A lot of you have emailed me asking about the teaching/classroom/student part of my China experience. There are two reasons why I haven’t mentioned my teaching schedule and classes. It’s my class load and the pay. This is my first full time job at a University (I did teach part time at Armstrong and the Brunswick campus but part-time really doesn’t count) so all I can compare this job to is my previous 32 year public school experience. So for all the Georgia public school teachers reading this ….. PLEASE DON’T get on the next plane with a baseball bat in your hand ready to kill me for my job. I have a son, sister, mother-in-law, friends and a dog that love me and want me alive.
According to my Chinese contract I have a FULL load, which is 16 class periods. I have a total of 8 different sets of students per week. They attend once a week for two back-to-back periods (90 minutes total). I teach 4 periods (or 2 classes) per day from 8 am till 11:30 am. I was one of the lucky foreign teachers in that I only work Monday thru Thursday and my schedule isn’t split up a bunch as with some of the other foreign teachers – 2 of the teachers have one night class thrown in for good measure. I haven’t been assigned the infamous “English Corner” that all the experienced foreign teachers dread (but I have been invited to attend next Monday by one of my students so I figure I will go just to have the experience). And just in case you missed it in all the statistics above – I have all afternoons off and my weekend starts Thursday afternoon. No, I am not trying to rub it in --- well--- maybe just a little. I do have to turn in lesson plans and grade assignments but I figure that will only take about 6 hours a week. (This is when 32 yrs experience helps.) Sometimes there might be small other duties such as helping with translation. Last week I spent a grand total of 10 minutes at the Foreign affairs office to help modify some of their translations such as “Teachers’ Relaxation Center” to our commonly used term “Teachers’ Lounge”. These extra duties don’t begin to pay them back for all the help they have been to me. Roger, a staff member of the Foreign Affairs office who is our Chinese translator and all around savior, spent an hour of his off time helping Nathan and I get set up with cell phones. (Cell phones will be another blog entry)
The kids are great, very respectful and friendly, I have to do some major teeth-pulling to get them to speak but I haven’t had to get spit wads off the back of my neck, break up any fights, pull pencils out of the ceiling tiles, and another big plus - I will never know if they are calling me bad names. I have 6 freshmen English major classes and 2 Post grad classes. The Post grad classes have a very slight case of senioritis whereas I actually have a harder time getting them to speak then the freshmen. There are 2 girls, Rachel and Elaine, in my second post grad class that let me join them for lunch every Monday. It is nice to experience eating in the student canteen and to talk to them out of the classroom. They are trying to teach me the names of the foods I like, but I am hopeless. Don’t worry I can still point so I won’t starve.
Second reason I haven’t revealed work information is the pay. I want all the Georgia teachers to think back to the very first year you began teaching. Remember eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for 2 months because you started work in August but did NOT get the first paycheck until the end of September! Here at ZUFE they pay at the end of the month. Since I only started teaching last week, I figured I would get paid at the end of March or if I was really lucky they would give me a one week paycheck at the end of February. Neither- I got a full month’s paycheck the 27th of February. All cash too which is weird, but it saves time trying to find a bank to cash it. Wu Mae here I come……
The classrooms are unheated and un-air-conditioned but in the winter you dress warmly and keep your gloves on. And in the summer I plan to sweat with the best of them. Chalk, chalk dust and blackboards bring back memories don’t they – I will now again have to worry about leaning on the board and getting white stripes on my back and pants. And I thought I was sooooo smart to bring lots of black and dark colored clothes. My two post grad classes are located in one of the few multimedia classrooms but the computer is in Chinese so that provides an interesting Monday morning challenge. I am really glad I am so familiar with the menu bar locations of MSWord & Explorer commands because I sure can’t read them. It does have Internet access so I can show them English language sites if I want. All the classrooms have a 4 inch high ‘stage’ and podium. Student desks and chairs are the only other furniture in the room. Classrooms are all spotlessly clean with beautiful loud echoing marble floors.
When I arrive at 7:45 am for my 8:05 am classes, the students are already in their seats and reciting English out loud – HONEST I am not lying. It shocked me too – I thought I was in the wrong classroom, but this is actually NORMAL CHINESE student behavior. I almost forgot to mention that the students all pick English names so that non-Chinese speaking teachers can pronounce them. Sometimes they choose some strange ones such as Ring, Fly, Bony, Windy, King, Rain, Clean, Clever, Eleven (there are 2 of these), Vivid, Echo, Cicada, Careless, River, Elephant, Dream and City but they are all eager to learn and they all try hard. I think I got really lucky with my first experience teaching overseas.
Side Note: Someone is setting fireworks off as I type this entry and its only 3:45pm. Fireworks seem to be a daily occurrence. They seem to like the noisy ones and not the pretty ones. Also the size of the firecrackers look like they would blow a lot more than a finger off if handled improperly. If you have perused the side pictures you probably noticed that they even put fireworks on cakes.
