I have another life that you, my loyal readers, might not know anything about: I teach online English lessons to kids in China. In today's column, I want to talk some about it, answer a few FAQs, get into the pros and cons of this kind of work, and even do some politicizing.
It's all done online via the
Internet. The company, which based in
Beijing, has its own proprietary software system that is actually pretty
cool. Via webcams and microphones, the
student and I can see and talk to one another in real time. And we can write and draw onto the lesson
pane with our mouses. The student can do
it on a touchscreen tablet also.
The lessons are one-on-one, and each begins
every half-hour on the half-hour. It's
all on China time, which is fourteen time zones away from my hometown of
Houston. So when it's 5:00 pm over
there, when most families are home and like to do homework and lessons, it's
3:00 am over here. Yeah, those are tough
hours (more on that later).
The main lesson topic, of course, is
English, but we also get a little into social studies, science, and math. The kids range in age from about 6 to 12.
A really great aspect of this job is that
I control my schedule. I first go online
and "open" time slots when I am willing and able to teach. Then the parents log in and book a time slot
with a specific teacher. The time slots
are NOT all equal; the high-demand slots are in the evening in China time on weekdays,
and on weekends high-demand is all day AND all evening.
Any parent can book a lesson with any
teacher, and it's basically first-come first-served. I have several "regular" students,
including some have been with me for over a year. But on any typical day, I'll have some new
faces, too. Probably about two-thirds of
my students are boys.
How does one get into this line of
work? In my case, I had been looking for
a profitable work-from-home opportunity for some time. I have an awesome home office, and really
wanted to phase out from the IT business.
I explored a handful of remote jobs, and in the process discovered that
most of them were either scams or just didn't pay enough to make it
worthwhile. Then I stumbled across the
English teaching thing. It is a huge
industry, especially in the Asian countries.
English is THE language of business, you know, thanks to the free
enterprise system that has flourished in the United States.
To be a good candidate for this type of
work, you first of course must have impeccable English, and must have an
American or British accent. Teaching
credentials and/or an advanced degree helps.
You must love working with kids, be a bit of a ham, have a positive
attitude, a sense of humor, and of course a flair for teaching. Well, that's me, right down the line!
One frequently-asked-question is whether
teachers need the ability to speak the students' native tongue, Chinese or
whatever. No, they do not. The prepared lesson plans, for the most part,
do a good job of teaching English "from scratch". (We have Chinese-speaking assistants, known
as "firemen", standing by to help with problems.)
I normally teach seven days a week. A typical workweek for me will be about 60 to
65 lessons (30 to 33 hours). I've been
doing this since November 2016. To date,
I've taught over 6,100 lessons and taught almost 1,400 different students. The pay is Ok.
The more lessons a teacher teaches, the
more money he/she makes. How many
lessons a week could a tireless, gung-ho teacher teach? Well, the company is open for business from
8:30 am to 10:00 pm Beijing time (BJT) seven days a week, which is 27 teaching
slots per day, or 189 potential slots per week.
If a teacher could do all of them, that would be 94.5 hours per
week. I'm not sure what the record is,
but I am aware of some teachers who do 100 lessons (50 hours) per week. Teachers who can do that pull in nice fat
paychecks.
No, I cannot do that, for the following
reasons: The first is just plain old
stamina and the need for, you know, sleep.
The work is not difficult, but it is mentally and emotionally
exhausting. If I attempt to teach when I
am too tired, I do a really sucky job, and that will definitely get a teacher
fired.
The second limiting factor is that I do
have a life outside of this job; or at least, I try to.
Finally, there is teacher demand, or lack
thereof. As mentioned earlier, some time
slots aren't very popular, such as weekday mornings (China time). The teachers who teach massive workloads must
do the bulk of it on the weekend, when demand is higher.
Teaching online has numerous advantages
over other traditional jobs. I have a
zero commute, which really pays off in a city like Houston. Actually, I can teach from anywhere; all I
need is my laptop and a reliable Internet connection. I don't really have a boss; I deal with kids
every day, and as long as the kids are happy, everybody is happy. It's a great job for a semi-retiree such as
myself. And for me, music plays a big
part of every lesson I teach. With my
guitar close by, effective teaching becomes even more fun! And these Chinese kids - most of them, anyway
- are truly amazing: they are smart as
can be, respectful, fun-loving, and learn language concepts with incredible
ease.
And I don't have to prepare lesson plans. All the lessons are pre-made, which saves me
a lot of time. However … let's get into
the negatives:
I don't get to prepare my own lesson
plans. Most of the lessons are pretty
good, teach the right stuff, and are reasonably interesting. But there are many that are - shall we say -
not. Too many of the lessons are too
short (for the required 25 minutes), or contain too much mind-numbing,
monotonous repetition. Yeah, I know,
repetition is an established teaching technique, but you can overdo it. Other lesson plans drive me bonkers with
over-generalized cultural stereotypes.
For example: "Americans eat unhealthy food but Chinese eat healthy
food"; and "Americans celebrate Christmas but Chinese celebrate
Chinese New Year"; and so on. And
then there are lesson plans that are way too advanced for the age level they
are supposed to teach, containing way too many long, complex, multi-syllabic
words.
I
have all sorts of gripes about many other assorted aspects of the lesson plans,
but I won't bore you with the gory details.
Have I enumerated my gripes and suggested some improvements to the curriculum
team? Oh yes, many, many times. Does it accomplish anything? No.
Another negative, obviously, is the
hours. Going to work in the middle of
the night is tough, and getting enough sleep each day is a perpetual challenge.
Now for some of the interesting and
bizarre things that I have seen and learned about these Chinese people. Our lesson camera is aimed right into their
homes, and so I sometimes get a glimpse of unfiltered Chinese life.
These kids are all from what you could
call the "upper crust." I
don't know how much the parents pay for these lessons, but evidently it's not
cheap. They all live in swanky,
decked-out high-rise apartments. And only apartments, for no one seems to
live in single-dwelling houses, like we Americans do. But their apartments are, evidently, not
well-heated or cooled. In the summer,
the kids are visibly hot, and I can hear traffic noise in the background, and
often see open windows behind them. Then
in the winter, they are bundled up like the little brother in "A Christmas
Story", with so many layers of clothes piled on that they can barely
move.
I will never forget the day when an adult
female - I presume it was the mom - was behind my student, her back to us. Not realizing she was on camera, she changes clothes!
On more than occasion, the kid, in the
middle of the lesson, IPAD or tablet in-hand, has gone to the toilet. (The company has issued some guidelines to us
teachers in case that happens again.)
I've seen some really bad parenting,
also. One day, as my student was
starting his lesson, his mom walks by and slaps him! A minute later, he starts crying. O man!
Some of my other kids have shown off their
musical skills and played piano, a flute, a guitar, or a trumpet for me.
Teaching English has given me many thoughts
on language. English is one tough
language; you really realize it when you have to teach the myriad of ways to
pronounce words with "ou" and "ow" and "gh", and
past participles and other grammatical complexities. But actually, I think Mandarin is worse,
because they must learn to read and write those hugely complex, awful "characters"
that represent entire words, rather than phonetic sounds.
Oh and by the way, the one phonetic sound
that gives Chinese kids the most trouble is the long "i" vowel. It is a major challenge getting them to
differentiate between "whale" and "while".
Sometimes I am envious of cultures where being
multi-lingual is normal and expected. Here we have these young kids, flipping
effortlessly between English and Mandarin. I myself don't know any other languages - at
least not well enough to utter a coherent sentence. Well, why should I, when everybody I come in
contact with speaks English?!? But I
think we miss out on many subtleties of communication when we only know one
language.
In closing, allow me to pontificate on a
political issue. (You didn't think I'd
write an entire article without some politics, did you?!?) Presently, our illustrious President is
cranking up trade wars with China, big-time.
If he keeps this up, my job could be in jeopardy.
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