and then go here and watch these…
The Impotence of Proofreading
Like, You Know?

Yesterday ended my run as an ESL teacher; a roll I somehow managed to play for two and a half years without anyone being the wiser that I hadn’t a clue what it was to “be” a teacher.

I, as many, used ESL as a means to an end; as a way to experience living in another country, and generally just experience life. It was something new and something that enabled me to get out of the circular grind of my life in Canada and continue travelling.

It was the easiest-hardest job I’ve ever had. In any other country, that duality would be hard to explain, but in China, contradictions like that are the norm, and with ESL it fits well.

For nearly two years I’ve not worked more than 16 hours a week, and that provided me with enough cash to live a relatively comfortable life of taxis, bars and eating out. That’s the “easiest” part.

However, as anyone that’s a teacher will testify to, teaching itself isn’t all a breeze. Unlike the cornucopia of cubical jobs out there, teaching requires you to be on all the time. If you tune out for even a moment, the students can smell it, and they attack – resulting in absolute chaos of biblical proportions.

On the flight from San Francisco to Beijing back in 2005, I remember wondering if I would be any good at teaching. Generally speaking, I am never concerned about picking up new tasks, and am confident in doing pretty much anything I set my mind to. However, working with kids was something I had no experience with, and I was nervous as could be.

What I’ve learned since is that I love kids, and if there was one thing that I’ll miss about not being a teacher any more, it’d be them. Kids are everything the rest of us should strive (to remember) to be: playful, curious, full of energy and empty of parameters to operate by. Kids just do, unaware of the idea of ‘limitations’, and its hard not to respect that.

As I’m feeling all nostalgic, here’s a rundown of the places I have taught here in China, and my impressions:

Future School (Aston English) – Dalian, Liaoning

This is the school that brought me to China. Though they pay too little for anyone staying here long-term, they are a great place to start, and with the top brass being American, most things are done with a familiar feel. They generally take care of their staff, and have been doing it long enough to know what problems (and what solutions) fresh laowai are likely to have.

While teaching for them I taught a range of levels – from kindergarten-aged kids right up to uni students and adults. I was also often sub-contracted out to various other places (at additional pay). I taught business English to: Dalian Shide Group (one of Dalian’s biggest businesses, and owner of the Dalian football team), to students of an IBM post-grad program, and to the local Jinzhou office of Coats – a British thread manufacturer.

I worked at two of Future School’s many locations in Dalian, one in Jinzhou (Future 5) and one in Jinsanjiao (Future 4) – both were great places to work while I was there. I particularly liked one of the receptionists at Future 5 – so much so that I married her.

No. 19 Middle School – Dalian, Liaoning

After being with Future School for nearly a year and a half, I began looking for ways I might be able to up my income a bit. I found a job working in the public school system. Though you have to be more self-sufficient (up until then Future School had provided all housing), the pay was considerably better (FS: 3,500/mo. for 15h/wk.; Public School: 7,000/mo. for 15h/wk.).

The class sizes were the first considerable difference. As Future is a private language school, classes rarely run more than 15-18 kids (and can be much less than that). In the public schools you’re teaching to massive classes of 30-60 kids. This changes everything when it comes to how you arrange your classes, games you play, activities, etc.

Additionally the textbook (Oxford English something…) was absolute bullocks. I think I used it in the first class and then never again. This required a bit more preparation on my part, but having some experience under my belt, I wasn’t too bothered by it. Whatever might be said about private language schools, their books and class plans are generally much more organized. The public schools are just a mess. Crappy (likely due to cost) books chosen by someone with little to know idea about teaching English, and next to no resources to help expand on the “concepts” of the book’s lessons.

I finished working for the school this time last year, and though I still had eight months to go on my contract, I broke it. It was the only time I’ve ever broken a contract, and I’d do it again. The woman I worked for – anyone else work for Danni in Dalian? – was constantly giving me the runaround about my visa (I never had a legitimate visa while working for her – it was always “coming”), and did nothing when I had problems.

Both vBlog.03: Field Trip! and vBlog.04: Morning Exercise revolved around this school.

DD Dragon Suzhou – Beijing Epoch(Zhou Jun)

At the end of last summer, Maggie and I decided to move down to Suzhou for a change of scenery. Through my friend Hector (whom I had met via this blog), I got connected to a man named Zhou Jun. Jun came highly recommended, and I quickly found out why. He is fair and honest with his teachers – something many schools here could learn from. As is the case with any employment, my time working for Jun was not problem free, but he was always quick to try and solve things, and always a straight shooter.

Jun runs a teacher recruitment company out of Beijing, and I believe has teachers all over China. In Suzhou he provides teachers for Suzhou Experimental Primary School (SEPS), and a couple other places (which, at the time, included a DD Dragon franchise in the SND area).

DD was much like Future School. Foreign (in this case, Taiwanese) run, extremely structured lesson plans, reasonably good books and materials, and small class sizes. I really enjoyed working there, but for the location.

vBlog.07: Happy Birthday was done with DD’s students.

Suzhou Experimental Primary School – Zhou Jun

Because I wasn’t happy living in the ass-end of Suzhou, I found an apartment downtown and as such asked Jun to transfer me to another school. He moved me to SEPS, but not the main (centrally located) campus – rather the boarding school in Xiangcheng – Suzhou’s newest development zone.

This is the school I worked at until yesterday. It was much like my previous experience working at a primary school – crappy books, few support materials, and little classroom help. However, as you learn quickly, it’s not difficult working around those things.

Though the staff and students were great, the commute (about 30 minutes there and 45-75 minutes back, due to rush-hour traffic and construction) soured the place for me. It was a major inconvenience spending so much of my time sitting in a taxi or on a bus.

And that’s the rundown of the schools I’ve worked for. There’ve been a good number of additional side-jobs along the way, but that about sums it up. Should anyone be thinking of working for any of these places, I’m more than happy to offer my experiences in more detail to them. Just contact me.

It’s been a long and interesting journey being an ESL teacher. Though its had its frustrating moments, by and large I highly recommend it. If you’re just getting into the ESL game, and you’re worried about what type of teacher you might make, and how the students might react to you – don’t be. Just do it, you wont regret it.

As for myself, I’m off to focus on learning Chinese and grow my Web design/development business (more on that soon). Though I may grab a couple tutoring gigs here or there to help out with the bills, I’m really looking forward to this change. After 2.5 years, teaching became too comfortable. It’s easy to continue being an ESL teacher indefinitely. The life is comfy and the work is minimal; however, there’s not much room for growth or advancement, and so it is that I approach this new “phase” with a truck-full of excitement (and just an ounce of trepidation).

What I knew less about, however, was kids. More than the strange culture, weird food, and unknown living arrangements I was hurling myself towards; teaching a bunch of kids was the source of my in-flight sweats.

I new jack about kids. Despite having two younger sisters and being the oldest of all my cousins, I had had remarkably little exposure to little kids. My pre-landing opinion was basically that they broke things, liked to always have jam on their hands for impromptu Spiderman competitions, and often got away with things I couldn’t get away with because they were smaller and their eyes were proportionately larger.

However, since coming to China I’ve realized something: I love kids. Not in the Gary Glitter way or anything, just plain love how kids are cool. Much cooler than I previously thought. They know how to make the simplest things fun, they ask a lot of important questions (“what’s your favourite food?” and “do you like dogs?”) and generally are quite agreeable additions to the planet.

So, when I heard about a charity that specifically helps kids, in China, I was eager to get involved and do what little I could with this blog to get the word out about them, and as such sent off an e-mail inquiring about it. What I got back was a little surprising:

As you can see, the response, though very kindly put, expressed that I’m not kid-friendly enough to promote them. This really made me think. It’s true, I generally spout off in language that I’d use in day-to-day life. Sometimes I even push that, just to prove that I can and should always be allowed to. But to be honest, not until reading that letter did I realize that there’s a whole sub-section of society that strongly disagrees not with the things I say, but rather the way in which I say them.

This of course brings me back to my post about profanity (currently outranking any other page on this site for Google-brought viewers), and makes me realize how much emphasis we put on the ‘types’ of words we use.

This isn’t the first time people have shown distaste for the language on this blog. Back when I first arrived in Suzhou someone linked to one of my posts on the local Suzhou Expat forum and mentioned that some people should check it out. The link, apparently, was deleted – as Suzhou Expats didn’t want to have any sort of association with a ‘blog like this’ out of fear that they might get their site blocked (which oddly enough, as of this writing, it is).

Going back further, I was initially denied Google ads because I had made the colourful comment that China ‘has made me a racist’ after having one of the baddest of Bad China Days.

Perhaps I feel a little strongly that everyone should be given the choice for themselves on what’s offensive and what’s not. Perhaps if Google displays some search results that disagree with you, you should up your Net content-filter, cancel your cable subscription and go on pretending ‘that kind of world’ doesn’t exist. Or perhaps, just maybe, people should step back and realize that there are a whole lot more ‘evil’ things in this world than words. Particularly words that aren’t about hate, encouraging violence, or even being all that mean. Snif.

Anyway, it’s still a good cause, and though I’ll not ‘taint’ their cause (or burn out their children’s eyes) by placing my site with theirs among the Google results by including its name – you can visit it here.

As for the Suzhou Expat Association – are there any male members? If the URL remains blocked, they should see if www.taitai-rific.com is available.

So it is with a bit of pride that I got the following e-mail:

Now, I realize it’s not quite the periodical’s main news site or anything, but it’s still kind of neat to be featured. I’m even on the main TEFL page.

Additionally, they’ve got a spot for people to review my blog… so, if you’ve got some kind comments (and high stars) to give check it out – otherwise, fuck off.

Thanks again to Expat Interviews for taking interest.

Well, one such cool person is Gionata, or as the Dalian crew came to know him – John. John, you may remember, stayed with Maggie and I back in February. He stayed with us after contacting me through GlobalFreeloaders , and after a couple weeks continued on his journey. And what a journey, as he's trekking around the world on his motorbike (read more about it at his site).

I've stayed in touch with Gionata via MSN over the past few months and just got word that he's in Indonesia. Recently he stayed with a Mr. Mucsin, who offers free room and board (yeah, that's food) for English speaking travellers as long as they help out at his in-home English school while they visit. Travellers are welcome to stay as long as they like, and are apparently well-appreciated (you caught the bit about free food right?). Here's a bit more from Gionata's blog:

Mr. Muchsin and GEC

Mr. Muchsin has built this school with his own hands and he offers his students the big opportunity to learn English.

He also provides a room and his whole house to all those tourists and travellers.

Since yesterday i'm a guest in his school.

I don't have to pay for rent, food neither specify a limit of time for my staying. It had only been required me to offer my contribute in term of teaching English and to spend some of my time with Mr. Muchsin students.

Every tourist is more than welcome here, with no obligations.

I would like to donate Mr. Muchsin some of my money, as i did in Cambodia, because of the education and the delightfulness he shares with his students.

What a fantastic win-win swap. As Gionata mentions, he is looking to donate to Mr. Muchsin's school and unique concept himself. He also provided the school's address (below) for any people that feel this is a cause they would like to help support. I'm sure any donations would be accepted – English language books, school supplies and of course, cash.

Mr. Muchsin
G.E.C. School,
Jalan Pemuda Laut, Gg. Kemuning No. 21
Dumai, Riau, Sumatra,
Indonesia
Phone (0765) 7007546

 And if you're in Sumatra and in need of a place to stay … look Mr. Muchsin up. Here are a couple photos of the school. Notice the difference in what Gionata is teaching and what Mr. Muchsin is:

For a 45 minute session it’s 150 RMB (about $21 CND), so not too bad in the money department. However, it’s at the complete opposite end of town.

To take a bus there it would be about three hours round trip crammed into a piece of overstuffed metal on wheels, and a taxi, though more comfortable, would cut the 150 RMB for the class down to about 70-80 RMB. My first day I rested a lot of my decision about continuing on what the class was like, and they were horrible. I mean, I had never faced a class like this one before.

The school learns children from some of the wealthiest families in Dalian, and as such the kids tend not to care much for classes that are being run by some white guy at dinner time. I’d say my first night I had the attention of maybe 3 kids out of the group of about 20. It didn’t help that they are all at that “the world can just go stick it’s head up it’s ass, because it just doesn’t understand me” age of 14-15.

I got home, thought it over and realized that despite the salary, it wasn’t worth it and as such e-mailed my contact there. This brought a phone call and a plea that I at least finish the week because they couldn’t find another teacher so quickly (I, incidently, had agreed to the job the day before). They offered to provide transportation if I’d stay until the end of the week.
Day two was much better. The class’ regular teacher hung out for the 45 minutes, and the kids (though mostly disinterested) didn’t spend the whole class gossiping with each other. This coupled with the free ride shone a little sun on the whole thing and sticking it out this week wasn’t tough.

The students are actually pretty interesting. They’re completely different than the students I teach. Obviously older by half a decade, but also they really are just from the complete opposite side of the tracks. I’ve mentioned before that my regular school is in one of the poorest areas of Dalian, and many of these new kids are Korean or Japanese – making them from one of the richest areas of Dalian.

The week’s up and as I write this I’m contemplating a new offer of slightly less money but with transportation for next week. I wish I remembered what money was worth.

As there is only five foreign teachers at the Jinzhou school, and I’m the only one that wasn’t working today – when Matthew called in sick, it sort of fell on me to cover for him. I’m beginning to think that the Great Energy Source has it in for me and just likes to see what happens when I’m put to a challenge.

I only had to do a two hour class first thing this morning, which was stressful because it’s all new – but otherwise went off well, then a 1/2 hour Child/Parent class with little kids (so cute) and a one hour class to wrap up the day. So, most of my day was spent sitting around and chatting with the receptionists.

The kids are good by and by… and I think I’ll find my groove soon enough. The 2 hour class first thing was difficult, but after I remembered that there was lesson plans in one of the books I had been given during orientation – the rest all fell together.

But brutally, I am filling in tomorrow as well – for a full 9 hour day. Then Monday sees me starting my standard 5-day work week… so seven days at a new job with no break. Fun.

Putting aside the whole “responsible for the English speakers of tomorrow” bit, the job isn’t so difficult and I’ve got a teacher’s assistant, who is Chinese and makes it quite a bit easier to deal with the kids (and makes a handy prop).

My schedule has me working with a range of kids aging from about 8 to 13 or so. By the end of the day I did everything in my power to stop myself from calling my Gr. 5 French teacher and offering to buy her a beer. I actually had to stop myself from saying “Tres bien!” instead of the much more English, “Very good!”

Well… I finally got a heating pad for my bed, and it works like a charm… time to go keep it company under all those covers. I’ve been told that a woman from the school is coming to put plastic over my window on Monday… not entirely sure it’ll make much of a difference, but…

I’m heading into my second day of orientation and yet another day of trying to track down access to my Canadian bank account. If I had had an inkling of knowledge that this would be so difficult (I think I’ve tried around 20 ATMs in Jinzhou and Dalian) I would have tried a lot harder to find an international ATM at one of the various airports I hit on my way here.

The training is neat, and is giving me loads of ideas on how to manage my classes as well as dispelling some of my fears. Meeting some of the other new teachers was good too, though somewhat useless as they are all in Dalian, and I’m a 40 minute taxi ride away.

Today I’m going to make use of my time in Dalian (and access to Carrefore[sp?] – sort of like Walmart) to buy a rice cooker, possibly a hotpot (see previous entry), some longjohns (have I mentioned how cold it is here?), and maybe some slippers.

I should also track down some new VCDs. Though the ones that came with the apartment were plentiful, they’re a bit crap in the quality department – and for $0.60/VCD… I can’t go too wrong.

Oh, I guess HOW I am going to buy these things if I can’t access my bank account is a big question. After an exhausting trek around Dalian yesterday, I arrived back to Jinzhou to my school manager Sherry’s sympathy. She gave me 800 kuai from my first month’s salary (not usually paid until Feb. 10) to get me by and then took me out for a feast at a local restaurant. I discovered last night that she is the same age as me, though she insists that she is OLDER as she was born in January.

Alright – I think the water is warm. If not I’ll either freeze to the bathroom floor or be the unpopular student at training today. Wish me luck.