First Day of Teaching

Monday was my very first day of teaching. I'm not sure if terrible is the right word to describe it, maybe shocking, because it was a bit of a shock for me.

Before coming to Taiwan I had some strange delusion that Taiwanese kids were obedient and studious, and that when I enter the classroom they would all sit there silently and listen to every word I say. Apparently I was wrong.

To be honest I'm not sure if it's wise to let an inexperienced teacher, such as myself, let lose alone with a group of kids. For my first kindergarten lesson the Chinese teacher (Who is supposed to be in the room as well) informed me that she had a health examination, and would be leaving. (Great) I attempted to be the fun amusing teacher that I was trained to be during the Hess training, but it didn't work so well.

Although we were trained by Hess for a week and a half we didn't get any exposure to young children until we arrived at out branches. All the demos were done in front of our fellow trainees who played the roles of the students. They told us about classroom management one afternoon, but we were never actually shown how do do it, and were only told that there would be no hitting, biting, ear pulling, or humiliating the children.

So with no classroom management in force, the children went pretty crazy during the lesson. The substitute Chinese teacher also went in and out of the room. Leaving me to silently plead for help every time she left. Apparently we're supposed to enforce an all English environment and speaking Chinese is forbidden amongst the students during English time. (A little harsh for a five year old, if you ask me) So I was trying my best to enforced the all English thing until the Chinese teacher returned from her health exam and began talking loudly at the back with another teacher, in Chinese, about how painful it was. My feeling at the time was “What the hell?” How am I supposed to tell these Children that you can not speak Chinese when you're in the classroom speaking it yourself? To be honest a lot of the rules here at Hess seem a bit ambiguous.

To be honest I've recited 0 help in regards to kindergarten. I just arrived here, I got to watch one class, and then it was like “Here is your class, teach them.”

Most of the conversations with my fellow English teachers have gone something like this.

Me: Isn't there a teacher's guide or something?

Co-worker: Didn't they give you one? There should be one in the class-room. (Searches the room and finds one that is half falling apart,

Day 2

Me: Do you have any advice for fun-time activities, I'm having a hard time trying to think of a new one everyday?

Co-worker 2: There is actually a book called the fun time activity book.

Me: Really?

Co-worker: They should have given you one, there should be one in the classroom.

We search the class-room and there is no so called fun-time activity book. I eventually borrow one off a fellow co-worker.

Another thing I discovered on my first day of teaching, was that the office seemed to be paper Nazi's. Many of the activities, and fun time activities, ask you to photo-copy or print different things, which was why I was surprised when the office was somewhat reluctant to give me any paper. After a bit of a struggle I finally managed to receive thirty pages. Therefore when I saw that my co worker possessed the paper goodness I asked if I could borrow some.

Me: Do you mind if I borrow some paper?

Co-worker: Actually yes.

Me: Why?

Co-worker: That packet of paper is all that I get for the year. You should have some in your class-room. Didn't they give you any?

Inner me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!! Why is there so much stuff they haven't given me!! Are they just slack!! Or are they just waiting to see if I stick around long enough to be worth receiving it.

During fun time I also noticed that all my fellow co-workers seem to posses Hess T-shirts, so I'm wondering if I'll ever get one of those either.