a foreign teacher, apart from a Starbucks.

A student also took me to get a SIM card for my mobile phone. This is a real essential when you're living in China! Needless to say this took quite a while to organise and involved showing my passport and of course having over money.

So that was a look at my first 24 hours as a foreign teacher in China. If you have any questions about going to China to teach English, then leave comments below.

Dear Teaching Diary: My Second Week Teaching English in China!

Periodically I write down my thoughts and reflections after a lesson, particularly if I think the lesson was a milestone of some sort.

I was taught on the CELTA that self-reflection is a great way to get better at teaching. It's particularly important if you teach somewhere like in a Chinese university. Generally speaking you rarely (if ever) get peer observed. So the only person who can really gauge your teaching effectiveness is you and maybe your students.

I wrote this log after one of the classes I took in the second week of teaching English in China. I taught 36 sophomore Business English majors. I would say that the majority of students in this class are lower Upper Intermediate (if that is a thing). Like most Asian English learners, their spoken English lags their reading and writing.

This class doesn't have a textbook. At first I was worried about this, but as the semester progressed I used the other classes' textbooks less and less each week.

What We Did

In the first half of the lesson the students showed their presentations from the previous class. I got them to make a comedy sketch based on a UK TV show I showed them in the previous class.

In the second half we did some listening to clips about education.

What Worked

The presentations from last week were on the whole very good. About half the groups made very imaginative presentations. The students really enjoyed this task.

At last I have got the students speaking. Some of the students are very good indeed.

The students who made videos made an excellent job. However I should probably specify that presentations are made in class unless the class is specifically about making a video.

The listening tasks were on the whole OK. They did prefer the listening tasks where younger people were speaking.

What Didn't Work

I think 3 students missed doing the group presentation. It's hard to manage so many groups, especially as I don't have a printer to print class lists.

The attempt to set them an in class group speaking task was a disaster. I need to rethink this.
Timekeeping was an issue in this class and I overran when I was worried about underrunning.

What to Work On

I should ask the presenting students some questions at the end in order to get them practicing unscripted dialogue.

I need to read Teaching Listening by JJ Wilson in order to make the listening tasks more worthwhile.

When playing videos for listening I should always set some sort of task. Otherwise the students get bored, unless the video is particularly interesting.

Postscript

Teaching Listening by JJ Wilson is still on my reading list. I soon realised that my absolute priority was to learn more about how to teach speaking more effectively.

I no longer set homework. Partly because I feel a little guilty about how much other homework the students get. The students in this class also come from less wealthy homes and many have part-time jobs. A bigger reason is that I've found homework isn't particularly effective at helping them improve their English speaking. If you give the students a group speaking presentation to prepare, then they will only end up writing down huge chunks of dialogue. That's not really what I want them to be doing. I want them to talk completely unscripted. And for that it's better just to set classwork assignments where they have minimal time to prepare.

To manage the large groups I teach, I now use two computers in class: the classroom one and my own. I use the classroom computer to show videos and Powerpoints using the overhead projector. I also use it for listening tasks. I use my own computer to keep track of students using the class register Excel spreadsheet. In most classes I try to write down some scores for the students' classwork. This also avoids having to set too much homework, or have too much reliance on end of semester exams.

For listening tasks I have found out they tend to prefer listening to people their own age. So I always bear this in mind when I'm looking for warmers.

If groups are presenting then I've gotten into the habit of getting the audience to ask the presenting group questions. This keeps the audience on their toes. I can also log scores of their English ability. Of course it also minimises teacher talk during the lesson. I'm purely there to direct the speaking. On the downside I've found the questions they ask aren't always that good, and a lot of students ask the same question. I'll definitely improve on this during the next semester.

As for task setting during video watching - I don't always do this. Particularly if they're just used as warmers. But I have made sure that I select videos that are particularly interesting to them. I've found the Ellen chat show clips on YouTube to be exactly the type of video I need to use as warmers. I use them a lot.

Dear Teaching Diary: My Second Lesson Teaching English in China!

Periodically I write down my thoughts and reflections after a lesson. I was taught on the CELTA that self-reflection is a great way to get better at teaching. It's particularly important if you teach somewhere like in a Chinese university. Generally speaking you rarely (if ever) get peer observed. So the only person who can really gauge your teaching effectiveness is you and your students.

I wrote this log after my second class teaching English in China. I taught 20 freshmen students on what was their very first day of university classes. For most of the students I was the first foreign national teacher they had ever had.

What We Did

I introduced myself. We also did the coursebook Real Listening & Speaking 3 Chapters 1 - 2 where are you from and shopping.

What Worked

My lead in (about me true/false) worked well.

This is a much better book! Both topics were interesting for the students. And it’s at the right level for the students – maybe even a little too easy for them. We covered more material than I expected.

I numbered the listening clips so I was able to find them easily.

I put some new vocabulary on the board.

Most of the students got the answers although a few of the boys struggled a bit. Chunking helped with the harder listening activities.

They liked the shopping related videos I showed from The Two Ronnies, especially the 4 Candles Sketch. They were perfect for lead-ins, especially as the students were sleepy after lunch.

I successfully took the class register.

What Didn't Work

I need to work on setting pair work and group activities. One activity worked, the other was a complete flop.

There were a lot of students not really paying attention. It's harder to monitor them in this classroom, and the class size is quite big.

What to Work On

Again, I need to prep the classes so I know the answers to the questions in advance.

I should think of some activities related to any videos I show.

I should remember to set some homework that has clear goals. Simply "look at this website" is just too vague.

Postscript

I have of course noticed that the more times you do the same activity, the better you become at it. So recycling lesson plan tasks has really got me through the semester.

I have found it much tougher to teach the freshmen compared to the sophomore students. The freshmen don't talk much and they find it hard to maintain attention. In fact I found it easier to teach 47 sophomore students than I did a class of 18 freshmen.

I now know that initial impressions about coursebooks are very accurate. So hats off to my CELTA tutors for training me well. I hit the ground running and in my first week pretty much identified all the strengths and weaknesses of the two sets of coursebooks I was asked to teach from.

I don't like teaching 20 students in a classroom made for 50. So a couple of times this semester I have ended up making students move closer to the front of the class.

I noticed in this lesson that the students liked the video clip I showed them. So for each class I try to find a couple of short videos to use as warmers.

In my first lesson I noticed the girls were on average better than the boys. I say on average because the girls tended to be precisely that - average. ALL of my superstar English students in this semester were boys, despite there being far less of them. I believe that this echoes the exam results I saw back in the UK when I worked for an educational consultancy; boys do worse than girls but when boys are good, they are very good indeed.