Posts tagged how to find a teaching job in china

Teaching With Flashcards

April 18, 2015 · Filed under Teach in China, Teaching Kids, Teaching Reading · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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A big part of teaching kids is flashcards. Kids love pictures, mainly because ‘a picture tells a 1000 words’ and it is easier to remember a picture. Have a look at the videos to see how I introduce a picture. I usually get the kids to show the flashcards.

   Now with flashcards you can do many things. As long as the flashcards are in plastic covers or basically indestructible there is a lot you can do. But your flashcards will be ripped, screwed up, thrown around and whatever else little kids can do. And you will be amazed at what they can do. I have my flashcards in plastic folders and the kids still manage to rip some. At one stage two kids both wanted the same card, and they both had half each and were pulling as hard as they could. The card survived but only after I took it off them. So expect the unexpected.

     For kindergarten the most common game is find the card – you put about 6 to 10 cards on the floor and call out one card and the kids has to find the card. I used to hang the cards on the blackboard, if the blackboard is magnetic. I hang around 10 on the board just high enough, so the kids couldn’t grab the cards. Then draw lines down between the cards and draw a little hand on the board. 

     To draw the hand I would get a kid to put his or her hand on the board and then I would draw around it. Next I would line up up to 10 kids, call out the name of the card, and suddenly realize how much the kids didn’t understand. Then I would call out another name, then another and another. 

     I do everything fast and the kids are running all over the place. They loved it. Next I’d get another 10 and start all over again. And that usually meant drawing the hand again. As some kids sole aim in class is to rub out everything you write on the board. This is easy to set up, just takes a few minutes and the kids love it. And you can do it many times. The kids don’t seem to get bored as they are running all over the place, and there are new pictures.

     If you do this on the floor expect the cards to be thrown around, trampled on, pulled apart and generally destroyed. So try and use the blackboard. If the board is not magnetic I have problems. In one class I tied a piece of string across the blackboard and used clothes pegs to hold the cards. It was OK except the cards keep falling of the string and then the kids would rip them apart to give them back to me. Magnetic boards are the best.

     I like to make sentences up on the board and the kids love it. See the video. Even though there are a bunch of cards on the board, the kids love it, as long as it is fast and there are not to many cards on the board. In the videos I use lots of cards, but usually I don’t use that many as the kids get lost and lose interest. 

For more information about teaching in China click here.

Peter Legrove spends most of his time in front of a mixed bunch of kids trying to instill in them some semblance of the road to survive the future.

This article is copyright © peter legrove.

You can use this article on your website or ezine but leave the resource box intact.

All the best teaching in China

Teacher Peter

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Getting A Teaching Job In China

March 10, 2015 · Filed under Online Learning, Teach in China, Teaching Reading · Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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Teaching Kids whether kindergarten or primary school in China is a wonderful experience. So start your working life after you leave university by going to China to teach kids. Or for that matter you can go at any age or anytime you need a change. Getting a job is really no problem, whether you get one before you leave your home country or after you arrive. Check out this book about getting a teaching job in China, and you will see how easy it is.
Now when you go for a job the first thing you have to do is a free demo class. You are put in front of a class and you teach it with a few teachers and administrators watching. So be prepared. If your demo class is good they expect all your classes to be similar.
Some demo classes are daunting. I don’t know if that is deliberate, or the school just wants to see what you can do. In some cases you are doing a demo in front of nearly the whole school. In some out of the way places that will happen, especially if you are volunteering and end up in a village. You could end up doing a demo in the village square, with the whole village watching.
I’ve had to do demo classes in a park with whoever wants to watch, watching. Quite embarrassing to say the least, but you have to soldier on.
It might be an idea to upgrade your public speaking skills. As I have had to do demo classes in lecture halls in front of around 1000 parents, teachers and whoever just dropped in. In one primary school they put me in the multimedia classroom and gave me a microphone. All I had was an overhead projector and a whiteboard. In front of me there were all the students from grade one, about 500 of them, sitting in their class groups. So expect the unexpected. For this class I used flashcards. The whiteboard was no good, because the pens where not dark enough, and the kids were too young to read. I used class groupings and the class turned out excellent. The students loved me, and that is what you want.
To find out how other teachers teach search ‘teach kindergarten and primary school’ in youtube and see what pops up. Watch some videos and get some ideas and start practicing. Master what you like so you can reproduce it in a class. Just remember it doesn’t have to be perfect, it should keep the kids happy and then your administrators are happy. I would spend a lot of time on youtube, Dave’s ESL cafe, jobteachworld and other ESL sites until you have a portfolio of material you can regurgitate in any class. Then over time you will perfect your style.
To practice your demo class stand in front of a full length mirror, so you can see what you look like, and teach to the mirror. If you do not have a mirror, turn your video cam on you and record your demo class, then watch what you look like. This way you can see what your students see and improve on it. Anyway it is a good idea to record you, so you can put your best video up on youtube or your favorite video site.
Youtube is blocked in China so use another video site. Also gmail and possibly google are blocked too now, so use another email site or take an unblocker with you, like ultrasurf. In China you can use youku and tudou, these are China youtube.
I put my video up on this site, so far it is not blocked in China – www.jobteachworld.com. This site has a section for video CVs. Watch a few of the other videos on the site to see how other teachers do their video CVs. When you have got it all together, put a video CV up so you can show the world and prospective employers your teaching style.
Your craft is teaching so perfect it. It makes life easier if you know what you are doing. And youtube can give you the ideas, you just have to practice them.

For more information about teaching in China click here.

Peter Legrove spends most of his time in front of a mixed bunch of kids trying to instill in them some semblance of the road to survive the future.

This article is copyright © peter legrove.

You can use this article on your website or ezine but leave the resource box intact.

All the best teaching in China

Teacher Peter

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Teaching English In China

November 24, 2014 · Filed under Online Learning, Teach in China, Teaching Reading · Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Peter Legrove has nearly finished his new book taken from his experiences of teaching English in China. He recommends after you or your children finish university spend some time teaching English overseas. It is a great experience and you might learn the language of the future.

Teaching English As A Second Language In China

China is screaming out for English teachers. Just go to any of the teach English job sites and you will see so many jobs you will be paralyzed. Go to Dave’s ESL cafe at http://www.eslcafe.com/ and see what you can find. There are many job sites like http://www.tefl.com/, but here they would like you to study for there ESL teaching certificate, but you don’t need really need one. No one ever asked to see my certificates.

After you get to China this is the job site to use http://www.echinacities.com, This is the job site for getting jobs once you are in China. If you just want to find out about life in China have a look there. Also try out this website http://www.jobteachworld.com and do the online CV so your CV is up online.

Just remember in China a lot of sites you use everyday are blocked in China. Like youtube and Facebook. But that is not a problem just take an unblocker on your laptop or on a stick. I use- ultrasurf -and that worked extremely well. Anyway someone in China will give you an unblocker. That is not a problem. You have to take the download with you as most unblocker sites are also blocked.

I put my video CV up online on jobteachworld as it is not blocked, whereas most video sites are blocked. But you can put a video up on the Chinese video site like youku and tudou. They are possibly the two most popular sites.

Now for an introduction to China all I can say is ‘Be amazed’. I don’t think anyone outside of Asia has any idea about what you will expect and neither do you. I say “Welcome to the next superpower” because that is where China is heading. The whole place is moving, everywhere you go there are people and lots of them. And they are all enjoying life, spending money, buying things, eating out and what ever.

Get a recent copy of “Lonely Planet China” and follow it until you have a fair idea of what you can do yourself. Landing in China is very daunting, you can’t read the language and you can’t speak it so follow the book. It is chaos to the max.

Japan is very organized, Korea is not crowded but it is a bit of a disaster, until you know what you are doing. At least you can get a seat on the bus and the trains. In China forget it. Standing room only on the buses and trains, you get used to it.

Buses have numbers so as long as you know the bus number you should be able to find your way around. The subway stations are in pinyin so you can read them and it is pretty idiot proof. And a lot of the subway people speak English, or they will find somebody who does. So it is pretty good.

If you start in Hong Kong the shock will not be so great. Hong Kong is an overcrowded place that used to be the Pearl of the Orient but it got left behind as China overtook it. I used to live in Hong Kong but I never go back there now. China is the place. Hong Kong has stayed the same while China just bounded ahead. But you can get acclimatized in HK to the chaos when you go across the border.

Years ago when you went across the border between HK and China you used to go back in time. Now you are going to the future. After you come out of the immigration building, you just stroll to the railway station, about 5 to 10 minutes. Your last quiet stroll in China.

Once you get to the railway station, welcome to China. The lines to the ticket windows can be anything from 20 people to the back wall. Sometimes less than 20 but not very often. When you get to the window just say “Guangzhou” and get your ticket. You need your passport to get a ticket so have it handy. Some windows have an English sign meaning they speak English, so it is pretty straight forward.

The tickets are pretty self explanatory with the train number, your carriage number and the seat number. The trains leave every 15 minutes, sometimes 10 minutes and sometimes 20 minutes. Usually you have to wait for three trains before your train number appears on the screen. Then you follow the crowd, you wont get lost, everybody is getting on the same train. When you are on the platform find your carriage number, climb in and find your seat. Pretty straight forward. You have about 10 minutes to board the train before it takes off. Then you are barreling along at about 160 kms/hour. Not bad for your first hour in China.

For more information about teaching in China click here.

Peter Legrove spends most of his time in front of a mixed bunch of kids trying to instill in them some semblance of the road to survive the future.

This article is copyright © peter legrove.

You can use this article on your website or ezine but leave the resource box intact.

All the best teaching in China
Teacher Peter

Church in Secondlife

Click here to go to church online

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