I’ve given some thought to doing an MA in TESOL. After all, I taught it in China, liked it, so why not earn 5,000 RMB a month instead of a mere 4800? All I need is a golden ticket. Luckily, I found one, via a Google ad on a message board. Upon seeing the heading, [...]
Teaching ESL Posts
Review: Yes China! An English Teacher’s Love-Hate Relationship with a Foreign Country
So I’m very acquisitive regarding books. I borrow them from friends, and have been lucky to have generous friends who love books just as much as me. I buy suitcase-fuls every time we leave Hainan. Ever since I got my HTC Android phone, I’ve been ecstatic about my ability to just download books anytime I want to. So when Ryan asked me if I wanted to read and review a new book on China for Lost Laowai, I was thrilled. I love books! I love China! Sign me up.
Clark Nielsen, author of “Yes China!
I read the book fairly quickly, but ever since then, I’ve been struggling with what to write in this review.
I’ll just add that to my resume, then…
I’ve taught English to two-year-olds in split bottom pants. The trick there is not letting them sit on your lap for storytime. I’ve taught English to bartenders and asked them to repeat after me. Bud…Wise…Er… I’ve taught businessmen and doctors, flight attendants and fry cooks. I’ve taught Little Emperors in large classes, I’ve taught university [...]
Laowai trapped in China and trying to leave
I caught this video on Hao Hao Report. Basically, Vahram Diehla is a 23-year-old American who is pleading for some advice on how to quickly raise some money to get the hell out of China.
According to his blog he’s working up in Dalian as an English teacher, but the ESL racket has lost its luster and a woman on the other side of the ocean is pulling at his heart strings.
The Outdoors Poetry Exercise
Keith, already suspicious of John, is doubly suspicious now that John missed their dinner appointment. On a rainy Friday, he wonders about John’s motives for being in China, as he implements a fresh idea into the classroom: a poetry exercise, where the students go outside, and use English to write a poem about what they see.
Keith started class. He did Tongue Twisters. He had arranged them in such a manner that they grew harder the further they went down the list, until the last student had the hardest.
“Theolphius Thistle,” Keith corrected. “Like THis. TH. Got it?”
The boy was shaking. He tried again. He got closer on the ‘th’ sound. Closer. But not correct. Keith kissed the air, drawing some ahhs from the front row, and said, “TH. Like this. Got it?”
They repeated until the bell, and the boy, now trembling, quietly slipped out of class. He never came back.
Keep It Simple and Stupid
Our hero is John, who is wandering through life without purpose. This wandering led him to a humanities degree, then to unemployment, and finally, to the great refuge of unemployed humanities majors: ESL in China.
Though Wuhan later becomes an existential swamp for John, here at the beginning, everything is new and exciting.
This is John’s first day of teaching, where the incumbent dancing laowai, Keith, schools our hero in how to stay in rhythm and step effectively.
An Open Letter to Chinese Students Going Abroad
Dear Chinese student, If you’re reading this, you have already decided to seek higher education in an English-speaking country. Congratulations! Going abroad takes a lot of courage, and I’m sure you’ll do very well. Before you go, though, I’d like to send you a modest list of things to remember when using the English language. [...]
The goodbye (but not farewell) China post
I’ve been resisting the idea of doing a “goodbye China” post for awhile now, just as I resisted the idea that I was leaving China.
I remember clearly what it was like the summer before I left America. Those initial emails, the excitement, the trepidation. The realization that my options were a) go to grad school, do the same thing I’d been doing for the past four years, or b) go to China. Do something new. I circled B.
It was the best decision I ever made.
The 7 Year Laowai: Part 8 – The Graveyard of all Ambition
… He died an old man in a cold Chinese hospital an entire hemisphere removed from everyone and everything he had ever known. Surrounded by strangers, he couldn’t even have read his own obituary.
The 7 Year Laowai: Part 7 – Safety
I had an English class once where this girl interrupted me to ask what I thought of Japan, and without waiting for an answer, proceeded to tell me that Japan had killed many Chinese people, that they hated China, they were jealous of China. Then she went into Korea. Korea “stole our culture”. You’d think imitation the sincerest form of flattery, but not this girl.
I didn’t know what to say. On one hand, listening to this recorded message, it dawned on me that I was 12,000 miles away from everyone and everything I had ever known…and that according to some people, this, this, blind allegiance, blatant censorship, and self-checking all in the name of “harmony”…this is the next superpower.
On the other hand, she was speaking. I take what I can get.
The photo’s Flickr page says it was taken mid-October.
