End of an Era

Last week marked the end of an era for my time in China. It marked the completion of a full year contract in China, and a full year teaching in a private school environment. 

We ended the year with a weekend of make-up exams and graduation ceremonies; the students had an opportunity to celebrate all they had learnt over the semester and we had a chance to relax and have fun with the students outside of the classroom. The whole graduation was a relaxed way to end a manic semester and was followed by the less relaxing end to the term that we gave ourselves, a Mexican themed party and awards ceremony. 

TEFL is a weird world to work in because it has an unnatural amount of endings; semesters end and people move on to different place and experiences all too quickly, you make close friends in a matter of weeks but then a few months later they're gone. It's a hazard of the community. So for us, the end of the term is bitter sweet. Although I'm staying in Yinchuan and continuing to teach many of the other teachers here are leaving. Most sadly my travelling partner in crime, Jenny, is heading off to travel and then back to London. This means that the next part of my journey is going to have a different feel to it. Throughout the whole time in China Jenny has been the one constant, we went though the mayhem of our first classes together and then spent our summer travelling around China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam together, we came to Aston together and then that is where our joint journey ends. It's sad but it's the reality of travelling, everyone who does TEFL has different aims and everyone who lives in China has different tolerances to the country. 
By now some of the people I'm working with are completely over living in China. The things that once seemed fun and quirky about China become the things who hate the most about it. People who used to not mind all the stares and sneaky photo taking now hate it, and people who used to find the difficulty to communicate a fun challenge and a reason to learn more now find it frustrating. But as of today, I haven't hit that wall yet, maybe it's because I have a boyfriend who is grounding me in the culture and keeping my incentive to integrate and learn alive, or maybe I just haven't made the decision to leave and so haven't resigned myself to being over living in China. Until that time comes, all I can do is look forward to the adventures I haven't had yet and look back on the things I've learn in my time teaching TEFL is China so far.

It's been a year of steep learning curves and I think it’s only right to share some of my hard learnt lessons.

Gary, my favourite and least favourite student. What a little devil!

Learn to go with the flow

In China, people will think that it is totally acceptable to expect you to know to do something without being told, no matter how ridiculous that might seem to a Westerner. Getting told you’re teaching a class 10 minutes before it’s about to start is totally acceptable, as is telling you that you were meant to plan an activity as you’re on your way to said activity. Learning to be able to adapt to whatever the Chinese staff throw at you is a must, as is having some kind of back up activities at all times.

 
Be aware that children are gross

Bob is a completely legendary student, he may not
be as fast as the other students but he definitely tried hard!

Through my time teaching I have been dribbled on by toddler students, sneezed on, touched with fingers that had been up a nose moments ago, and in summer sweated on profusely. Children will take any opportunity to do something disgusting and then laugh when they've grossed you out. At least my students will.

Some kids are just not meant to learn English, but you still have to try to teach them

The more you teach the more you see that some children don’t have a natural talent for English. They will struggle through the simplest thing and fall behind in a class. These students are the most frustrating to work with because their progress is so slow but when they do understand something it’s so rewarding. But some of them just don’t seem to get past a certain level, I have a student who has done the same course, with the same exact exams twice now and she still can’t seem to pass. It’s frustrating, but as teachers it’s our job to keep persevering with them, and the more I teach the more I realize that I may have been one of those frustrating students when learning languages at school!

So for now it's a few goodbyes but as new people arrive the newest chapter of my time in China unfolds.

Friends who moustache together, TEFL together