Teaching English and Learning to Teach

For the last 2 weeks, and continuing every Monday for the rest of the semester, I will be teaching English to the children of migrant workers. China operates on a Hukou system which is a sort of household registration that registers by family rather than by individual. Permits are issued and people are required to remain within the location that their permit allows, and aren't supposed to leave. In reality though, this is not strictly enforced and people move from rural areas into cities all the time. These people are called migrant workers and they are almost comparable to illegal immigrants. They are working in the cities, where they're not allowed to live or work, but the government has turned a sort of blind eye, although they could be kicked out at anytime.

This is their playground where they march around for recess. Yes, they march.

The school we teach at is a school for the children of these workers. The children could in theory be kicked out at any time, and in the classrooms children are seated by how long the administrators and teachers think they will remain there. Students who have been in the same school for years sit in the front row, others who may only be there for a few weeks sit in the back. The students must all wear small red scarves tied around their necks but otherwise there is no uniform. Before they enter the classroom they raise their hands outside the room until they are acknowledged by the teacher. But otherwise they are very much like the typical American student.

 

The outside of the building. 

  

 It'll be hard to make out but there are children peering out of those windowed hallways.

Our job is to teach these children English. NYU students teach English on Mondays for grades 3-5 at the primary school. We are split into different teams and each team is assigned two classes to teach. Each class is around 40 minutes long, although I have to say sometimes it feels much longer. I teach class number one in Grade 5 and class number three in Grade 4. The lower number classes are the higher level classes, so for example class one is the highest level, and class six is the lowest.

Last week after my first week of teaching I came back exhausted and exasperated. My two classes had been a living hell of sorts. Every class was supposed to have a teacher sitting in while we led the lesson, but both of my classes lacked a teacher. This caused a certain amount of chaos in the classroom. The class monitor tried to help us keep things under control, but with only a few really interested in learning the lesson, and with their apparent lack of respect for us as teachers, we didn't get very far in the lesson. My 4th grade class was a similar sort of affair. Students were running around, hitting each other in the head with pencil cases, and knocking each other out of their chairs. It took a while to get the sound of screaming, rambunctious children out of my head.

I came home thinking that these were terribly evil children! But I knew they weren't. They were just kids, and this is what kids do. I came this week more prepared. I had a precise outline of what I wanted to teach, I learned to say a few useful phrases in Chinese like "please sit down", "be quiet", and "raise your hand." I learned all of their English vocabulary in Chinese so I could explain if they didn't understand and actually, the 5th grade class was much better. I had lots of participation, and with the exception of one girl kicking her classmate in the groin in the middle of class it went really well and I left the class very pleased with myself, and sure that they had learned something.

Fourth grade was another story entirely. The 5th grade class had done well today day even without their usual teacher in the room but the 4th grade class had other ideas. Without a teacher they continued their usual shenanigans and for some completely unknown reason, none of them had their English textbooks!! We tried to teach from our outline without using the book but they weren't interested in listening. The class was a blur of children screaming and hitting each other over the head, and asking for our autographs...?

 This is my lovely 4th grade class.

Even though I left feeling like I only accomplished half of my goal of getting the kids to listen, I still felt pretty good. One of my classes was definitely making progress and I was excited and happy about how much English they knew and how eager they were to learn. I was just going to have to consider the 4th grade class a project of mine. I'm already starting to get mentally prepared for next week.