I first became aware of the enormous language gap in China three weeks into my first year, when I taught English at a public high school in northern Jiangsu. One afternoon, feeling slightly homesick, I hopped into a taxi with a simple mission: to go to McDonalds. Being completely unable to speak Chinese at that [...]
Teaching ESL Posts
University ESL Teaching: What you should be asking about!
Teaching ESL at a university in China is a good gig: low hours, long holidays, weekends and more than enough money to survive on. If you’ve chosen this route you’ll find that most universities (and agents on their behalf) are very happy to offer basic terms, conditions and vague information to hurry you through signing [...]
Crossing The Line
Recall the old expression: teachers are to act in loco parentis. This means, if my high school Latin still serves me, that during school hours the teachers are responsible for assuming the role of parents in the lives of their students. Yet as anyone knows, this doesn’t really work. As teenagers, the last things we [...]
Eager? Or Just Inappropriate?
The scene should be familiar to all who have lived in China for awhile: You’re out at a cafe or bar with a group of friends, having a beer and a few laughs (or is that a few beers and a laugh?). A Chinese man, or woman, approaches your table and asks to speak. He [...]
The 411 on Your New Job
Chinese skills that develop so quickly it’s like they’re on steroids. Reading essays that provide a glimpse into this strange country. Blossoming friendships with students named Gorge, Pudding, and Glenn Chestnut. Oh, the glamorous life I led in my head before I actually started teaching. If you’re like me or several of my friends, and [...]
Bookworms, China’s dirty textbook market
Anyone that’s taught for more than 10 minutes in China’s public school system will attest to how craptastic the supplied text books are. Chinese-produced pablum that bears the name of prominent Western universities in hopes that no one will notice that the content is blander than a bowl of zhou. A recent Southern Weekend article [...]
‘Education is change’, so why not give some change?
Some of you may have heard about the ambitious, big-in-heart, project my friend Tom has been devoting every waking hour to – The Library Project. When I wrote about it at its inception last November, I admit, I didn’t have half the vision towards it that Tom so obviously does. I thought it would be [...]
Regarding Hitler
In my first post here at Lost Laowai, I wrote about a student of mine who calls herself Nazi. She is, in most ways, a pleasant girl who studies hard and takes responsibility for her class. Despite bureaucratic tendencies, she hardly seems totalitarian. But a lot of friends, both online and off, told me I [...]
Get A Job – We’ll Help
I’ve just added a brand-spankin’-new feature to Lost Laowai – A China Jobs Board! And like most job boards, it features jobs. Neat eh? Though initially most jobs will very likely be of the ESL nature, it’s by no means limited to such, and all businesses looking for laowai to fill positions in their company [...]
Special English, another Christ, and Nazi
Time and again, I find the things I enjoy most about my job have little to do with teaching and everything to do with the absurdities I confront in the classroom. I wonder sometimes if this makes me a poor educator, but I don’t linger on it. My students have no books, their teacher has [...]
