My time in China is not simply for travelling and in fact a lot of my
time is spent at my job. Here in Harbin my job is teaching English just like
down in Jining. I do work for a different company but do teach at an after
school program like setting. Like I have
previously mentioned, education in China is very important and it is very
common for students to go to extra school after their normal public
schooling. I work at one of these
schools and so a lot of our stuff and way of teaching is supposed to be very
fun and exciting.
The school I work for in Harbin is different than the one in Jining. It
is a lot bigger and in fact it is actually a company that is originally from
Taiwan and has branched into mainland China, with many different schools
throughout the country. I am only hired by the Harbin Company and we are our
own separate branch. I guess you would
call it a franchise where you can use the name and materials. They do use the name and also the curriculum
which is made from the original company in Taiwan. In Harbin there are about 15
different branches located throughout the city.
I personally am at five different schools and so each work day I am at a
different school. This isn’t normal and
out of about 34 different foreign teachers I am the only one in this
situation. Needless to say I do know a
lot of the city because of travelling to different schools.
I will talk a little bit more about the curriculum in a second but first
the different levels that I teach. The school itself does offer classes
starting as young as kindergarten (about three years old) and then going all
the way up to adult VIP (one-on-one tutoring) classes. No true adult classes
just simply private classes and in fact majority of the students range from
elementary school to middle school. I
personally teach kids ranging from kindergarten up to about grade 6 (with
really only having two of my classes in the higher books). The students go to class twice a week: once
during the week and then one day on the weekend. For the kindergarten class, each time they
come they have two 45 min. sessions with a ten minute break between. The rest of the classes are one hour with a
ten minute break.
The kindergarten curriculum does consist of six different books and I
have had students as young as three years old. All the books follow two
different characters and the different adventures they go on plus meeting other
people. It has about 8 units per book
and each unit includes some vocabulary with a little pattern (essentially some
grammar point) and then letters. Books 1
and 2 they do capital letters, books 3-4 lowercase letters, and finally books
5-6 how to write the letters. From book 1 some vocabulary words are: morning,
afternoon, evening and then with the pattern being Good ______ (fill in the
blank accordingly). From one of the
later books the vocabulary words are: doctor, teacher, soldier, police man,
farmer, and singer then the pattern is: Do you want to be a ________?-Yes, I
do. No, I don’t.
I personally have ten different kindergarten classes and even though
some are the same level they are different classes. Some classes are very
active while a couple classes are quiet and not as active. The class size does
range from school to school with the most I have is being 14 students. Overall
though for the kindergarten classes it is very active and a lot of different
fast paced activities. For 45 mins it isn’t much to learn so changing games and
activities around to keep the students engaged is the important thing during the
class. Some props we use in class
include sticky balls, big soft dice, small hammers (racing to hit flashcards),
hula hoops (mainly for making circles to throw something through) and our own
ideas. Overall my students are well behaved and want to learn and participate
but there are a few monsters that cause trouble.
For students who have already started elementary school there is another curriculum. These students have 8 different books with about 24
different units. Each day they do one unit and then at the end of the book they
have a final test and an oral test with their foreign teacher. The oral test consists of about ten different
questions based off that books materials. These books follow the story of two different characters and their pet
squirrel. The interesting thing about these stories is that they are
essentially fairy tales that have been slightly altered including names being
changed. Some of the fairy tales include: Wizard of Oz, Seven Dwarfs, Hansel
and Gretel, Goldilocks and three bears, Cinderella, Jack and the Giant
Beanstalk and others. Each book they get two different stories. Each unit has a dialogue (the fairy tale),
vocabulary (also found in the dialogue), pattern (grammar), and phonics. Then
units 5, 10, 15, and 20 are review units along with something called sight
words (they should be able to read these words) and cultures and festivals. For
the cultures and festivals it does do every major holiday and they learn a
little vocabulary and what it is all about.
With these older students it is good to play a lot of different
activities and games too. Each class at the beginning of the class I do put the
students into teams so that way they can get points and have competition. Some
of the same props are used but obviously with harder activities for these
students. The most students I have in a class is 20 students. With close to eleven different classes all
classes do vary even if it is the same material being taught.Overall all of my
classes are fun and it isn’t that hard to teach them because they do want to
learn. I have had a few different
observations from head teachers and they have told me I am doing a good job I
should keep doing the same type of things.
