Summer School teaching in Tianjin

[jennz]

I am soon heading to Tianjin from the UK (still got to get a business visa) to teach at a Summer School for 8 weeks. I gained my CertTESOL last year but have only taught 3 weeks of English since then at a private English teaching school in the UK. As I was only paid for hours in the classroom and not for preparation time, the pay was not enough to cover my mortgage etc so I gave up and went back to my normal teaching job - IT training at a local hospital. However, I have decided to give the Summer School in Tianjin a go. I'm feeling rather nervous though as I'm used to teaching adults and Summer School is for children from 6-15 years old.

Has anyone been to China as a new teacher - especially teaching children at Summer School - and if so can they offer any tips or advice on what to expect and how to manage children/teenagers? I believe the school does use workbooks but apart from that I haven't been given a curriculum or much idea of how they structure their classes. I believe that the 11-15 age group has classes up to 3 hours long and that's a bit of a scary thought. How can you keep kids interested and motivated for that length of time?

Any words of wisdom would be much appreciated!

Jennz

[anonymoose]

That sounds pretty difficult. How much leeway you have in what you can do depends on what the school is expecting in terms of text books and class structure, and also the age range and range of abilities within a class.

Generally, I'd say prepare lots of games and activities. Of course, they should have a language focus, but don't worry too much about being productive all of the time. For example, if the kids will be sitting down for 3 hours, then you might like to play 'Simon says' or something to get them up for a while. Try initially to vary your activities and see which ones the kids respond better to. Then focus on those in subsequent classes. Try to keep each activity fairly short (not more than about 15 mins) even if it's going well. You want to stop and move onto the next activity while they are still paying attention. If they get bored, it will be difficult to recover the class. Successful activities can be used over and over again in subsequent classes provided you don't kill the activity by overdoing it in any given class. If you have approximately equal numbers of boys and girls within a class, you can hold competitions between them. These can get quite competitive.

Whatever you do, you need to be strong. If you see the class is not progressing too well, then be assertive and move onto the next activity. You always need to provide a clear direction to the class, and remain in control, otherwise it is bound to disintegrate into anarchy.

[jennz]

Thanks for the reply annonymoose! I have to admit I am feeling pretty apprehensive about the whole thing having never worked with children before. However, I believe I will have a week or so from the day I arrive to the day I first start teaching, to settle in and start to prepare so perhaps it won't be as bad as I'm imagining, and hopefully there'll be other newish teachers in the same boat as me and we'll all be learning together! I'm still waiting for my letters from China so I can apply for a visa. Most days over the past few weeks I've been waking in the early hours considering pulling out and giving the whole thing a miss!! Maybe that's telling me something .....!!!

[anonymoose]

Don't pull out - I'm sure you'll enjoy the experience, and even if you don't appreciate it at the time, I'm sure you'll be glad you did it in years to come. Anyway, it's only 8 weeks - that's not so long that you can't stick it out even if it doesn't go smoothly.

But look on the bright side. Thousands of people come every year without experience (and many even without qualifications) to do the same thing, and in most cases, it's the students that suffer from rubbish teachers than teachers suffering from difficult classes.

[jennz]

Thanks for the positive comments. Quite reassuring! I'm sure I'll be fine once I get there and get to meet the other teachers and find out a bit more about the structure of the classes. It's going to take me right out of my comfort zone so I guess that's the real scary part! I've just subscribed to the Staff Room of OneStopEnglish.com so am checking that out for games and activities for young learners. As you say, I'll probably look back on it in the months/years ahead and be thankful I took the opportunity when I did. Unfortunately I'm at an age where I won't be able to teach in China for much longer due to their age restrictions .... so it's now or never!! Thanks once again.