I know of a man in Kunming who, after teaching English here for a period of about seven years, assumed a managerial position at a friend’s company. The job didn’t go well, as the new manager regularly turned up late, failed to fulfill contractual obligations, and did a poor job managing his staff. Eventually, he returned to his native country to pursue a graduate degree at the age of 33. In retrospect, his friend and former supervisor said, “It wasn’t that he was stupid, it was just that he taught English in China for too long”
What he meant was this: years of teaching English in China tends to inculcate certain bad habits that make one unfit for having a real job anywhere else. This has less to do with teaching and more to do with the nature of being a laowai in China; most of my family members-including me for a spell- teach or have taught and work very, very hard. In China, though, the demands of being a foreign English teacher tend to be somewhat light.
Most young teachers start out with a solid work ethic. They prepare their lessons, make photocopies, and arrive to the classroom early to write items on the board. This carries on for a few weeks. Then, one night the young teacher goes to the pub and encounters other young foreign teachers, who encourage him to have a few beers. Eventually, the young teacher decides to go home. The others ask him why he’s leaving so early.
“I’ve got class tomorrow at 9 and I haven’t prepared,”
“Prepare? You prepare? Dude…just throw on a DVD for ‘listening practice'”
“Hmm..that’s not a bad idea. æœåŠ¡å‘˜ï¼å†æ¥ä¸€ç“¶é’岛４
While he may feel a tinge of guilt for not preparing, he realizes that he got through the lesson-hangover notwithstanding- without any undue difficulty. In fact, the kids all seemed to like it! Even the administration is happy; after all, he’s only there to be a ghost-faced entertainer.
So soon the teacher realizes that the fourteen or so hours per week he spent preparing could be spent doing something more fun, such as drinking, watching DVDs, or surfing the web. In essence, he has reduced himself to a performance level just high enough to avoid getting fired. And if he does get fired, well…there are only a million other teaching jobs to choose from!
Since most foreigners who teach in English stay, on average, a year, this pattern does little long-term damage to their work ethic. But for those, like the man I know in Kunming, who do it for several years; having to go do a real job with real responsibilities can almost be too much to bear.
I can agree with you totally! Going on my 3rd year here; you want to be a great teacher, but often you end up just being the foreign guy who can speak English. So many times it seems that you are just there to show that the school does have someone who can really speak English. The school ready doesn’t want you to teach, only to talk at the kids. You can tell this when God forbid you really try to grade them. I learned then that you can only go with the flow. So I’ve also learned to work extra job to skill my work ethic intact.
This is one of the main reasons I had to get out of the ESL teaching gig.
It’s interesting that the ESL teachers who associate with other ESL teachers socially tend to fall into this trap the most, and the ones that are more isolated (smaller towns, different age group, different social needs) tend to stick with their initial work ethic.
No doubt the majority of this relates to the lack of pressure for results that are put on ESL teachers, but I think it also has a connection to the idea of living in China not being “the real world”.
After only a few months, the other foreign teacher I came to LinLi with had gone home to the US. I assumed all of her classes (doubling my work load) and none of the teachers thought I could do it. Even with this load, I only teach 19 hours a week. I actually feel better than when I was only teaching 9.5 hours.
At times I wish I could get out of the “ESL teaching gig” as Ryan called it, but there’s nothing else that could be profitable for me to do here. I do find myself falling into this China work ethic mentality at times though, and it’s something that I’ll have to fight when we return to America.
I agree with everybody so far that this has to do with a lack of pressure or this not being the “real world”, but I think more than anything to me it has to do with the knowledge that all of this is temporary. If it’s not long-term and there’s no extra reward for harder work, why put in the extra effort? Why not just put in what is necessary because nobody is going to care either way.
Good article…as a career slacker and all around lazy guy, I still find myself amazed by the lack of any work ethic or professional pride displayed by the other teachers at my school. (And trust me, that takes a lot of doing.) I generally just do lesson plans and show up for my classes 20 minutes early and I am considered a hard worker.
When I tell my Chinese co-workers that no, I’m actually pretty lazy and that most foreigners must work much MUCH harder than we do even during our busiest weeks, they are amazed.
Of course, the management doesn’t really care, and are often just as guilty in encouraging this laziness. I get invited to bbq or KTV by them often, and it is they that usually say “No problem…”
“This has less to do with teaching and more to do with the nature of being a laowai in China” – as you say, this has a lot to do with the person involved. A lot depends on attitude and if the teacher is undisciplined enough keep in mind what he/she is there for then there may be problems.
I taught in China for more than 3 years and met several who might have fitted that bill, but I was also fortunate enough to have come across others who actually wanted to do something and work to get there.
I think the reason why foreigners slack on their jobs here is because teaching English in China is meaningless, atleast for foreigners. It is easy to become unmotivated.
I’ve seen the most enthusiastic cultural-relativists come, dismiss the complaints of the old hands, and turn into bitter cynics inside a year. And leave.
I’ve seen the best and brightest, socially-responsible dynamic teachers squeezed out by “student” (customer) complaints. Those pesky academic standards and critical thinking skills – it’s “too hard” and these teachers “must hate China” for the sin of being clear-minded.
The China ESL market does not bear academic standards. We teachers are untrained comedians in a joyless society. We are neglected tools, who are quickly tossed aside for newer, unfledged models.
The job requirements:
Be good-looking.
Be a native Brit/N. American/Aussie.
It helps to be single and gullible with the ladies.
Don’t offend racists.
Don’t require applied skills.
Don’t require results.
Don’t challenge perceptions.
…and you’ll do just fine in the longterm.
I’m here in Zhengzhou, Henan, China. I’ve been late before, bus accidents, taxis taking the looooong way to exploit foreigners, and other issues, but I’ve always made up the time, to fullfill my obligation.
It’s possible that for HIM, he had spent too much time here, and was able to learn who he really is. Lazy.
I agree on many points of the previous comments. There is a “quality” discrepancy between foreigner and their employers expectations. My school charges half of what our competators in the area charge. I’ve met their foreign staff, and clearly, even their English is NOT their native language. Oddly though, our pay is somewhat similar. *shrugs*
What you said is not uninteresting. How is called your school whose teachers are not native English speakers ?
I’ve been working here for half a year now and it seems that teaching English in China just destroys any decent person. The management are horrible. Utterly useless. They tell us to teach and then don’t give us books. When we ask for books, they say they have no money and then proceed to spend thousands of rmb on dancing Santas, Christmas trees, decorations and lights. I came here as an incredibly hard working person with standards and goals and everyday, the school chips away at that. If I try harder and go out of my way to add things to the curriculum that their shitty books don’t have, I get criticized. If I sit here like a zombie, barely teach and watch movies, they don’t care. We are just window dressing. They didn’t hire us to teach. They hired us for face value…. but then again, nothing here in this country is beyond superficial so what should I expect?
actually the same is true of teaching EFL in other countries.I teach in Jerusalem and the problems are similar.You get tired of Preparing properly when your customers are unruly,bored youths who don’t listen and play with their mobiles under the table, can not be disciplined and if you threaten them with failing grades their parents/the school princpial/both give YOU a hard time.This tends to cause a certain amount of demotivation on the part of the overworked and underpaid teachers.
Hi There,
Well it is similar in Korea. Of course they have enforced mandatory desk warming here at public schools. So they like this problem it appears.
i look at it from the bright point.. china is a great place to live an easy life, working part time and leaving all that unnecessary work related stress back in europe.. 🙂 after this i think id never wanna go back working “in the system” back home, only option is to run my own business somehow… and china seems to be a good place to make contacts for the future.
How does a teacher avoid not getting fired in china any ways of keeping your teaching job.