Teach English in Nanjia Zhen - Linfen Shi

Learning English is a worldwide trend of the past few decades as it's the language of technologies, business economics, and business relations. Without knowing this language you will have problems with sharing your experience, innovative ideas, and knowledge on the international level. That's why I think teaching English is one of the most important professions as ESL teachers help to break the language barrier of people who has the power to improve the quality of life on this planet and make it safer and more comfortable. If you teach students of your culture you might not face problems like cultural sensitivity as you are aware of cultural features and won't make student embarrassed asking specific questions. If you teach students of other cultures, to my mind, it is necessary to learn more about this culture, people, traditions, and mentality. Before teaching in a different country you have to learn about its inhabitants as much as possible. There are a lot of resources on the Internet the teacher can use. 1) Documentary films about history can help the teacher to get to know more about topics which are too sensitive according to the unstable political situations between some cultures as China and Japan, United Arabian Emirates and Israel, Ukraine and Russia. Do not ever confuse these nationalities. They have a very tough political situation and problematic historical background. The political topics should be avoided unless it is a specific material students learn during the session. 2) Some travel guides are very useful as they possess fresher information about the current situation and usually give nice advice for travelers on how to act with local people, how to be polite, what they like or what things make them shy and what questions might scare them or make ashamed. 3) If the teacher is a newbie and not aware of how to behave with young or adult learners in a specific environment just be as neutral as possible. Being very serious about studying is a specific characteristic of an Asian student, so don't expect or force him to be very creative. Don't ask too personal questions about family and financial situation students from Middle East countries and Asian countries. They will feel embarrassed to discuss it in front of the whole class. Be patient, friendly, ask about interests, hobbies, work, dreams, favorite books, and life plans. 4) News reports cover the whole situation in the country. As I know in Hong Kong during the last few weeks there are few big protests were held and the reason was their tough situation with Taiwan. A good teacher should know about it and not call Hong Kong people Chinese, or Taiwanese. 5) Sharing experience. ESL community is huge and teacher support each other, sharing their experience and in case you have a question or a problem you can rely on somebody more experienced- the colleague, who works longer, teachers, who are also bloggers or vloggers, etc. Teaching English is not just pure explaining of the grammar and testing, the communication is a very important factor in bringing the knowledge to students and the ability of a teacher to built the friendly and not stressful atmosphere in the classroom is a mandatory task! If you constantly raise the sensitive question during the session the reaction from students might be different, some of them might be scared to answer questions, some students might feel discomfort, mistrust or rejection. This stressful atmosphere ruins the motivation to learn English and can lead to the conflict which is bad for both, teacher and student. Being a good and professional teacher is not only a perfect knowledge of the subject but understanding the cultural features, being polite, understanding and excited about teaching.