Saturday, January 12, 2019

My other life: teaching English to kids in China




       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.


    And then there are the technical problems.  We are at the mercy of the internet and all the other technology to work smoothly.  Most of the time, all goes well, but when something malfunctions, it causes grief all-around.  Which leads me to another negative:  the company tends to be very unforgiving when problems occur that are out of my control.  Face it:  shit happens.  I've had my share of the dreaded "Teacher-no-show".  A few were, admittedly, my fault, but sometimes there was nothing I could have done.  Such as: my internet going down for two hours, like it did that one morning back in October.  And no amount of begging will persuade the company to cut me some slack.  (The fireman told me:  "Our records do not show that you attempted to log into the classroom."  Of course not, you doofus, my internet was down!!!  This kind of nonsense belongs in a Dilbert comic.)


     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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