The Unbroken Rule

Quidong Foreign Language School

One of the rules issued by our employer in China was not to take on work outside the classroom. For example, they didn’t want their contracted English teachers moonlighting at other training institutions. At the middle school in Qidong where Frank and I were instructing we were approached by several of the parents who asked us to take on their child in private lessons. We explained the company rule to them. They persisted so we agreed to spend time with their child if we could gather at various locations and conduct English Corners.

An English Corner in China is orchestrated by foreign English teachers at libraries, restaurants and permitted public meeting sites. The instruction consists of promoting general conversations on sorted topics. The three ‘T’ topics to be avoided are Tianamen Square, Taiwan and Tibet.

Enjoying a meal at a private setting

The topics we covered with our group of students included western food and how to eat a hamburger with your hands, ♪ music ♪ , the good and bad of zoos, the power of family and the love of friends.

We enjoyed the students’ company immensely. Their rapid conversation and upbeat energy kept us buoyant in a country with a great number of rules. One regulation we learnt from our students was that the ratio of adult to youth or junior youth in public was two young people to one adult. For example, Frank and I supervised six middle school students on our various outings. At a restaurant, which is considered a private setting, we could be with as many as eight students, but if we went to a public place, like a park or a shopping centre, it was necessary for at least one or more of their parents to attend.

Rules aside, we had a tremendous time with our students, inside and outside the classroom. We highly recommend that you take time to be with your students so that you may learn from them.

Beautiful students

Curious about the food

Hello Mr and Mrs Black

Qidong, Jiangsu Province

Rule No. 5: Respect the rules.

Get to Know Your Group Leader

Precious Pear

To paraphrase a quote from Mao Tse Tung, "If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the structure of a middle school and high school classroom in China, you must take part in teaching English as a second language in China. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience."

Front row group leaders

You will recognize the Group Leader in your middle or high school classroom once all the students are seated. He or she sits in the first desk of each row. The number of Group Leaders you have available to assist you in your classroom depends on the number of rows set up in the room.

The primary duty of the Group Leader is to collect the homework or in-class assignments from each student in his or her row and hand the work to the teacher. The Group Leader is also responsible for distributing hand outs to each student in the row.

Get to know the Group Leaders in your class by asking their names and recording their position on your student roster. Like everyone else in this big world, the students love to hear his or her name. Also, your enthusiastic 'thank you' goes a long way in maintaining the Group Leader's support and cooperation.

Tip No. 4: Get to know your Group Leaders.

Tears of Joy

Train Tickets

All Aboard! We boarded the train from Yichang, Hubei province to Beijing. Our tickets had been purchased for us by our Yichang No.1 Middle School Foreign Teacher Administrator. We were told that our return tickets would have to be purchased in Beijing. We were unaware that Frank had been assigned room number 3 and I was allocated 13. Being separated from my husband so early in our overseas excursion made me uncomfortable so I sat patiently on Frank’s bunk until the conductor found a way to have us travel the 17-hour journey in the same room. 

After we shared conversation with a young Chinese girl and her mother, I fell asleep to the repetitive clacking sound of the train rolling along the tracks.

Soft Sleeper

The next morning, we sipped on tea and ate oranges with our roommates. From the window I admired the view of corn stacked on the top of houses, posted signs in Chinese characters, old buildings, vehicles of various makes and sizes and workers along the train tracks. Some picked up garbage with bare hands while others used large chopsticks. It appeared that everyone was working at something or travelling from some place to somewhere. We passed a graveyard, cornfields and buildings crumbling because of the pollution. Those scenes became very familiar to us in China.

Once in Beijing, we located a room at the Beijing Rainbow Hotel. Our biggest surprise was that there were no mattresses on the beds. In most Chinese motels or hotels, you sleep on a box spring. We chomped on bananas and headed out the door.

Air China tickets

At the train ticket office we were told that there we no return tickets to Yichang for at least two weeks. Our stay was to be for one week and so we were forced to purchase China Air passages to Yichang. From that point we headed to the Forbidden City museum.

Tears of bliss fell down my cheeks as I entered the enormous grounds of the once imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. I was overwhelmed by the majestic detail and that Frank and I had journeyed from Port Hardy, British Columbia to China.

Teaching English as second language was one impressive aspect of our expedition, equal to the discovery of everything Chinese we could absorb.

Imperial Palace Museum ~ Beijing, China