By Corey Pyke. Corey lives in Xiamen, and has been a teacher in China since 2019.
Moving to and working in China is an incredible experience for most people, but the truth is, it’s not for everyone. In this blog, I’ll talk about some of the realities I have had to face across my jobs in China. Some people may experience all of these, others just a few, or others none at all, but its good to be aware that these are things that could affect you if you make the move east.
The first point is a bit of a trivial one – the extroverts and performers amongst you won’t find this a problem at all! – you will be doing performances for the school throughout the year, be that singing, dancing or a dramatic performance. These performances usually coincide with the important holidays, so there’s usually 2 or 3 every school year. There has always been an expectation amongst the schools that I have worked at that all of the foreign teachers will be performing, however unenthusiastic they are! For the more introverted people like myself, this can seem like a very daunting task, however, learning to hide behind the other teachers, or volunteering to play the guitar as an accompaniment instead of singing has proved to be an invaluable skill! Who knows, you may find that you are a born performer!
My next point I have already touched on briefly in a previous blog, a lot of things are done very last minute. I will use the performances as an example. In my previous school, there were multiple meetings held between the foreign teacher team and the management team asking that we have at least a weeks’ notice before a performance, as we would need to plan and practice. This was always met with nods of agreement and understanding, as the management would know weeks or months in advance that a performance was going to take place. However, we would always end up in a position where we were being told just one or two days before. In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t such a big deal, however if you apply this last-minute mentality to meetings that you find out about 2 minutes before they are meant to start, or deadlines that are moved forward with no notice, it can become incredibly frustrating. This can sometimes be put down to the fact that the Chinese teaching team work incredibly long hours, and often have a lot more responsibilities than the foreign teachers – so things like deadlines and meetings can slip their minds, or things like performances aren’t as important to them as other parts of the job, so they don’t feel the need to mention them. The key to dealing with all of this is open communication. Whilst it might not solve everything, it shows that you are being proactive, and it’s a lot better than sitting around and getting frustrated.
My next point is communication with parents. This may not apply to everyone as usually the foreign teachers don’t need to talk to parents if they work in a training centre. In my experience though, there has been expectations of weekly reports and individual feedback for marked homework and classwork every class. With 5 classes and 150 children to provide feedback for, this very quickly became overwhelming and unsustainable. After a quick talk with a co-teacher, we decided that the best way to go about it was to provide the weekly reports for each class, and to provide individual feedback at the request of the parents. This meant that my workload went down significantly and gave me more time to plan the classes themselves. However, it is sometimes the communication with the parents themselves where issues arise. Some parents may find it hard to believe that their child misbehaves in class and so will blame the teacher, some may be frustrated that their child dropped just 1 mark in an exam and others may be very confident in their own English ability, but end up teaching their child the wrong pronunciation. Fortunately, the majority of interactions with parents will be positive, and if you feel like things are getting too out of hand, there are people to talk to.
My final point can be a difficult one to deal with sometimes. In general, the resources available for children with ADHD or autism in China are extremely lacking compared to the west. In the UK children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) will have the chance to have a helper in class, their own separate class, or even a special school more equipped to deal with their needs. In China, this is not the case as SEN children will be placed in mainstream schools with no extra support, with the most common example being children with ADHD. This is down to the fact that whilst there has been a lot of positive movement, unfortunately this is still largely a taboo subject in China, with many parents seeing it as an extremely negative thing. Even the mere suggestion that a child might need extra help, could land you in hot water with your school and parents. Whilst you may not have children who struggle in your class, it’s better to be prepared just in case. I like to give them something to do so that they are included in the class, and less likely to get distracted. For example, making them a class monitor so they are in charge of making sure the tables are quiet and can give out or take away stars. I have also found that some like to be “mini teachers”. This means that they stand at the front alongside the teacher and help to go through the power point presentations, and get to help demonstrate the games and activities.
Although these points may seem quite negative and potentially off-putting for those looking to move to China, there’s no need to worry! Within your school you will more than likely have other foreign teachers to talk to that will be experiencing the same things, as well as a management team who will be more than willing to listen to your concerns. Like I mentioned at the start, you might not even experience any of these issues. Teaching in China is a completely different environment from any other job you may have had before, so being prepared for any eventuality will help you to ease into teacher life smoothly.
If you’d like to talk to us a out teaching in China you can get started by applying today.
