My First Day as a Teacher
I arrived in Yantai, Shandong, on the coast, with the expectation that I was teaching middle school but I soon discovered some interesting news!! I am teaching kindergarten, yes that is correct they have put me in charge of the
little ones! Can't see my degree coming to much use in the next few months, but hey at least I can release my inner child. I begin my classes at half eight, not too early, I started the same day as the kids so there was lots of tears and “I need pee pee” as well as a babble of Korean, Chinese, Russian (yes I’m in an international school) and some poor little girl cried all day, I felt like her at certain points! The morning goes a little like this: from 8.30 til 11.30 we have circle time, then I do my 20 minute lesson, then we split the class up an do art, reading, playing, etc.
We also have 30 minutes doing outside activities an by this I mean….we sing!!! That’s right after 23 years of not inflicting my singing, if you can call it that, on anyone, I have to sing to a bunch of kids!! It is not a pretty sight, these kids ear drums will be destroyed in no time….so laugh at will guys, I sure am. After this outside stuff, in which numerous kids fell and cried, we go back inside for another lesson or well play time who knows?
After lunch the kids have nap time, now that was stressful, trying to get 20+ kids to sleep, there was tears and screaming, I just gave up and thought kids if I were you I would take a nap…
After this I wandered about the kindergarten building, sat in the smallest of chairs until half two when the kids returned. I was suppose to be doing lesson plans but no one has yet to inform me of anything, but its the first day so I’m bound to get information soon, I hope! My next class who are roughly 4-5yrs old are a lively lot and quite entertaining but they caught on to Hannah Banana, so I’m now teacher banana, good times! We did some drawing an playing and then it was a little girls birthday so we had cake; apparently we tend to have birthday parties every month and you cannot beat free cake!
After the kids had their share of cake and singing it was home time, so by the time it takes to take shoes off, put slippers on, get water bottles, go pee pee, put shoes back on, the day goes in ok! However it also tests your mental health, I mean being at the level of 3-5yrs old is difficult, but thankfully my purple feet keep them entertained.
little ones! Can't see my degree coming to much use in the next few months, but hey at least I can release my inner child. I begin my classes at half eight, not too early, I started the same day as the kids so there was lots of tears and “I need pee pee” as well as a babble of Korean, Chinese, Russian (yes I’m in an international school) and some poor little girl cried all day, I felt like her at certain points! The morning goes a little like this: from 8.30 til 11.30 we have circle time, then I do my 20 minute lesson, then we split the class up an do art, reading, playing, etc.
We also have 30 minutes doing outside activities an by this I mean….we sing!!! That’s right after 23 years of not inflicting my singing, if you can call it that, on anyone, I have to sing to a bunch of kids!! It is not a pretty sight, these kids ear drums will be destroyed in no time….so laugh at will guys, I sure am. After this outside stuff, in which numerous kids fell and cried, we go back inside for another lesson or well play time who knows?
After lunch the kids have nap time, now that was stressful, trying to get 20+ kids to sleep, there was tears and screaming, I just gave up and thought kids if I were you I would take a nap…
After this I wandered about the kindergarten building, sat in the smallest of chairs until half two when the kids returned. I was suppose to be doing lesson plans but no one has yet to inform me of anything, but its the first day so I’m bound to get information soon, I hope! My next class who are roughly 4-5yrs old are a lively lot and quite entertaining but they caught on to Hannah Banana, so I’m now teacher banana, good times! We did some drawing an playing and then it was a little girls birthday so we had cake; apparently we tend to have birthday parties every month and you cannot beat free cake!
After the kids had their share of cake and singing it was home time, so by the time it takes to take shoes off, put slippers on, get water bottles, go pee pee, put shoes back on, the day goes in ok! However it also tests your mental health, I mean being at the level of 3-5yrs old is difficult, but thankfully my purple feet keep them entertained.
Seven Weeks In....
Kindergarten is going surprising well, after the chaotic first two weeks I have established some form of teaching, playing and yes singing, its pains me every single time! My K2 class are a wild bunch, probably the worst class of kindergarden, probably because I’m their teacher and well I let them make too much noise! The first thing I do every morning is stretching exercises, it warms the kids up and gets them moving whilst also learning the body parts! However the stretching excerises took a turn for the worse this week when I stretched and they all began pointing, laughing and screaming in joy. I was baffled but then realised that they could see my stomach, thus the next thing i knew twelve little hands were up my top and kids were going mental, note to self tuck t-shirt in from now on!
Teaching the letter D was eventful….Dinosaur and Dragon being the favourite words, Duck failed miserably as it cannot roar or breathe fire or is in anyway exciting for a bunch of four year olds!!! So next thing I know I have six dinosaurs/dragons in my class, lets just say the noise was not appreciated by the rest of the staff! Next lesson after much demanding of dinosaurs impressions, yes my strange weird faces that I make go down exceptionally well with my class, they must think I’ve totally lost my mind! We started on the days of the week….incredibly boring….so I tempted fate and thought it is fine, no one knows me and began to sing the Happy Days theme tune!! My original plan had been to take in my laptop and play the video on youtube and thus not have to sing but kindergarten does not have wifi! So there I am standing waving my arms about, attempting to sing the theme tune, imagining myself after a few beers and therefore invincible and I was simply stared at with very blank expressions before an eruption of laughter!!! But I battled through and after the third time I had them up clapping and dancing and finally saying the days of the week….TEACHING SUCCESS!
Teaching the letter D was eventful….Dinosaur and Dragon being the favourite words, Duck failed miserably as it cannot roar or breathe fire or is in anyway exciting for a bunch of four year olds!!! So next thing I know I have six dinosaurs/dragons in my class, lets just say the noise was not appreciated by the rest of the staff! Next lesson after much demanding of dinosaurs impressions, yes my strange weird faces that I make go down exceptionally well with my class, they must think I’ve totally lost my mind! We started on the days of the week….incredibly boring….so I tempted fate and thought it is fine, no one knows me and began to sing the Happy Days theme tune!! My original plan had been to take in my laptop and play the video on youtube and thus not have to sing but kindergarten does not have wifi! So there I am standing waving my arms about, attempting to sing the theme tune, imagining myself after a few beers and therefore invincible and I was simply stared at with very blank expressions before an eruption of laughter!!! But I battled through and after the third time I had them up clapping and dancing and finally saying the days of the week….TEACHING SUCCESS!
Mid-Autumn Festival
September 22nd was Mid-Autumn Festival, so we had Moon Cakes, they are incredibly strange
things! The festival is about missing people you can’t be with and has something to do with a goddess and a human lover, I think! But the moon cakes have the yolk of an egg inside them, its possibly one of the weirdest things to eat EVER!!!! Raw egg = gross!!!! Some Moon Cakes have green bean or red bean paste in them, others have fruit and nuts and even meat but they are just so strange! So as its the month of sharing in kindergarten we all got moon cakes, and well we shared them. Many of the kids faces turned to disgust at the taste of the cake thus I wasn’t alone in secretly spitting it into a tissue, the kids however spat it all over the table, themselves and cried out 'yuck, yuck!' Maybe not the best sharing lesson I’ve had this month!
After several stressful weeks with my youngest class I decided that teaching is not the way forward, chaos is! So after five seconds of reading, well attempting to read Peter and Jane I decided that my animal flashcards were much more exciting, especially when worn as a hat. Then during music time I got them all up dancing, it was great, I was climbed on, I was strangled, I was swinging them about, thankfully no one got hurt, but they loved it. Teacher Lily wasn’t impressed “they are suppose to sit quietly and listen to the music”, but kids love dancing! So I defied the sitting quietly and continued to let them dance, albit quietly, but at least they can move to the music and therefore they bond with me more and actually speak the ocassional word of english. But the biggest achievement this week was getting a hug from Trixie, she is really really shy
and doesn’t speak and used to cry anytime someone looked at her but last week she came up to me and gave me a massive hug and then held my hand up to the canteen. In China sometimes its the smallest things that makes one very happy and gives you the encouragement to keep on teaching even when you feel like giving up!
things! The festival is about missing people you can’t be with and has something to do with a goddess and a human lover, I think! But the moon cakes have the yolk of an egg inside them, its possibly one of the weirdest things to eat EVER!!!! Raw egg = gross!!!! Some Moon Cakes have green bean or red bean paste in them, others have fruit and nuts and even meat but they are just so strange! So as its the month of sharing in kindergarten we all got moon cakes, and well we shared them. Many of the kids faces turned to disgust at the taste of the cake thus I wasn’t alone in secretly spitting it into a tissue, the kids however spat it all over the table, themselves and cried out 'yuck, yuck!' Maybe not the best sharing lesson I’ve had this month!
After several stressful weeks with my youngest class I decided that teaching is not the way forward, chaos is! So after five seconds of reading, well attempting to read Peter and Jane I decided that my animal flashcards were much more exciting, especially when worn as a hat. Then during music time I got them all up dancing, it was great, I was climbed on, I was strangled, I was swinging them about, thankfully no one got hurt, but they loved it. Teacher Lily wasn’t impressed “they are suppose to sit quietly and listen to the music”, but kids love dancing! So I defied the sitting quietly and continued to let them dance, albit quietly, but at least they can move to the music and therefore they bond with me more and actually speak the ocassional word of english. But the biggest achievement this week was getting a hug from Trixie, she is really really shy
and doesn’t speak and used to cry anytime someone looked at her but last week she came up to me and gave me a massive hug and then held my hand up to the canteen. In China sometimes its the smallest things that makes one very happy and gives you the encouragement to keep on teaching even when you feel like giving up!
Halloween and Mummy's
Well the letter S brought with it snakes and spiders, yes i do teach words such as sun, square, six, seven, but they loose interest too quickly! So we made play dough spiders, then we drew spiderman and then the kids became spiderman….fun times! But to my great delight I found The Very Hungry Caterpillar book in the library, which the kids love, especially the picture of the butterfly, so we detoured from spiders and dinosaurs and drew butterflies…well at least they have one nice drawing in their books!
My Halloween lessons were also a massive success, I made powerpoints and found loads of cartoon pictures of witches, pumpkins, vampires, bats and monsters. The boys went mentaL, Sunny, my only girl, was a little scared but it was very cute, she was hiding behind me and screaming when each picture came up! But they loved the mummy, although I think I may have confused them massively as we had previously done I love my mummy the week before, so hopefully they don’t expect their mums to wrap themselves up in bandages anytime soon!
My Halloween lessons were also a massive success, I made powerpoints and found loads of cartoon pictures of witches, pumpkins, vampires, bats and monsters. The boys went mentaL, Sunny, my only girl, was a little scared but it was very cute, she was hiding behind me and screaming when each picture came up! But they loved the mummy, although I think I may have confused them massively as we had previously done I love my mummy the week before, so hopefully they don’t expect their mums to wrap themselves up in bandages anytime soon!
Fire Drills and Reading Time
Kindergarten is as mad as ever, the kids seem to be getting more hyper as the weeks go on. But my K2 class are improving which makes me happy! The last few weeks we have covered the letters H and S, done transport, fruit and vegetables, Spiderman, fire drills, Halloween monsters, and of course lots of dinosaurs and fire! Eric has an obsession with dinosaurs, dinosaurs breathing fire and dinosaurs attacking other dinosaurs! We spent one morning drawing different types of transport, and all of Eric’s boats, trains, buses were being attacked by fire breathing dinosaurs….I wondered what the Chinese teachers think when all they can see and hear from my classroom are roars and the word fire being yelled over and over again! But at least we had a fire drill this week, although my attempt to explain exactly what this meant was clearly lost on my students, so if there is a fire my plan is basically to lift them up and carry them out of the building, much easier than the lining up system the Chinese had!
Reading time is very important in school, all the teachers encourage it and it should be a quiet time with kids listening and learning to read. Unfortunatly my class do not have the patience for Peter and Jane books and thus after reading one page and one page only theu find the books more useful as toys. In an attempt to build the tallest tower all the books were taken from the shelf and balanced, very skillfully for five years old, into a magestic tower of Peter and Jane! No more reading for these guys then!
Reading time is very important in school, all the teachers encourage it and it should be a quiet time with kids listening and learning to read. Unfortunatly my class do not have the patience for Peter and Jane books and thus after reading one page and one page only theu find the books more useful as toys. In an attempt to build the tallest tower all the books were taken from the shelf and balanced, very skillfully for five years old, into a magestic tower of Peter and Jane! No more reading for these guys then!
Snow Days and Animal Hats
Autumn came to an abrupt end and we found ourselves in the midst of Winter. I found myself enjoying teaching more than I ever thought I would, even with all the singing and dancing. My students were speaking more and more English and as the first snow fell out came the most amazing array of hats known to man. I have always been a hat lover, especially winter hats, but my kids out did me on every level. As we prepared for our morning exercises, yes outside in the snow....don't ask....I found myself surrounded by chickens, pandas, rabbits and even penguins! I was so impressed. Sunny came running up to me with a fantastic white, fluffy rabbit hat, it was the cutest thing I have ever seen! My kids were now animals! As we danced to our nursery rhymes and warmed up by running in circles I realised that being a kid in China has to be pretty great, well until you reach five and have to go to numerous after school classes, but lets not get into that! If I had rocked up to primary school with a panda hat on I would have been the most popular kid in school, alas I am twenty years too late! Exercise time, now that it's winter takes three times longer due to putting on all these animal form of clothing but I don't mind wasting time getting kids to put on three coats, socks, boots, gloves, scarves, ear muffs, face masks and of course the best hats out there, at the end of the day you are secretly teaching them clothing and they don't even realise it; Genuis!! The snow kept falling throughout December and the hats kept on changing and to my great delight I found a place that sold them, so in a moment of childish weakness I now own a panda and a penguin hat and could not be happier! Must bring this back to the UK!
Happy Christmas
Before I knew it Christmas was a week away, I couldn't believe that I had been in China for almost six months and that I was still teaching kids. We were preparing for our Christmas Show which was to be held on Christmas Eve. My K2 class were confident with their songs and we had been making snowmen and santas and practicing short dialogues, I was feeling fairly confident myself, maybe not the wisest idea! The day before the big show we were up on stage rehersing and so far so good, tomorrow was going to be a success. Outside it was minus ten and my flatmate and I were looking forward to some well deserved partying after working flat out for the last three weeks with no days off....all to have a few extra days over the holidays, it was worth it! So the morning dawn, we filled ourselves up on coffee and headed out into the blizzard...this should have been a warning for what was to come. My Chinese teachers were running around like headless chickens, some kids were stuck in snow, others had gone missing in the hall and there was no heating. The place was baltic! Eventually we gathered everyone up and the show began. First few songs were great, I was presenting with Lily and it was going smoothly, until the third song and Johnny lost the ability to stand! I have never seen a kid move the way he did, his legs turned to jelly and he was just wobbling all over the place and giggling wildly, the rest of my class followed suit and soon all the kids were like a big plate of jelly. To be honest it was hilarious, the Chinese teachers didn't agree, however the parents were having a good old laugh! Ah well kids will be kids I guess! For the next song I bribed the kids with lollipops if they sang well! Michael and Seo, two wonderful boys from my youngest class, grabbed the microphone at one point and began singing, well yelling, like crazy, Ten Little Monkeys, it was behond funny! These kids had clearly been watching Michael Jackson videos, they had the moves and were in no way embarassed or scared...it was priceless! After what felt like several hours we finally reached the finally: The Chinese teachers and two foreigners took to the stage to sing and perform the dance routine to a famous Chinese song which I have forgotten the name of...oops! It was incredibly cringeworthy but when in China.....
Thus the show was a success, well the parents seemed happy and I guess that is what matters! We had our cream cake and green tea and headed back out into the blizzard for a well deserved beer, rest and some Christmas Cheer!!!
Thus the show was a success, well the parents seemed happy and I guess that is what matters! We had our cream cake and green tea and headed back out into the blizzard for a well deserved beer, rest and some Christmas Cheer!!!
Teaching Public School
In February 2011 Jordan and I embarked on our second teaching job in China. We had been traveling around China during the Spring Festival holidays and were looking forward to unpacking our bags and sleeping in a comfortable bed. We arrive in Ping Lu, Yuncheng Shanxi provience on a cold, snowy Valentine's Day, unaware of what was ahead.....