My students

I want to take the time to write about my students and each of my classes. For most, if not all of you, this will be very boring. But I am going to write out every mundane detail anyways. This will be a chance for me to rant and just address and release any frustration I currently hold about teaching. For those of you who have not read my "I'm so depressed!" post on my other blog, long story short, I have been overcome with a wave of inexplicable, intense sadness and I don't know how to stop it. But I figure talking about every possible thing on my mind might help. Let's start with my students, the people I see every day, whether I want to or not.

Let's start by saying, I now feel quite strongly that I do not want to become a teacher. I don't know how many people who go to foreign countries to teach English have a real desire to teach; but before coming to China, I actually considered teaching as a possible career. But I also wanted to have the chance to travel before having to have a real job. So I figured that teaching English in China would give me the opportunity to 1) try out teaching without having to make a big commitment (ie. teach, but not have to teach a full 40 hour week), 2) escape the United States and travel, and 3) learn Chinese (though I don't know how successful I am being with this). But after having taught (at only 20 hours a week) here in China, I am extremely confident, that at this point in my life, I do not want to become a teacher when I return to Los Angeles. A number of reasons, which we will get into later.

Now about my students.

So I teach 5 different sets of students. That is quite a large number considering some teachers here teach only 3 sets of students.

Let's talk about my favorite set of students. They're my CSP1 section (CSP means that they're at the intermediate level of English).

Let's make a digression to explain the classification of students' abilities. My school divides the students into 3 levels. QP is the absolute beginner's level, meaning many of these students would not understand a single sentence spoken to them in English. I do not teach any QP classes. CSP is the intermediate level. Obviously there is a wide range of students in this level. Some of the students can communicate decently in English, and can understand most of what I say to them as long as I speak very slowly. However, there are some students who just string together words, that are obviously translated directly from Chinese. And finally, there are the GES students who are the most advanced in the school. These students can understand nearly everything I say, but again only when I speak slowly, and can respond fairly well in a complete sentence. All those letters actually stand for something, but it doesn't really matter since the abbreviations are only used in my school anyways.

Okay, back to my CSP1 students. I teach these students writing and a class called "World Cultures." I do not develop curricula for any of my classes. I am given text books and I pretty much just teach straight from the text book. I see my World Cultures class everyday, and so of course I am the most attached to them and favor these students over other students. In world cultures, I pretty much spend each week talking about a different region in the world and talking about geography, landforms, cash crops, etc. Imagine elementary school social science class. I love these students. They're super well-behaved. They respond to me when I ask them questions. I feel that they respect me, and I think that they like me. These are the students that I went to karaoke (or KTV as it's called here) with, and these are the students I went to dinner with (in the picture below). And I went shopping with some students in this class. I just really like these students, mainly because they listen to me, they do their work, and they like me, inside of class and out.

Now for my other CSP sections, I only see them twice a week. Writing class only meets twice a week. And quite frankly, I feel like I cannot be effective in it because 2 hours a week is simply not enough hours. And the book is kinda crappy, and the students are at such varied levels, I really don't know what to do to make sure that everyone gets the most out of it.

My CSP2 section is the class with the most trouble students. The overall English ability of this entire section is a lot lower than the ability of my CSP1 section (even though technically they are categorized as the same level, so should know the same material at the end of the year). This class has got the students that skip class a lot and students that fall asleep in class. Also, I'm pretty confident that about a quarter of the class doesn't understand the words coming out of my mouth when I teach. The only problem is, that those students make no effort to pay attention or attempt to understand (because they're either zoning out or dozing off). Even after I explain things and repeat things 2 times, students still don't know what I'm talking about. You're thinking, "Well maybe you're just an awful teacher Wendy!" But quite honestly, I am explaining simple things in the simplest way possible, it's just that some students don't listen. Like today in class, I explained what a topic sentence was to the class. Then I called on Leo to explain what a topic sentence was. He didn't know, cuz um, he was asleep. Then immediately after I explain to Leo and make him repeat a sentence, I call on another student named Penn to give the definition of a topic sentence. And he didn't know, cuz um, he was zoning out. And I just didn't know what the hell to do, because at this point I have explained it 5 times, and half the class knows what's going on, and I feel like an idiot for saying the same thing over and over when most of the people understand, but a handful don't. Do I stop class and hand-hold the ones who don't understand? Or do I just leave them to get further behind?

And the thing is, outside of class I freaking love these students. I've been to dinner with them; I've had lunch with them. I have conversations with them outside of class and I freaking love them. They're pleasant and lively and funny. But in class, I can't get them to be freaking awake. I don't understand. What I should do is give them more hands-on activities. But how do I take the time to do the activities and still make sure that I get through the textbook by the end of the year?

Now for CSP Qinghua, a class that I also see only twice a week.

Oh yeah, did you know that my school has two campuses in Beijing? That means that twice a week, when I go to teach my CSP Qinghua class, I have to commute for 40 minutes each way to teach for a one-hour long class.

I live at the ErWai college campus. And I teach 3 of my 5 sections at the ErWai campus, in an academic building that is literally right next to my dorm building. And I teach 2 of my 5 sections at the Qinghua campus, which is actually quite close to ErWai, but because of the heinous traffic, it takes nearly an hour each way.

The CSP Qinghua class is the class that I nearly cried in front of yesterday. Not because of any real reason. This class has got the largest ability gap of all my classes. There is one woman in the class who is pretty much fluent in English. She has lived in England for several years, and she is married to a British man, so yeah, she's pretty much fluent. I don't really understand why she's in the class, since she's worlds better than the other students. So a lot of the time, I feel a lot of pressure to teach her something, since I feel like she's not learning anything from me. But in the exact same section, there are students who are literally incoherent. I have one student (the one whom I had the infamous "did you write about day or night? yes. did you write about day? yes. did you write about night? yes." conversation with) who cannot form a single correct sentence in the class.

Why isn't she in a lower section you ask? Well I wonder the same thing. And to be honest, process in China is process in China and sometimes it doesn't make sense but you just have to go with it. I know this doesn't make much sense, but I'll write a post about this later. But the simple answer: No fucking clue.

Anyways, this class makes me so frustrated. Mainly because they are so fucking antsy. Writing is usually the last class of the day, and on days that they have writing class, they have to stay an hour later than usual; so yeah, no one wants to be there. And this class especially, expresses this sentiment in a physical way. I have students who are asleep. I have students who are shaking their legs the whole time, checking their watches, just itching to get out. I have students who whisper to each other in Chinese. I have students who are doing homework for other classes. And I just don't know what to do. I just feel completely powerless and disrespected. I just think to myself, "How can you disrespect me so much to fall asleep in my fucking face, while I am standing right next to your desk talking at you?" And yesterday it was just too much for me, and I wanted to cry, but I didn't. And the problem is, that again with this class, I love them after class, and before class, when we're just having conversations. But in class, I hate them and I want to rip their little heads off. And sometimes I do have my little power tripping lectures with them. And it's getting harder and harder for me to be pleasant with them outside of class when they fucking disrespect me in class. And I just don't know what to do. Part of me just wants to show up to class, and say, "you don't want to fucking be here? You're not going to listen to me? You're not going to pay attention? Why don't we all just fucking leave?! Because I do not want to be here any more than you do you little brats!" And these are full grown adults. And the problem is that as a student I have the same bad habits. I don't pay attention all the time. Sometimes I get really drowsy in class. Sometimes I do homework for other classes. And as a student I always thought, "It's not personal." But as a teacher, I am taking it fucking personal. It is so fucking personal. And maybe that's my problem, maybe I should just let it go. And keep talking even if no one is listening. But then I just feel like a damn useless ineffective teacher. And if I just give them games to do all the time, then I'll just feel like I'm not providing them enough hard knowledge. Fuck, life is complicated. AHHHH! When I think about this class, I just want to scream. I want to punish them and make them do 50 push-ups or something.

Next is my GES class. I teach them reading, idioms, and pronunciation. This class is fine. I don't feel much of a connection to this class since I started teaching them 6 weeks into the semester. Also because they're the highest level, I feel like they don't need me as much, so I feel like I'm not teaching them much. I think that they like me (I hate that it's so important that the students not only learn from me, but like me too). There are 3 students in the class who are obviously placed in a level that is way too hard for them. 1 student in particular is extremely socially awkward, performs the worst, and quite honestly might have some sort of disorder. This is also quite a difficult position for a teacher. I have some students who are very obviously depressed and obviously has shit going down outside of class (based on the things that they write in their assignments and their body language in class), but what is my role to do anything about it as a teacher? And these are the students who are performing poorly in class. And this will sound horrible, but sometimes it's not only knowing what the best thing to do for the student is, but caring enough to actually take the time to do it. And so far, I haven't done anything. And with the one socially awkward student in my class, she is obviously ostracized by the other students. Often when I tell students to work in groups, she is left out from the group so she works silently alone. At lunch, sometimes she sits in the classroom by herself. During the halloween party, she wore this completely bizarre costume and either danced by herself or sat alone in an empty area. And of course as a teacher I make an effort to talk to her, to spend time with her, to do work with her, but I am also human. And as awful as this sounds, I also hate having to put in all the effort and energy to deal with someone who is very very awkward and has a very very low ability for speaking English. So it's true, I want to focus on the good-looking students, on the students who perform the best in class, on the students who are outgoing and likable.

And lastly is my Sunday class. Yes people, I have to work on Sundays. This is what happens when you work for a private school for adults (with a president that really only cares about making as much money from Chinese people as possible). I work from 9a-12p every Sunday. Only 3 hours, but it still puts a damper on my weekend, since it pretty much means I can't go out on Saturday night since I have to wake up early on Sunday. Part of me is kinda grateful, cuz I always feel so productive when I wake up early and have the afternoon free; but still I hate it. This class is quite small (only 4-8 people each week) and each week seems to be a different set of students. I really don't think it's effective for them, but I guess any little bit helps. And I teach these students business. Hah. Again, I pretty much teach the textbook, and go through exercises so it's not that difficult. But I usually only prepare for the upcoming class the night before or the morning of the class, so it's definitely not my A game. Sometimes I'm bored by my own teaching, so now I've decided to just focus more on speaking activities. Though I hate the fact that I pretty much teach my students materialism (half of my activities involve them trying to sell a product).

All this drama and pent up frustration over just 20 hours a week. Gosh, you must seriously be wondering what the big deal is. But seriously, these classes are pretty much all I think about; that is when I'm not thinking about how annoying some of the other teachers are or about how much I miss my family and friends and college and L.A. or about how I'm an incompetent/unproductive ass who is wasting away. So yeah, you can imagine how all this can bring a person down.