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carole daley
Knowing me! An insight into where my journey began in China! The first part of my journal!
My name is Carole and and I am 51 years young (at date of writing, so that means I am 51 forever yeah....). I began my journey over 12 years ago now. Yes, I was 39 when I began my journey! Some might think that a bit OLD to start this journey, but for me it was PERFECT! You're never to OLD - Right? ABSOLUTELY!
This is my first blog about where my journey began. Follow my journey as I now begin to document my blog from journals of my time travelling and working in China. Get real insight into life in China, working in China, travelling around Asia (solo mostly) and hopefully gain some confidence, encouragement to 'Just Do It' and be inspired! I am a big believer in 'You Can Achieve Anything You Put Your Mind To'! So here goes....
I spent almost 8 years in China teaching English as a second language. My journey began in Yangshou, Guilin, Guanxi, China. Here I began ESL training to get me ready for a school placement for the next 6 months. Once I completed my 2 week training I went on to work in the North of China, in a small city called Baiyin, which is around a 2 hour drive away from Lanzhou city, Gansu province. My initial placement was for 6 months, however I happened to stay for 2 & a half years. My time here was amazing, I had so many experiences, met so many people and was totally immersed in the culture. The food in the North of China is very spicy and they eat a lot of mutton. At first it was difficult to adjust to the diet, but I soon learned to love the food and still love spicy food to this day. Also because the city is very small, there were very few foreigners (Waiguoren 外国人) so Chinese people in general there couldn't speak English well. This therefore forced me in to studying Chinese daily and I soon picked up the basics to enable me to communicate. I did however, after a while, make a few Chinese friends in Baiyin who spoke English very well. These became my very close friends of which I am still in contact with via the Chinese version of Facebook 'WeChat'.
Having previously been a teacher in the UK (teaching I.T in secondary school) I had a slight advantage and fell into my role quite quickly. I soon had my students in laughter and learning English in a fun and exciting way which is the key to engaging any student. One definite difference to teaching Chinese children is their behaviour and respectfulness towards their teacher. Initially I was a little daunted to hear my first class size was 80. Imagine that in England - chaos springs to mind, however in China it was actually easier teaching 80 students than it was teaching 30 in the UK (for the most part). It was very enjoyable teaching them as they enjoyed the fun games and activities lined up for them which was completely different to the teaching styles used by Chinese teachers (now that's another blog).
I became very popular in the city and was in demand for events, weddings, party's and dinners. I also began teaching students on a one-to-one private basis because they all loved my British accent so much. I felt like a celebrity, it was quite an amazing feeling and will never forget my time there. As my time in Baiyin came to an end due to lack of funding in the city, I accepted a position in Shanghai. A very different city completely! Baiyin's climate is very dry (as it is in the middle of the desert) and maybe has rainfall 5-10 times a year. In the winter is is very cold (-10 degrees) and the city used to be centrally heated (yes, that's right, the 'CITY' had central heating - no boilers in individual homes or a thermostat (I think this has changed now though), central heating that was switched on in October and wasn't turned off until February (it was so hot I used to have to open the windows to let out some of the heat). The humidity there is low and there are very few mosquitoes. Shanghai however, is quite the opposite, the climate is very hot and humid, and it rains a lot. Mosquitoes are prevalent and the food is sweet not spicy. Also because Shanghai is a very cosmopolitan city, there are vast amounts of foreigners and most people living in the city can speak English well.
Initially I struggled to adjust in Shanghai. The people were different, not as friendly and welcoming, not as interested in foreigners (because they had so many foreigners there already) and teaching there was different too. The role I accepted in Shanghai was not in a high school, but a night school, which is equivalent to an after school club in the UK. Chinese parents are very strict and invest a lot of time and money into their child's education; every Chinese child would attend many after school clubs for various things from studying English, playing a musical instrument to martial arts classes etc. They had a very busy calendar from the moment they woke up to the moment they went to bed. Class sizes in Shanghai were very small in comparison to teaching in Baiyin, around 16 students per class, however the teaching style was extremely different and quite high energetic. Fun was taken to another height and class lengths were twice as long (1 & 1/2 hours), but I taught much less, mostly in the evenings and at weekends - around 20 hours per week, so I had a lot of free time. We had to conduct demo classes occasionally - parental viewings - to promoting lessons to encourage new sign ups. I soon got into the flow and worked closely with the owner to help him develop many new courses including Phonics, IELTS and Adult specific courses. After 2 years I was promoted and became the foreign English teacher manager, recruiting new foreign teachers and assisting them through the initial settling in period (housing, visa's, medical etc). I also developed all the school resources, courses and lesson plans, and created promotions to entice new students and teachers. After 5 years I made the decision to move back to the UK, the year after returning to the UK, all night schools (teaching English) were forced to close. I am not sure why this happened, but the Chinese government don't give explanations for their actions, however I imagine it was to tighten the rules around teaching English in China. The owner of the school (who I am still in touch with today) no longer has his school and misses it greatly.
All remaining foreign teachers either had to leave China or find a role teaching in an International School or Kindergarten, but they had to have a teaching qualification to teach in International Schools (which was very few as most only had a degree and some didn't even have that). Kindergarten schools usually require a minimum Bachelor's degree and a 120 TEFL certificate, but this can vary from school to school. These rules still apply today in addition to being a native speaker from specific countries such as the UK or US. Please email me if you have any questions or need guidance on what TEFL courses to do. For job hunting click here!
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