Teaching English in China

So I've been teaching English on the weekends for the past year. It's been a good run and I wanted to put some funny stories together for you.

First off, many Chinese people who are studying English have the worst English names. It makes me laugh to think of some of them, I will miss the following students; Purple, Garden, King, Nemo, Rain, Rainy, Sky, Star, Boson (no idea what this is or means), Dress (who's name was actually Joyce, but I called her 'Dress' for probably 4-5 months). I also won't forget the most popular English name in China, which is Jerry. Kids here love Tom and Jerry and I would sometimes have multiple kids with the name Jerry in my classes. One benefit is that if I forget my students name I could guess Jerry and be right more times than I would be wrong.

Then there were the times where I would be at the whiteboard and I would spell words wrong. One time I was asking my students what their favorite animals were and then I would write them on the board. One kid said "hippopotamus" and there was no way I was going to get it right, so, out of embarrassment, I quickly moved on to the next animal. I also discovered that I can't spell giraffe or sandwich without the help of spell check. Thank you spell check you are my freind.

I will not, even for a second, miss the way my students would make fun of my Chinese. Correcting all of my tones and making me feel like my Chinese was worthless.

I won't forget when one kid was confused as to if I was a boy or girl. Also, I won't forget how on my last day a student asked me "Are you white, black or yellow?", I wanted to say to him, "I have no idea". And I'm almost certain that I was called fat on multiple occasions. We've covered this in previous posts, the Chinese have no problem telling you you're fat.

Leaving was tough. I loved my students and tried desperately to encourage them and build them up. I did have some kid's parents tell me some really encouraging things, which was nice. Other kids told me they were sad that I wasn't coming back. I appreciated it. I really loved my students and will miss them. Even if they did drive me crazy from time-to-time.

Do you have any questions for me about teaching English in China? If so, comment below.

much love,
the petersons