Business

At work there are two types of classes I teach: workshops and face to face lessons, both of which have their advantages and disadvantages. All told, I teach 25 hours per week, or five lessons per day, with the other 4 hours devoted to lunch, placement tests and surfing the Internet. Admittedly a chuck of that time is supposed to be for talking to students in a casual setting (not like office hours at university, more like 2 friends hanging out), but teachers aren't required to, just encouraged and after a while repeating the same simple conversations grows tiresome and I seek refuge in the teachers lounge.

The face to face lessons are set in a small room and contain anywhere between 1 and 4 students of equal ability. The general idea is for the students to really have a chance to talk and converse with a native English speaker. We have a power point presentation with slides to direct the topics, usually teaching grammar, vocabulary or language. These lessons can be tedious if the students don't talk, but great if the student's ability and willingness are high. Of course when there are only 4 people booked, there is the chance that nobody shows up at all, which is the best.

The workshop classes are anywhere between 1 and 25 students, and can be of any mix of levels. The lessons focus on academic subjects (like grammar), cultural subjects, or business subjects. I usually teach the business lessons, partly because of the schedule and partly because somehow I have more business experience than almost anyone else at my office. Though the students clearly prefer the cultural lessons to my business ones (who doesn't like talking about birthday parties, and who does like talking about stock options?). Fortunately these lessons are usually very successful and I enjoy teaching them because its almost like putting on a show. The students sit and listen and interact with each other when I tell them too, but I also get to prance around in front of them, telling stupid jokes which they actually laugh at! Nothing like an eager captive audience.

The lessons and power points are all written by 'the people upstairs' or something like that. They actually let me write one once, which went alright. They don't let us change them, so the content stays the same everywhere in China, or so they say. I guess it makes life easier, not needing to 'really' prepare, just needing to read the lesson plan and present accordingly, but sometimes it would be nice to be given a little more leeway when it comes to teaching. All and all, I have enjoyed teaching and though I doubt it will be my life's profession, I would like to return to it at some point when I'm older.