Why did you decide to Teach English in China?
Perhaps unlike others, teaching in China for me was completely unplanned. I had heard of people doing similar things in the past but I was unaware it was even a thing someone like me could do – I thought you needed teaching qualifications, or experience working in classrooms or with children.
I had been out of University for one year working in a part-time job at a Supermarket. My Mother had pushed me to visit my University’s Careers Advisor, which I was hesitant to do at first as I felt a bit ashamed to admit I needed that kind of assistance. Fortunately it turned out to be the best decision I had made all year! Coincidentally, Arnold was visiting my University to hold a presentation that very week and I was pointed in its direction as soon as I mentioned a desire to travel. The meeting was to explain exactly what ‘Teach English in China’ was and what it involved. I attended and was completely amazed that this was really achievable for me. From the moment I left the meeting I knew it was what I wanted to do.
The next thing I know, I am hopping on a plane on my own for the first time and travelling to China; eventually setting up in the Jiading district of Shanghai.


What is the schedule like?
In my time in China I taught Grades 1 and 2 at Taoyuan Xincun Primary School which had two English teachers, including myself. The school was split into two campuses which were seperated by the main road through the town – it was only around 10 minutes stroll in between them. My campus was solely for Grades 1 and 2 which meant I rarely actually saw the other teacher as he was always strictly at his campus, teaching Grade 3 to 6.
I am unsure about the teachers outside of Shanghai, but all the ones I knew in Shanghai were in the position of having two teachers at their schools. I was in the interesting position of essentially being the only one at my school because of this two campus split. I actually only saw him in school three times – these being the two school trips we had in Spring and Winter, and then at the end of the year when all the Grades performed a show celebrating Children’s Day at his campus. I was happy with this in the end as it allowed me to really get a feel for independence. I was living with two of the best roommates you could ask for that year, which meant I had plenty of interaction with other Brits, plus we had some friends in the city centre we often visited. I would recommend you seek to live with others for the year, as it is important to have that kind of escape when you leave school.
Regarding teaching, I taught five days a week with my earliest start being 9:02, and latest finish being 14:32. The number of classes, along with the times I started/finished, varied each day, but I had a set timetable to follow throughout the two semesters. It changed very slightly in the second semester, which is something to be aware of, but this change was only the one class.
The schedule varies for all of the teachers as you might expect but, personally, I was very happy with my schedule throughout the entirity of the year. One of the teachers on Chongming Island only taught nine classes each week, whereas one living downtown taught 9am to 4pm each day, at two different schools – again, these are likely things unique to teaching in Shanghai but it is important to be aware of how different your schedule may be to someone else’s.


What is your advice to teachers on this programme?
At first it will be daunting for everyone, let alone people who were in my position lacked any experience. I am not ashamed to admit the entire thing beautifully snowballed into place for me – it fell on my lap and all of a sudden I had gone from working in a bit of a deadend job in Teesside, to travelling across the world to teach a foreign language to students!
For longterm teachers you will land in China, likely full of nerves, before arriving at the Beijing Training Camp. I guarentee your nerves will be gone within the hour! The Training Camp was an amazing experience and suddenly I was with nearly one hundred other people my age about to jump into one of the most exciting things they have done in their lives.
It was on the evening of the first night when I knew this was going to be an amazing year. I was sat on the steps outside the hotel’s restaurant after dinner with six other teachers, chatting about what brought us to China. Despite the fact our little group had people who had arrived from places like Cardiff, Blackpool, Sunderland, London and Teesside, it was like we had known each other since Primary School the way we were getting along.
It was like that most nights and even though various groups formed across the two weeks, whenever they crossed paths there was nothing but great times had. We were all there to train so, of course, we took it seriously, but the fact we were all in the same situation brought us all together!
When I first arrived in Shanghai I missed the people I had met at the training camp, but by the first evening I was enjoying the company of my fellow teachers again and getting to know them all better. We had a further week’s training with the company we were all going to be working for and then we moved to our districts, ready to begin.
If I am honest, moving to the districts was one of the few negative points in China. We arrived at our apartment on the evening of the Sunday and had a few hours to unpack before we had to get some sleep before our first day. Like most of the teachers, the first days went really well though and we felt ready to tackle the rest of the year!
As I previously mentioned, I lived with two other British teachers for the year and I cannot recommend enough that you try and do this. China is incredible but there will always be those days, once in a while, where you need to take yourself out of the situation you are in – i is natural. Having two other British friends, or even Western friends, at home who you can chill out with and watch some familiar television can make all the difference.
The amazing thing about China is that despite there being countless teachers before you, some even at the exact school you are at, you are still going to have a boatload of unique experiences at the school and in your city. It seems to change massively each year, so even if you talk to someone from the previous year you will find out all kinds of new things!


How did you prepare for lessons?
When I was teaching, I had to make two lesson plans each week; one for my Grade 1 class and one for my Grade 2 class. For me, each of these lesson plans consisted of filling in one lesson plan form – detailing the topic and a rough step-by-step plan for my lessons – for the company I worked for, along with creating a Powerpoint Presentation to show on the whiteboards whilst I taught.
The PPTs were a fantastic way of teaching the lesson and I feel they were much more effective than if the entire curriculum were taught on a blackboard. It allowed me to easily add in music and songs for my students and – what they no doubt found the best part – a video to show them. The video was a fantastic way to reward and enforce good behaviour throughout the lesson – if they behaved well, we can see a fun video related to the topic of the lesson. If they were not well behaved it was a good way to lightly punish them, and they would perform better next week.
One of the things I quickly learned when teaching was that the projectors used to show the class what was on the screen often broke at the most inopportune times. I had one class at my school that were without a projector for the majority of the year, but I quickly realised this was not as big a handicap as you might think. It was a great opportunity to get crafty and play the games on paper, which I used with the students on the whiteboard. It allowed you to break down the barrier between the class and you, and actually resulted in more-enjoyable lessons for the children and myself. As soon as I realised this I was doing this kind of thing in all of my classes and having a blast!
It is this kind of adaptability that all teachers in China will learn, or improve upon, during their time there. Every day you go into school you will be facing something different – often a new student will appear in your class in the middle of the semester and just as quickly disappear again!


Did you travel in China?
I actually did very little internal travel in my time in China but I know that all the teachers I knew who did had a fantastic time doing it. Instead I chose to travel around South East Asia in the two breaks, so I can only really talk about that.
During your time in China you will have two main breaks in the teaching: the Winter Break and at the end of the year when you have finished teaching. These are both great opportunities to travel either in China, or further afield.
The Winter Break usually means having the duration of February off work, although some of the teacher had longer than this. I took this time to travel to the Philippines, Vietnam and Hong Kong with some friends who were teaching in Changsha and Chongqing. You basically have a month to do whatever you would like in regards to travelling – although for us, it was recommended we returned a week before in case we were called in to school! Some of the teachers who worked in Beijing actually came down to Shanghai to explore the city and I managed to catch them just before I left. This was quite surreal as they were people I had not seen since the Beijing Training Camp five months ago! We had a great time sharing stories of what we had done and things we had experienced.
At the end of your year of teaching is likely to give you more freedom than you have ever had before. You can choose exactly where to go, for how long, spending how much you like. It was exciting chatting to people and just hearing what their plans were – and that was before it had even began!
Like with the Winter Break, I chose to travel around South East Asia at the end of the year. I visited Vietnam again, but also Cambodia and Thailand in the month after leaving China, before heading home to see everyone. You may choose to travel longer though; two of the teachers in Shanghai chose to travel until September in places like Sri Lanka and India.
As I said, I know many teacher who did travel around China during there time here. From what I have heard they had a fantastic time. A group of the Shijiazhuang travelled to Inner Mongolia, in the North of China, and actually ventured to the edge of the Gobi desert where they stayed in a yurt and rode camels!
Other teachers visited the Zhangjiajie National Park – famous for its appearence in the Avatar movie – where they climbed and saw the unique mountains, as well as travelled along the side of them on a wooden plank walk.
Other popular options are to visit the Terracotta Warrior at Xi’an, or the pandas at Chengdu. There really are a wealth of places to visit across China and it will be really hard for you to decide whether to do that or – like me – to head out into South East Asia!


By Tom Robinson