First Glimpse Inside a Chinese Classroom

R. is a soft-spoken, educated, vertically impressive, late-20's, former intel officer with the Army national guard. R. has absolutely no control over his 2nd grade classroom beyond a few curious onlookers in the front two rows. It's not that R. doesn't have innate teaching skills, and it's not that he's unorganized. He came in prepared. He has a naturally effusive personality. The kids just don't care.

They speak about 50 words of English and he speaks about 20 words of Mandarin. Parents demand native English speakers, so the school provides "Conversational English" teachers for 6 year olds who can barely write in Chinese. That's where the contracts are, so that's where we go.

I came to observe some classes before mine start next week. I've heard the horror stories and want to see them first hand. After getting lost on the bus system I walk into his classroom right as the bell rings and take a seat in the back. Three kids rush to shake my hand and say, "Hello! How are you?!"

As I take my seat against the wall a kid sitting to my left is staring. I look over. I was being stared down with the most earnest face a six year old can muster. Still staring, he put his finger to his nose and pushed the cartiledge up. No smiles, this kid means business. I know Chinese have some stereotype that Westerners have big noses... was this some statement concerning my own nose? He pushed it back down almost to his lips and broke into maniacal laughter. I popped back into teacher mode and snapped while moving my hand to point at R. who was trying to get the kids to talk about birthdays.

I left after 20 minutes to visit another teacher at the same school. His class was better. A. was fluent in Chinese and had older kids plus the show-stopper: a bag of candy for kids who got right answers. As I walked in he was handing out small scraps of paper. He had to supply it himself. When he asked for paper in the front office, a lady responded by moving her fingers up and down the same way you'd make a hand-puppet talk. In extra slow-motion, she enunciated her meaning: "Talk." It was conversational English, there were no books and no supplies. Get up there and talk.

Impressed with his effectiveness, I bought a big bag of candy on the way home. I've made a visit to my school and hope it's a smoother run than what everyone else is experiencing in the public schools. I'm hoping my own experience will help with little kids, but we'll see. I melt around kids but I'm going to have to play the role of mean non-smiling jerk for at least a few weeks.


Tags: Treyopia teaching public schools education Shenzhen China stories ESL EFL TEFL TESL forieng English Conversation Colloquial