Day 1 in the Classroom

My First Class

After some brief training, James and I were thrown in front of the class this past weekend to try our hand at teaching. My first class was a group of 7 students between the ages of 3 and 6. They were beginner, and most couldn't say or understand any more English than 'Hello, how are you?'. I used flash cards, games, actions, drawing and songs to teach them responses to that question, including 'I'm tired' and 'I'm happy'. The students in this class were pretty well-behaved, and with the help of the Chinese translator they were able to understand my instructions. It all went well until it came to the song and I had trouble teaching them the words, as I had just learnt them myself and was too nervous to remember them. Overall I was happy with the experience and I think that once I get over my nerves, teaching will become more fun than stressful.

The Naughty Class

We watched a small class of 4 naughty young students. The 3 boys seemed to feed off each other, getting more and more out of control, and the girl just sat in her chair with her head hanging down between her legs and refused to do anything. She then found a balloon and refused to give it back, just ran around playing with it for the rest of class. The boys were hitting and kicking the teacher, throwing anything they could get their hands on and basically just being rotten little troublemakers. If this had been my first class, I probably would have just curled up on the floor in a foetal position and cried until they left.

Bribery

One thing we quickly learnt was that you can get students to say pretty much anything with bribery. I had a class where only one little boy showed up, and he had to be dragged into the classroom by his mother kicking and screaming. She insisted that he practice his English conversation though, so we spent most of the hour and a half long class trying to get him to say 'Hello, how are you' in English while he ran around the classroom alternating between picking up everything he could reach and throwing it at us, trying to tear the white board down from the wall and trying to kick us. We finally figured out that if we were to bribe him with games as rewards, we were able to get him to say a few English phrases. Overall, the students are much naughtier than I had anticipated, and bribery is often required to get any response out of them.

Boys and Girls

James's first young class included 3 obedient little girls that were eager to participate, sat quietly when told to, and answered questions when asked. I am noticing already such a difference between the girls and the boys. Most of the girls are obedient, calm and quiet whereas the boys are destructive, unfocused and full of energy. I chalk this up to 'boys being boys': energetic 4-year-old boys that are forced to sit and listen for an hour and a half to a language that they don't know and don't care about.

The 'Key' to Teaching Children

An experienced teacher at the school divulged his theory to me: the key to teaching children is to let go and be silly, make a fool out of yourself to make the students laugh. Is seems as if being confident is also essential, confidence will put the children at ease and elicit a better response.

Teaching is Tiring!

James and I were surprised at how energy draining teaching is: you have to be so loud and full of energy the entire time you're in front of the class. By the end of our first few hours of teaching, James and I were both dead tired and hoarse (you have to shout constantly to keep the attention of the children with such short attention spans).

Next Week: When the Real Work Begins

We are both quite nervous for next week, where we will each begin our kindergarten classes, teaching Monday – Friday, 8:30 – 4:30. We are excited to start teaching the same students every day though so that we will get to know their individual behaviours, strengths and weaknesses.  

• China
• teachingTEFL