The good and the bad

As expected, some children are good, others are not so great. When I was little, I was one of the good. I never spoke out of place, I was shy and I always did as I was told. Now that I’m the teacher, I know that those good children make the life of a teacher so much easier and better!

I have started giving stickers to the classes that behave well. Some classes are large (20 students) and others are small (as little as three in a class). However, a large class could behave just as well as a small class, depending on the personalities of the children.

I enjoy teaching well behaved classes the most for the obvious reasons; I don’t have to strain my voice, we can all have a laugh and I find that I enjoy my self as much as the children do.

Classes also have a mixture of good and bad children in the same class. I have yet to work out how to praise the good behaved children without causing the bad behaved ones to have tantrums.

The naughty children are always boys! I wonder why that is? These naughty boys are usually big for their age. (One large eight year old boy took a liking to me and proceeded to pick me up when I was writing something on the board. He was quite scary, even for an eight year old!)

A lot of the boys enjoy fighting each other. Once, two boys were fighting, and at the beginning, they looked like they were play fighting because after each hit they would laugh. However, the hitting began to get harder and harder and their faces turned angrier and angrier. I had to run in between them with their parents and stop them before it got too far! The parents didn’t seem bothered while I was stood quite alarmed! Later, the same boy from the fight would not stop talking while I was trying to explain a game. So I sent him to sit down and said he would not take part. He didn’t care. He just lay down on the floor and was laughing to himself. (A future pain in society no doubt!)

He has been the only child I have sent to sit down so far though. I’ve also had a nine year old boy hide under a table and cry like a wolf for much of a lesson. Some children are quite odd!

Some of the Chinese teachers are a great help and help me to control the class and make sure that they understand. Others are not so helpful. They will listen to their music or be on their phones.

I am also surprised at the difference in the levels of English among students of the same age but in different classes. Some classes are very intelligent and understand most things. Others struggle with even the basics. Sometimes it can be difficult to communicate with students that you know should be better than they are. Sometimes I wonder if they just pretend to not understand to be annoying!

I have a new student. She is only three years old and her name is Apple. She is now having one to one classes with me once a week. She has to be one of the most intelligent three year olds on earth! I’ve heard that China is home to very hard working and intelligent children and pushy parents. These are not pushy parents. These are parents who have seen how talented their daughter is and are trying to give the best head start to her education! This three year old has taught herself A to Z, body parts, animals, numbers 1 to 10, colours and songs like, ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ and ‘Row the boat.’

 I repeat, she taught her self!!

There have been a fair few tears in my classes too. I am glad to say these tears are not a result of my teaching!! There have been a few accidents in my classes; children have trapped their fingers in doors (they seem to love playing with doors), they have fallen over (due to being silly) and have been too rough play fighting with each other. The children tend to get very excited with the presence of a foreign teacher and their behaviour can go over the top! I tend to their wounds the best I can and do what I can to put a smile back on their faces!

I am still really enjoying teaching. I get told that I’m good with the children and that I will be a great teacher. This makes me happy. I can’t see my self teaching forever, but I hope to continue teaching in the near future!