Posts tagged Chinese social media

• Parents with strong opinions on language education, even if they don’t speak foreign languages themselves
• Expectation that you spend large portions of class time on games or songs
• Students of very young ages, sometimes as young as 2 years old

• Poor listening comprehension compared with writing ability
• Nine-plus years of learning English from native Chinese-language speaking teachers who are not qualified by United States foreign language education standards
• Student difficulty adapting to education styles and philosophies uncommon in China, such as necessary in-class participation and homework assignments
• Much more leniency toward cheating on tests than at U.S. universities

• Students with undiagnosed learning disabilities
• Students assigned to classes by age or grade level instead of language level
• Emphasis on class’ success over individual students’
• Expectation that you teach oral English or culture classes only
• Related to the above bullet point, lack of integrated language education
• General Chinese work culture pattern of more procrastination than in the U.S. and therefore last-minute meeting, substitution, and class addition requests

• Learn at least a tiny bit of Mandarin that you can speak when asked to. Learning how to write a few characters, such as your Chinese name, will impress people, too.
• View my post Chinese Social Media as an Educational Tool for ideas on how to mix entertainment with education and “be a friend” to your students.
• Related to the above, participate in extracurricular activities such as company social activities with coworkers or university student life.
• Give your students in-class group projects as frequently as is practical and fair. Minimize tests and lengthy, individual homework assignments.
• Recognize and reward students for multiple kinds of effort, such as perfect class attendance, studying hard for tests, and helping classmates, separately as well as in combination.
• Show parents measurable results, such as words students have learned how to spell or pronounce.
• Respect process, bureaucracy, and hierarchy. When you think that you have too many meetings or that your young students take too many tests, for example, try to see things from the perspective of your boss and the pressure he or she is under from supervisors.

Do you have any questions? For those who have taught English in China and have anything to add, let me know in the comments.