siobhant's Blog


Application Process

Disney Englishs' Application process was simple all I had to was send in my CV and have a phone interview. The disney representative was friendly and it was easy to ask her questions.She sent me a document,which clear and easy to read. The only concern I had was about the month floating period,which was mention in the recruitment pack.She assured me that because they only have one center in Hangzhou I wouldn't be floating from...
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Two years in China

So I’ve been teaching in Yonji, Shanxi for two years now. I teach classes of 60 students 17-18 years old. It’s been difficult as they don’t have a lot of motivation to learn English.  Mainly because they feel they never leave china and many of believe that they will not be making it university. Also Chinese students prefer learning by translation rather than listening and speaking. Also they make demands for me to teach them...
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Teaching in china: Lesson planning

Thinking that it would be easier if I did the lesson planning by myself then emailing it to my assistant I said to her that I would do it by myself and email it to her by Monday each week. Also I added that she could phone or email if she had any problems. She sees this as personal insult. Its not that I don’t appreciate her input but we don’t seem to able to...
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Teaching In China: Hong Kong and going back to yonji

My company made a mistake on my z visa application form instead of saying I was apply in London the put down Hong Kong. So I ended up spending time in Hong Kong for almost a week. They didn’t realise that you can get a z visa in any Chinese embassy.   When arrived It was easy to find out the address of the embassy and  a taxi to the guest house in kolwoon. (address)...
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Christmas in china and New year!

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve written an update. This month has been very stressful because I am teaching in china with a business visa. So I constantly need to have it extend it. I needed to get it extended early January, which is not a good time because they have time off and are out of the office. However my company managed to get it extended a day after its expiration. This is...
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Teaching English in China: first week of teaching

I teach classes of 60 students. They sit around desks which are cluttered with text books and their bags. Some students bring a pen and notepad the majority does not. This means when I set them a task you see one person writing with ten people crowded round. When it is time to share the conversation to the class the same answer is repeated over and over. The topic I taught this week was British...
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Teaching in China: Going from Yuncheng to Yongji.

Teaching in China: Going from Yuncheng to Yongji.   The advert had said I would be working in Yuncheng this is a middle sized city in the Shaanxi province in northern china.  It has a large foreign teacher community. When I arrived in yungcheng I was completely out of it due to a sleepless night on the train. So I was hoping to be taken to my apartment. No such luck there. They took me...
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Teaching English in china: Starting TEFL

 I arrived here in china October 2009. So I’ve been here almost a couple of months. This trip started was   back in may this year. Nearing the end of my dissertation which was about how to teach programming I decided that I needed a break from computing. I love traveling so I looked at jobs where I could go aboard. I remembered thinking about teaching but I didn’t want to teach in a school in...
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