Jetting Educated

Setting: Near the city of Guangzhou, Southern China. Role: Teacher of English and Music/Movement to pre-school children Elapsed time: Day 114 in China... If I said to you ‘’I work abroad as an English teacher’’, you might imagine me in front of a semicircle of adults, encouraging them to repeat new words- or with a classful of high school kids who can’t sit still in their seats. That’s probably what I would have pictured too. That is, before I accepted a job to become a pre-school teacher in China. When I arrived in Autumn, these pretty lanterns the students had made were adorning the playground One slight problem with accepting this job was that I didn’t have knowledge of how to teach English to 2-5-year-olds. I was honest during my Skype interview: ''I’ve taught teenagers and I’ve looked after younger children in France''. And that experience along with my CELTA qualification and summer school work was enough to get me the jo...

I was thinking recently of what I have learnt from the season, and it has been nice to reflect on it as its been quite long and varied. Its been a great experience but in fairness, I've not learnt too much. Thanks for the makeover kids... not I've never really had to comfort children before, as working in a school everyone is within an environment they are used to and, other than the odd bullying incident, most of my children were happy. Here though, some children cry incessantly for their parents even though they are only away form them for a few hours. It is true that they are doing an exercise that most beginners are shit at, with people they don't know in a new environment. But don't cry about it.           I've learnt a bit about working with younger children, having been with Spritelets (3-5 years) and nursery (4 months- 3 years). Mainly its been reinforced that children like it when you act like an idiot, which I have some experience w...