I Speak Chinese

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences The following blog post is about an ITTT graduate who shares his story on how learning Chinese helped him to become a better English teacher in China. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Joseph S. A common saying imparted to me by one of my professors goes like this: "What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks only one language? American." I have found this to be extremely true for the majority of cases, and, as a young student, it spurred me to want to learn as much of other languages as I possibly could. I grew up in a monolingual home, however, as a child, I spent much of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Teaching English in China has become very popular for ESL teachers and many are looking for job opportunities in China. Finding a teaching job in China isn’t too hard but working with Chinese students can be quite challenging. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate VIKTORIIA H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Chinese grammar is very different from English and many Chinese students try to copy the grammar rules of their native language and apply them to English. As a result, they form awkward sentences that are difficult to understand. They struggle to use gerunds and articles as these parts of speech do not exist in Mandarin....  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas A multilingual class is a class where the learners speak a variety of first languages. A monolingual class is a class where all the learners speak the same first language. I have been working in international school setting for over 13 years. The classes are multilingual classes where students come from different cultures and English is the common language for them to communicate with their teachers and classmates. By contrast, English classes in local schools and universities in China are considered to be monolingual classes since the students use their first language, Chinese, to communicate. The teacher has to remind them to not use their mother tongue constantly during class...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas I am a lifelong ESL student myself. Every day I am learning something new from the books, from the things around me, and my students. For the last few years, I've been teaching the English language here in China, which is why I chose this topic. China is a great country with beautiful sceneries and very hard-working, enthusiastic, and friendly people. Learning any language is not an easy job. It requires patience, practice, and of course, a desire. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Buned S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Chinese students are swift at...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Learning a second language can be difficult, and this is especially true when the learners L1 and their target language are completely different in structure, sound, and tones. An English as a second language student who speaks French, German, or any other European language will have an easier task than one who speaks a language that is not of European origins. One such language is Mandarin Chinese. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ashley L. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The areas that native Mandarin speakers most often run into difficulty are pronunciation, tones, tenses, and sentence structure. A Chinese speaker might...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Most researchers agree that the learner’s first language influences the pronunciation of the target language and is a significant factor in accounting for foreign accents. So-called interference or interference from the first language is likely to cause errors in aspiration, stress, and intonation in the target language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Vesna A. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Some Chinese students tend to have difficulty with English sounds because they are deeply influenced by similar Chinese sounds. However, they are very different from each other. A particular sound which does not exist in the native...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Language has always played an important role in communication between people. Today, in the globalization, the importance of mastering a foreign language has become increasingly prominent. English is the most widely used language in the world. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Xiao W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. In the 21st century, English is not unfamiliar to us Chinese. In our life, we can find English everywhere with little attention. Most Chinese learn dumb English. Few people can communicate with foreigners without barriers. Some Western netizens can't help wondering why English is so difficult for Chinese to...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Most teachers come to China to teach English with only a general idea about Chinese culture and language which they should have to deal with as soon as they arrive in China. The reason I chose this topic is that I am fluent in Chinese and have experienced Chinese culture in all its facets for over than seven years. But let’s not beat around the bush and get down to the nitty-gritty. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ruben M. Chinese people often seem to be shy or introverted, especially in front of foreigners or in the classroom. However, they are not always. Chinese society is built on 关系 Guanxi, which means “relationship(s)” and can be described as any kind of connection...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences English is one of the most widely spoken languages and it is taught in a lot of countries. Globalization, fast economic development makes many people study English. People learn English for different reasons: business, education, life abroad, traveling, personal interest. Chinese students are not an exception. With the growing economies of China, the need for learning English increased dramatically. What challenges do Chinese students face when learning English? What challenges does the teacher meet teaching Chinese students? What teaching approach can be found? This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Darya M. Let’s talk about the most typical challenges when teaching Chinese learners and...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences As a kindergarten teacher working in China I have a lot of experience dealing with students, fellow teachers; Chinese and foreign, management and parents. A few years ago I came to China to learn Chinese. To pay for my living expenses I started teaching young learners. Pretty soon I got a full-time job in a kindergarten and I fell in love with the work and I decided to stay in China and keep teaching. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Paul E. One of the first problems I faced was of course the language barrier. In the schools I’ve worked at so far not many people speak English; especially the schools’ management. It’s always quite a task to find out what is expected of you. In China don’t...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Susan T S G. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Singapore is a multilingual and multi-ethnic society. We have four official languages Malay, English, Chinese (Mandarin), and Tamil, with Malay as our national language. English is used as the main medium of instruction in our education system and learning a second language is compulsory in school starting from pre-school age. Being Chinese, my second language is Mandarin. I also speak a third language called dialect especially to our parents who do not understand English or Chinese. Also Read: The Most Important Personal Qualities in the ESL...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Every learner of a foreign language may face pronunciation problems now and then. Languages that belong to one language group have more in common in phonics and are usually easier to learn to pronounce correctly. But such languages as English and Chinese are so different, that Chinese learners (and I bet English speaking learners of Chinese too) often have many difficulties in pronunciation. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Evgeniya S. I have been working in China as a teacher for more than six months now. When I arrived in this country, I hardly knew several words in Mandarin. I was hoping that won’t be a problem, as I had traveled a lot before, and my English knowledge had always...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Travel had benefits for all of us. Particularly for our children. Our twin baby boys are mixed-race and mixed-cultured and equal importance will be placed on both sides of their heritage while maintaining a truly international worldview. We plan to raise them as true world citizens. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mingke R. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. We plan to focus on a few areas to strengthen their cultural connections: language, exposure to different cultures, exposure to people from those cultures, and cultural holidays. We will achieve this by continuing to travel slowly. We plan to live in different cities and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences For the past twenty years, I have had the pleasure of teaching English to Chinese students of all ages in both Taiwan and mainland China. The following are my observations: This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Eugene E. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. If one were to argue that Socrates was the beginning of modern Western Civilization, one could easily surmise that that modern Chinese civilization has its roots in the teachings of Confucius. While Socrates told his students that the unexamined life was not worth living and that students should question everything, even their teacher; the opposite is true with the teaching of...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The English language has become so essential in china because the country wants to successfully promote internationalism and keep the lines of communication open for trade and business matters. As one of the global powers, it’s in the country’s best interest to keep afloat of shifting trends in international matters. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ramy M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. The government has recognized that English is now the preferred language used for international purposes, and is becoming an increasingly necessary skill for its people to have. So, as an ESL teacher, I must know the problems and...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences I have been working in China for more than six months now and it’s been a very interesting time for me not just to learn more about the country and its people, but also to enrich my teaching skills and grow professionally as a teacher. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Evgeniya S. When I arrived in China, I hardly knew anything about specific features of teaching in that country, so I thought that the knowledge I had was quite enough to handle the classes in kindergarten or primary school. But since my first working day, I have often been surprised and even sometimes perplexed by what I have seen at kindergartens and schools in China. Many teaching techniques and methods that Chinese...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas At a very early age, I was amazed by the sounds of English. I used to listen to songs in English while one of my parent’s friends was cleaning his car. He used to play them out loud and I wanted to know what the lyrics said. Several years later I had the chance to go to China to be part of a cultural exchange program to learn Chinese. My accepting interview was completely in English rather than Chinese or even my native language Spanish. All paperwork was done in either Spanish or Chinese depending on where I was. Either here in Latin-American or on the other side of the world, the medium of communication was English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Andres G. Please note that this blog...  [Read more]

William Noble Destinations Teaching Ideas I have been an online ESL teacher to Chinese students for over 13 years, mostly with primary students but also with secondary and adult students. I am also a father and have homeschooled my daughter over her primary years. Like many teachers, I’ve enjoyed teaching at this level of education as it lays the foundation in English. As it set the foundation, my teaching helped students to overcome common errors in production skills, speaking and writing. Teaching both my daughter and Chinese students at the primary level also helped me also to understand the different expectations between first language and second language students. Since English is very different from China, many Chinese...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences It is generally agreed that education is one of the most important issues in every country these days and China is no exception. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ekaterina G. It’s a well-known fact that China is the most populated country in the world with a long and mysterious history, rich and varied culture. China recognizes 55 ethnic minority groups within the country in addition to the Han majority. Standard Mandarin is the only official language, though there are more than 200 hundred living languages spoken all over the country. While being China’s capital, political and cultural center, Beijing is also known as a melting pot where you can meet the representative of almost each...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas After China adopted the Open Door Policy, the English language not only gained popularity but also became indispensable in international communication and trade. It was introduced in public schools as an obligatory foreign language and English teaching centers started spreading across the country. Even though Chinese people approach learning English with a great dose of enthusiasm, it poses several challenges, both linguistic and cultural. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Weronika S. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Chinese language (Mandarin) is an example of Sino-Tibetan language, whereas English belongs to the Indo-European...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Many Chinese students face the common problem that although they spent 10 years studying English at school, they can't pronounce an English sentence correctly, and they are not confident enough to communicate in the language. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mengru W. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Our students struggle to speak in English, they are good at writing and reading, but cannot speak, even though they studied the language from third to 12th grade. Most of the students also study English at a language center, but they still find it hard to completely reach the goal, even when they go to college, speaking English...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences The country of choice I would like to speak about is China. I have been teaching in China for about a year at all levels. Several problems face English learners in this country ranging from the use of prepositions, modal auxiliary and the male and feminine pronouns. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Mandella Elorm A. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. ESL learners especially adult learners happen to have a persistent problem with the use of he/she, most students start speaking about a male character and then midway start using she to represent this male character and this happens interchangeably during oral lessons but never...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas As an aspirant teaching English to Chinese children, I chose ‘Pronunciation problems of Chinese people’ as the most attractive and the most useful topic for my summative task at this moment. As resources of this joyful and useful research on the internet, I have used three videos on Youtube made by the three experienced teachers of the English language. Only one of them works with children. And only one of them (accent coach from London, Luke Nicholson) gave a lot of live examples of the flaws in pronunciation that Chinese people, in general, make when speaking English, by showing the interviews with the Chinese actor Jackie Chan who sometimes manages to confuse his experienced interviewers. This post was...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Working as an English teacher in the kindergarten is very entertaining and challenging, as the teacher will deal with the children who don’t have even a basic knowledge of English, have the very short attention span and very different in terms of their behavior. Before I moved to China, I haven’t prior experience in teaching the kindergarten level students, because I always thought that teaching the young learners would be annoying, hard to discipline and far too energy-consuming. So what I had learned was just through my own experience. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Nasiba Q. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. My decision...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas I chose this topic because I have first-hand experience with my trilingual child. She is 3 years old now, we are a couple of Romanians living in China, and my husband is a middle school English teacher. My daughter was born in China and I can both speak Chinese. ‘What language will my daughter learn first?’ Was one of the questions that haunted me and I thought it would be the greatest challenge of motherhood. Well, the reality proved me wrong – it was the easiest task and now my daughter can speak perfect English, she can understand and speak Romanian very well and she understands Chinese and can speak when she has to. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Lenuta M. Please note that this...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Nowadays, English is becoming more and more popular and significant in China because of globalization. In big cities, parents send their kids to all kinds of organizations/schools to study English in their early three years. Some capable parents even use English as their communicative language from the first day the baby was born. No matter how early Chinese starts learning English, it’s still not our mother language and the atmosphere is still in Chinese, which makes learning English not as easy as those in English countries. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Yixun C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. In my point of view, here...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sheneil J. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Chinese does not have either of the “th” sounds (like “that” and “this”). Most other languages do not have these sounds and they are problematic for most learners of English. The difficulty is the point of articulation- the tongue has to be between the teeth, not behind them. Many people say that English speakers look like they’re sticking their tongues out all the time because of the “th” sounds. It can be difficult to get learners to do this because it violates a cultural proscription against sticking out one’s tongue. Confusion...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Alumni Experiences In this blog post, I plan to examine why English may be such a challenging language for Chinese speakers to master, namely in comparison to their European peers. For the purpose of this examination, I will focus on four main aspects, from quite glaring differences to other aspects that some may not initially consider: written language, grammar, vocabulary, and language exposure. These points are drawn from my own experience of living and teaching English in China, from learning Chinese myself and from conversations with my students. I will be focusing on those who have not had experience in learning other languages before English, as I feel this constitutes the largest proportion of Chinese learners. This by no...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas In this topic, I will be talking about my own “Personal Teaching Experience” in two Asian countries that I’ve had the privilege to work in and teach such as, China and Russia. So you might want to ask yourselves, What’s the difference between teaching Chinese and Russian students? Well honestly there is a huge difference so let’s get started. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Jhonatan J. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. First of all, let’s start with the cultural differences in the classrooms between Chinese and Russian students. Let me mentioned to you that in both countries I’ve had jobs mostly in private...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences With English being one of the most widely used languages in the world, many individuals are learning English in China. The learners include children, businessmen, etc. Although the learners have their own reasons for studying English, there are three main problems that the Chinese learners face while trying to learn English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Ning G. The first issue is that learners pay too much attention to memorizing a new vocabulary while ignoring the phonetic symbols. In China, memorizing English words is the ‘standard ’approach to learning English. However, this learning approach is not a comprehensive technique for learning English. In the memorization-oriented...  [Read more]