Teach English in Zhulinguan Zhen - Shangluo Shi

I’m an English teacher who has taught young learners for almost 6 years in China, having formerly worked for a language training center and currently having established my own training center. Therefore I’ve got more roles than one: teacher, supervisor, trainer and owner. The strong sense of responsibility and passionate enthusiasm towards kids drive me to keep on pursuing sufficient skills and knowledge for teaching kids. For years, I’ve attended countless different kinds of training seminars all over China. At the very beginning, I found that they were quite useful and helpful. After attending more and more training, I gradually realized none of them provided systematic system for ESL teacher. With my foreign friends’ suggestion, I took the TEFL online course which turned out to be exactly what I require. For the first two years of my personal teaching experience, the most frustrating part that bothered me tremendously, was classroom management. In China, most schools (especially those in small cities), the teachers punished kids by hitting naughty kids’ hands with rulers or sticks, or humiliated them with harsh & cruel words in public. Almost all the experienced teachers here told me the same excuse ,that there are too many kids (kindergarten 35ish kids, elementary school 60ish kids) in one classroom, and that if teachers don’t show their strictness, they will fail to manage the class effectively, which seems quite true after I’ve observed many classes and talked to different levels of teachers. But, whatever, I’ve always believed that there must be a way to manage the class with a friendly, relaxed manner whilst still maintaining discipline. Maybe it is difficult in public schools (70+ students per class), but maybe in training centers which are always based on small groups, this can work. With the faith to make a difference, I was determined to be a lively and amusing teacher and try to influence the others.Since, all of my students are from kindergarten and elementary school, where their curricula seldom consisted of exposure to the English language and few, if any, opportunities to put it into practice, these kids are basically zero-based English students. Teaching these kids seems more challenging to me, not only in providing an immersive learning environment for them, but also organizing pleasant activities without chaos. I’ve tried plenty of methods and approaches during my classes until I finally could manage the classes in a way I was happier with. Now after studying this course, I found all the answers & solutions to my previous confusion and struggles. If I could have studied this course years ago, I absolutely would have spent less time to grasp the keys to classroom management. Anyway, with the knowledge I acquired from this course, I can now assist my team to master the skills more efficiently and effectively. If all the teachers know how to use eye contact, gesture and voice, the pros and cons of different types of grouping students, the ways of classroom arrangement, the tips of writing on the board, the importance of giving individual attention, maintaining a good balance of teacher talking time and student talking time, the effective ways of giving instructions, the practical ways of establishing rapport with students, the solutions of maintaining discipline, and with continuous practice, I believe no teacher would feel the need to be cruel in their classes. After I tackled the classroom management issue, for the last three years of my teaching career, all my energy and effort have been put into developing curriculum and teaching methodologies. Of course, at that time, the training center I’ve been working for already had its own curriculum and methodology. From my own perspective, I thought there was still a vast improvement that could be made. The requirements for teachers were basically, sticking to the course books and materials which the center provided, and what’s more, following the provided teaching plans which included every single words teachers needed to say. For inexperienced teachers, with all of them, it was considerably easier and less time consuming. However, the real classes sometimes can be quite different, no matter the age or level of language, which means the curriculum and teaching plans & materials cannot be adapted to most of the classes, especially as, all of them are adopted from big cities (like Shanghai and Beijing) where their students’ level is much higher than those in small cities, and the management team believed we should copy from these big cities. Hence it was an awkward situation for me, because I didn’t accept the idea. I tried my best to integrate the current system with my own thoughts. If the supervisors had taken the TEFL course, I believe they would have accepted the idea of being flexible in this approach and not just stuck blindly to this planning for convenience. What I fully agreed with is to stick to the correct methodology in suitable circumstances and it would never go wrong. What we can be flexible with, is the details of the teaching plan in materials, activities and games. I’ve always combined my lessons with authentic and created materials according to the classes. And they always fitted the exact needs and interests of all the class members. Now with the knowledge from the course, I have faith in being able to provide better professional training for my teachers. And together we can make a pleasant difference in this city’s language training industry. Now, it’s my 6th year of teaching career, I’m quite confident that I’m a qualified and good teacher in the young learners English teaching field. With the target of improving my school to an increasingly professional level, I will never ever give up on learning. I am already planning to go to an English native speaking country to get in-class TEFL training to better my teaching knowledge. I appreciate what this course has brought me and I will use all my knowledge from this course to help my improve my students learning experience, and, of course, pass my knowledge onto other teachers. All in all, who dares to teach must never cease to learn.