high school blues

just received my teaching schedule this week. completely over the moon because i only have to teach two days at my high school (known as jiang bei san zhong or the experimental high school) now, and not four like i have been doing. this is because two new foreign teachers arrived here today, to take the load off our backs a bit. dell is from usa and olga is from russia. dell seems like a nice guy, and olga seems cool too, despite the fact i didn't get to speak to her.

ahhh, our high school. there are many reasons why it's a bit of a terror to work there. firstly, the class size. we get shoved with about 50-70 students per class. this is absolutely crazy for people who have no official teaching qualifications, and therefore most likely have no idea how to control a class of this many students.

secondly, a lot of the kids think it's ok to talk in class. without them talking, i already have a hard enough time trying to make my voice carry to the back of a room full of this many people. i feel like i'm on the verge of shouting for 45 minutes (multiplied by 4 classes - consecutive). now, when you have students chatting away, it's almost impossible for the other students, who actually WANT to learn, to hear you. i've tried my hand at getting militant on their asses. it's actually very fun and stress relieving to get angry at the students. the first disciplinary technique is simply shouting, "BE QUIET!" or "STOP TALKING" or "SHUT UP". followed by a spiel explaining how frustrated, angry and disappointed i am to have travelled all the way from australia and to be treated this way. the ones that actually understand this spiel, usually feel guilty about it. but unfortunately, it's only the good, well-behaved students that understand my point. sometimes a good student apologises on behalf of the baddies, which makes me feel pretty shitty. i use this technique when there are many noisy culprits in the room and you can't just target one offender. it sometimes works, but they're usually quiet for only a few minutes, before they start talking agin. you have to repeat yourself again and again to get any worthy results. another good technique is giving evil eyes to the culprits and becoming totally quiet until they stop talking and notice i'm looking at them. this generally scares them shitless, but again the effects only last for a few minutes. the best tactics so far are getting a student to stand up for the rest of the lesson, or to send them out of the class. it's the best way to make an example of them and put them to shame in front of their friends. i've heard of another chinese teacher hitting a student with a book. it sounds enjoyable, but i don't think the headmaster would respond too well to a foreign teacher performing such a violent act on his students. i'm also yet to try slamming down an object on a desk ferociously, to make them jump out of their seats. i will attempt that one, one day when i'm really furious.

the third reason why our high school is arduous, is that the students' english is often not very good. so if i call upon them to answer a question, they usually stand up, look into space uncomfortably for about 30 seconds, then tell me "i'm sorry, i don't know", and then sit down. now this is good when i want to waste time. but when i ask a question to the entire class, a lot of the time i'm faced with dead silence and puzzled looks. very frustrating. these are just a few of the reasons why it sucks to be a foreign teacher at a chinese high school.

it's much better teaching at our small foreign studies college, where class sizes are anywhere between a handful of students (maybe like 4-8), up to 30 at most. plus these students generally WANT to learn, thus don't talk as much and are more attentive.

i must hand it to the high school students though. those kids certainly are troopers. they start school at about 6.20 - 7.00 (i think it varies) in the morning, and go home at about 8.30 or 9pm at night. they attend school monday to saturday - six days a week. AND they get homework on top of this. oh, and sundays is usually spent studying too. where's the day off? no wonder kids are always sleeping in class. i feel so sorry for them sometimes. i knew how hard it was to pay attention in class for 7 hours in primary and high school. the length of the chinese school hours is just goddamn ridiculous. on top of this, i'm sure the school and their parents put huge amounts of pressure on them, especially considering almost all of them are only children. aww bless them. they sure deserve all the success they get in life. they work so damn hard for it.

• you can see more photos of us teaching at the high school here