Teaching English in Beijing

This is my third week of teaching English. I now have a full schedule of classes and am settling into a routine and getting to know my students and their needs a little better.

On Monday night I have a class called English Corner at the Metro YMCA. There are about 12 students attending including one Metro staff person. For this class we have picked topics to be discussed at each class. This past week we discussed the population in China, the effects of the one child policy, and the aging population. About half of the students attend university and half are working. Ages range from about 18 to about 70. The class is mostly women with two or three men attending each week. They all want to practice speaking English but some are a little shy. I find this an endearing but, at times, frustrating trait that I have come across with all age groups. I am challenged to come up with ways to get each of the students involved in the discussion. Most of them have the ability to speak English but not the confidence. That is, most of them have learned English in school but have not had very much practice speaking it.

Wednesday morning was my first time teaching a beginner class for a group of mostly seniors. As I entered the classroom, I was greeted with thunderous applause! I looked around to see who the celebrity was and, gasp, it was me! They had written a beautiful greeting for me on the blackboard with my name in Chinese characters. The class consists of mostly older women with one man attending. There were about 25 in the group. This is apparently a community outreach class which the Y is giving for free. I had been given a book to use the week before. It is geared to the beginning student specifically with the Olympics in mind. I had a Y staff person, Candy, with me as a translator. As I began to teach I kept getting interrupted by the woman in charge of the program at the community center. She apparently didn't like they way I was teaching. The Chinese have a way of speaking which is very loud and can sound very argumentative. When translated, I was told that what I was teaching was too hard for them. Basically, I was following the book from the first page which was a chapter on "Greetings". Well, we did get if sorted out and I think the class had an enjoyable learning experience. The class is only one hour per week and I worry that the expectations are higher than the reality of how much English they can learn. I tend to teach while standing and after the class the staff led me firmly back to their office. They insisted I "refresh" myself with a cup of tea all the while talking about how exhausted I must be. Little did they know I had just got my engines revved and could have gone on another hour.

Thursday I had a new student, Eugene. I am tutoring him one-on-one. He is from Korea and has been living in China for four years. He attends high school and is 18 years old. He told me the reason he is in China is because the school system is better than in Korea. Here they get a full curriculum, including English 6 times a week. In Korea, they only had English once a week and many students attended English classes at night after their regular high school classes. His English is pretty good but he needs practice enunciating. Again, I noticed many of the students tend to mumble. They need practice enunciating and moving their lips to make sounds. He also is having trouble with the grammar as it is taught in the school. They are taught by a Chinese teacher. He showed me his recent workbook and some of the language is rather quaint. It looks like it has been literally translated from Chinese.

On Friday afternoon I have two one-on-one classes with 7 year old boys. This is a huge challenge since I am not a professional teacher and I think teaching 7 year olds requires a degree of expertise and experience that I don't have. The parents believe that because I am a native English speaker I can give the best to these boys. I'm not so sure. Just keeping them interested in something for 10 minutes is a challenge.

After these two sessions, I have a group of twelve 11 to 13 year olds for English Corner. We picked out topics to discuss every week and I try to think of ways to keep them involved. We usually start out with some conversation and then a game or a group activity. This is working pretty well and getting better as I get to know the kids and their personalities better. One thing I appreciate is that they will give me feedback as to what's working and what's not.

Saturday is another busy afternoon and evening. I have Eric one-on-one and then Ms. Wong. She is about 30 - 35 years old and works as a trader for a financial company. She is eager to increase her vocabulary mostly through conversation. This is very enjoyable for both of us as we sit and talk for an hour about any topic that comes up.

In the evening, we have English Corner for adults. This is a small group with two or three men and two or three women. Two of the men work together at a bank and travel 45 minutes to get to the session. One of the women is a college professor, another is a student from Korea. So you can see the group is quite varied. We are working with topics from a book that I brought with me. The discussion is generally lively and stimulating and seems to be enjoyable for all.

I'm teaching about 10 hours per week and will not take on any more students or groups. Preparation time takes up another 4 hours or so and I expect to be involved in meetings with administrative staff at the branch for another few hours per week. I am generally taking Tuesdays and Sundays as days off. I will be talking about my travel experiences in another blog. Right now since Blogspot seems to be undergoing some problems, I am not able to upload any pictures but hope to do so in the future.