D - Being There

When you move to a new country, you feel like you're living on Mars for awhile. Everything is unique and different. The smallest comment from a native can generate a laugh or an insightful comment into the subtle differences separating your two countries. Eventually though, you settle in. You develop a routine. The place isn't home, but you carve out a niche and find some local comforts, or maybe spend a little too much money buying some from your homeland. You never forget that you're in a foreign place, but you adjust.

I think that's the point that C and I have hit this week. Our families know that we've been struggling a bit with teaching - and no matter where you are or what you're doing, your job is a big part of your life. If it's a struggle then the whole of your existence can be trying at times. The lesson here is pretty straightforward. No matter where you go and no matter what you do, you've got to find the something more that makes life worthwhile. For us, that's our faith and our family and a belief that every experience in life has a purpose. We're not in China just because it's a great place to be a tourist and I can assure it's not because we love teaching English to unmotivated Chinese university students. Just like everything else, it's preparing us for some future step in life.

It's weeks like this where I dwell on these things, primarily because I am pretty frustrated with teaching. You'll find a number of different attitudes from the other English teachers. Some of them don't care much at all. They do what they have to get by and little more. Others like teaching and spend all class long playing games but I am not convinced they ever teach the students anything. Finally, the last set actually care to impart knowledge to the students but are frustrated to no end by the peculiarities of trying to teach English here. I won't lie - I have been in each category. Sometimes in the same day my attitude will shift from to the other.

Here's why teaching here can be difficult-
1) Skill level varies tremendously between students. The freshmen I have are closer in ability than the juniors but it's still a wide range.
2) The students lack a tremendous amount of vocabulary. Our class is Oral English I. The book we use is primarily to get students to speak and to practice pronunciation. And that's all well good but it's hard to have even a basic conversation if you don't know certain words. But I don't have a vocabulary book to use to teach them with even if I could incorporate it.
3) Students almost NEVER raise their hand. At first I didn't mind calling on people but it's really frustrating after awhile when you ask really easy yes or no questions and not a single person will bother. You have to call on them every time.
4) You can plan a very detailed lesson and have it fail. Teaching requires a lot of effort. You have to plan and then present in class. Then in class you have to adjust on the fly to how students are responding. Are they learning? Is it interesting? Do I need to move to something else if they don't like this, or do I force them to do it?

My mother is a teacher and I know she is a good one. Being here has given me even more respect for her than I had before. And she teaches "at-risk" youth, which makes teaching ESL look like a day at the beach. Teaching is not easy! I am now amazed at the good teachers and professors I had in school and in college. And now I understand why the bad ones were bad. When you work a 9-5, you can have a good hour at work and produce something that made the whole 8 hours worthwhile. As a teacher, you prepare beforehand, then you have to present the preparation well. Finally, you have to give good out of class assignments and deal with grading them. If you fail at any step along the way, they don't learn - and to top it off, you may feel awkward in class knowing that the lesson is a partial failure. Teaching is the curse of caring. I used curse there primarily for the alliteration - but it often feels like those who long to do good are fighting an uphill battle.

My hometown newspaper has a regular column called "The Vent" where people call in to express their frustration about some local (usually insignificant) issue. I guess this is my Vent entry! I don't think they will publish it in the China Daily though.