Observations of an English teacher

Trip Start Jul 20, 2004
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Trip End Jul 20, 2012


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Friday, November 3, 2006

I am bit behind with my entry update but better late than never. The semester is almost over and boy was this a bumpy ride or should i say cultural roller coaster? First of all, the book we are using (New Headway) may work well in a multicultural student environment, such as in Europe, but not here. I found it to be not very adaptable to Chinese culture as our students have no idea what's going on outside of China. In addition, their future goals are rather vague and they show little ambitions except for making money and having a family. Asked about their favorite activities, the majority of the students responded with sleeping or playing computer games.

What I like about teaching here is the small class size; we have between 8 - 16 students in class. Mid-semester, we had an English day which meant that students performed sketches, songs and engaged in other "English only" activities English Day at INTI College - with Nathan
English Day at INTI College - with Nathan
 . The English only didn't really work, but the activities were fun, allthough it was hard work during the preparation phrase.

Some of the students are notoriously absent from classes and are not doing their assignments which means that some of them will be banned from taking their final exam. The majority of the students in our upper-intermediate class plans to continue their studies at one of the INTI Malaysia campuses. If they are unable to graduate from INTI Beijing, they will have to repeat the same class again in Malaysia. I am curious to know how these students will make out in Malaysia, especially since English is much more widely used and encouraged in Malaysia.

In addition to teaching students during the day, I myself became a student during the evening. Twice a week, my colleague and I take 2 hours of Chinese. We mostly practice our Chinese in restaurants or by sending txt messages to our 'laoshi'. Its not that it is a difficult language, but using the correct tones is the most challenging part. If you screw up the tones you can be in big trouble; people may hit you or look at you in disbelief depending on how bad the grammatical mistake was. Nevertheless, I enjoy taking the classes eventhough its frustrating not seeing much progress. I will have to make more Chinese friends so I can practice my chinese.
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