Well, hello. It’s only taken 5 months to get this first post up and
running, but given the pace of life here in China, that’s actually pretty
efficient. This probably isn’t all that different to any other TEFL/gap year
blog you could read, in fact as I have no idea what I am doing or what I'm supposed to write, it will probably be worse. But it seemed a waste not to capture in writing some of
the crazy, wondrous and occasionally not so wonderful things that happen here
in southern China. So, back to the beginning:
The journey here was hectic.
Having booked a flight package with all the connections planned for us, we had
only an hour in both London Heathrow and Beijing International to make it to
our next plane. As it turns out, this was incredibly optimistic, leaving barely
enough time to make it through security, customs and to the next gate. After
racing through both airports, begging to skip queues and reluctantly forgoing
the usual airport Burger King we made it to the final flight by the skin of our
teeth.
As our plane made its way south from Beijing towards the Guangdong
province, the blue, sunny skies changed to a dense, smoggy grey and the heavy
clouds beneath us appeared to be raining. “Great,” were the thoughts of two
twenty-somethings from Northern Ireland, “more rain - just what we were hoping
for.” By the time we landed in Guangzhou the rain had stopped, leaving behind a
sweltering, humid heat. It was around 30C despite being 7pm. To make matters
worse, our luggage hadn’t arrived onto our connecting flight and so we had to
wait some 24 hours before we had access to a pair of shorts.
One of the girls from our company (I say girls because they are all
around our age) was there to meet us, thankfully, because I really don’t think
we could have navigated our way to the taxi stand without the help of a
native speaker. Even
if we had been able to find the taxis, we could never have directed the driver
in the huge, alien city. Guangzhou and the surrounding towns are home to 10
million people. Even the taxi drivers get lost finding different
addresses.
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| A constantly growing area of China. |
After being dropped off at a hotel and told to be ready for 7am the
next morning (which, to a university student used to having two classes a week
starting at 2pm, seemed rather unnecessarily early) we raced for a cold shower and tried to sleep. But even with windows
open, air con on, duvets thrown off and PJS discarded, sleep was impossible. It
was warmer in that room than dear little Omagh has managed to be in the past 22
years.
7am rolled around all too early, and bleary eyed, caffeine deprived
and absolutely melting in skinny jeans we stumbled out to meet another person
from our company. This absolute gem of a woman, Wency (most people here have
both a Chinese and English name, with the latter being usually a slight
variation of what you would see at home) is the source of one of the best
stories I have to tell about working in a kindergarten, but that comes later. The
first day was one of medical tests, getting sim cards sorted and going to the
company office for our teaching materials. No training required, speaking
English is enough apparently. Armed with flashcards, USBs and a rough idea what
size our class would be we were told the next day we would start teaching. Daunting
or what?
Here, the purpose of teaching English in kindergarten is really just
to get them used to the language, interested in learning it and to be honest, spend
time with a non-native person. The kids in the so-called International Class pay
more to be exposed to an English speaker and hopefully pick up better
pronunciation and fluency.
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| Raising the flag in Zhonghenghui - our first kindergarten. |
It took a bit of getting used to, being in charge instead of being
told what to do. But after figuring out how to structure the lessons and keep
the kids interested it started to become easier. I was tasked with the youngest class in the school (my students were aged 2-3). They were the most amazing bunch of cuties. Two of the
babies (for they really were only two years old and already in school) a boy
called Joy (right?) and a girl called Melody captured my heart from day
one. They were cheeky, affectionate and terrible at sticking to the rules. Actually, Joy couldn’t even walk without
falling over so I am not sure how he was expected to line up and carry his own
chair, but there you go. They have a lot of school rules and routines here. And whilst I
see their point it was hard to get it into my mind that two
year olds should follow the rules like the other children. They were just
babies in my eyes! My class were forever getting into trouble with the Chinese
teacher for doing what I told them instead of what she wanted. Oops. But it is
just so much cuter to have them fist bump you instead of saying “Present”
during registration.
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| Melody. P.S. Photographs with kids are permitted here, in fact they are encouraged. |
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| Joy's daily struggle with the chair. |
On the first day, as I was getting to know my ten students, Wency
came into the classroom having shown us how to travel to the school. It was
almost lunch time and as the food was delivered into the room (here the
students eat out of a little silver bowl and dish – no grimy plastic trays for
their school meals) she suggested I “pray with the kids”. Now, to a girl who
has grown up in Northern Ireland where some schools typically say Grace before
lunch, this seemed a little odd. Wow, I
thought, they really do want to recreate
Western culture for these kids. A part of my mind was really wondering
whether she actually meant it when the TA also suggested I “say a few words
before lunch”. Hands clasped, about to launch into it she then piped up “maybe
you could teach them ‘Enjoy your meal’”. Ah. Turns out she wanted a typical
English phrase to use with the kids. And Wency had meant play.
The schedule of the teachers in our company varies greatly. Some go to
two or three schools in a week to teach short English lessons and lots of them.
Some, like us initially, stay in one school with one class all the time.
Instead of being just the English teacher you are the ‘main teacher’ along with
a native speaker. Some of the younger kids only speak Cantonese or regional
dialects though, so even the Teaching Assistants have some trouble getting them
to behave. The main teacher role means not only doing long daily English
lessons with the same bunch of two year olds, but also teaching P.E. and
introducing meals and snacks. In the afternoon the Chinese teacher would take
over and give a Chinese lesson but we still had to be present and play with the
children until their parents came to pick them up. The kids here are in school
from around 7.30am – 5.30pm, very different from home. The working hours for us
English teachers are typically 8.30-11.30am and 2.30-5.30pm. This doesn’t sound
too bad but when the commute is around 1.5-2 hours it means not being able to go
home during your break and relax.
We worked for around 3 months in that school before opting for a different
setup. Now our schedules involve different schools, teaching only English lessons
and getting to see a bit more of the Foshan/Guangzhou area. Personally I find
teaching class after class a lot more interesting than spending all day in the
one room with the one class, but that’s just me.
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| So much sass. |
The kids are adorable, and really keep you going. Sometimes going over vocabulary only to have them forget it instantly and being asked to sing Wheels on the Bus for the millionth time can be disheartening. But their enthusiasm (from about Monday - Wednesday anyway) and ability to soak up information so quickly is amazing. A few weeks in, Melody started picking up phrases I would use with the class. She would then come to me every morning and say "Teacher Lola." (They struggle a tad with 'r's) "Take your chair." Meaning that it's time I stopped spooning noodles into Joy's mouth and started reading stories.
But more about the kids, teaching and life in general later.
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| To be continued. |
