ESL Jobs Forum

[Gerard Denaro]

Just when you've spent the last 30 or more years successfully building your tower, living in a third-world country can challenge one's very identity. Yes, there is a lot of negativity about the "Asian experience" expressed in ESL columns, some of it justified, but I think it also serves to prove that it is definitely not for everyone.
Reflecting on two separate teaching experiences (2003 and 2004) i.e. one in central and the other in southern China, I find that many westerners will struggle with the culture. But really, I think it's up to you to make the necessary adjustments rather than to criticize or try to change the many things that irk you.
My advice to anyone thinking of teaching in China is do your homework on the city and the school before you leave home and definite speak to another foreign teacher from the same school.
While you might go there fully resourced and keen to make a good impression, don’t take your job too seriously because you're there as much to wave the flag as to improve the English of the students in your care. If you think that trying to get the students to speak English outside the classroom is difficult, try getting their local English teachers to do likewise!
I very much doubt that the study of English will have much of an impact on their culture, as some suggest. One might argue that capitalism, foreign music and fashions are changing the face of modern China but my experience is that the locals and ex-pats very much adhere to and love their culture. The world would certainly be the poorer if for instance, their cuisine or pictographically writing system were abandoned.
As I've said before, teaching in China is as much an inner journey as an outer journey, turning upside down everything that we value in the west, such as clean water, hygiene, blue skies, comfortable public transport ,social security, etc. How can we explain that the vast majority of people leading very humble lives, living in the back of their shops and working 14hr days, don’t seem that unhappy?

Wo zhu da jia hao yun!
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Xianzai wo zai Qunsilan Daxue Xuexi Zhongwen san nianji