Most frustrating thing...

...is even if the students learn absolutely NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING and they fail every test, they STILL graduate and get a certificate from the school. So, what's the point???

Gee

Two weeks into the new semester and I'm already ready to leave.

Been pretty busy

Looks like my worst fear has been confirmed. I'm going to have to teach the work load of 2 teachers. They tried to hire a 3rd teacher but he can't get a visa, the local authorities are pretty much looking for any excuse to reject people here in Zhangzhou. So, now I'm busy as hell.

Next semester...

...begins next Monday. I am not excited.

Normal?

Why can't I just find a "normal" job where nothing weird happens? Yes, it's related to the previous post about "why".

Question of the day...why...

...unfortunately I can't say more than that...until I leave.

My students...

A while ago a student came up to me and said, "I'm sorry teacher but we are very lazy". A few days ago a student said, "I don't like to speak English". When I ask them why do they go to school they say because it is better than nothing. On the contrary, it is EQUAL to nothing.

Graduation rate

99% of the students who go to my public 3-year college graduate. 99%.

Hahahah!

I go to class this afternoon and nobody was there. So, I called an admin and asked if classes were canceled. Yes, I'm sorry I thought someone told you, she says. Second time everybody in the school knows classes were canceled except me. Yay! This is fun! I was wondering why people were giving me funny looks more than usual as I walked to class.

I'm alive...

...just busy. I love my job and my students.

Class is canceled, but don't tell the teacher...

I went to class this morning and I go to pickup the key to the room. They couldn't find the key so they gave me another one but that classroom was already spoken for so I had to go back and grab another. I finally got an empty room with about 5 minutes until class began, and I still don't see any of my students waiting for me outside the old classroom as they usually do. Fine I think, they are tired today they will filter in late. The bell rang and still no students. I called one of them up and she told me the class was canceled today. So my question is, why do all the students know class is canceled but I don't? Waste my time much?

Job comparisons

My job in Korea:

Location: Suwon. It's about an hour from downtown Seoul by subway and half-hour by bus. Not much to do in Suwon. But there were a few nice places to take a walk.
Expat community: The expat community was small, but at least once a week you would see a foreign face on the streets. It was however, full of very strange characters.
The stares: A few here and there, not too bad.
Days per week: 6 M-Sa
Classes per day: 5
Teaching hours per week: 30
Work hours: 2:30-9:30 with a 1 hour lunch
Class length: 45 minutes
Student ages: 8 to 16
Class size: 10 to 25 students
Vacation: 10 days plus national holidays.
Health insurance: None
Pay: Not bad.
Food: Cheap and outstanding.
Housing: One room, with a kitchen and bathroom. Small, but livable, very clean and modern.
Internet: Unbelievably fast.
Weather: Not bad, except for winter.
Korean co-workers: So-so. Most were very friendly and helpful, a few were almost bursting with dislike for the foreign teachers.
Foreign co-workers: Nice on the outside, but not people I wanted to spend time with.
Students: They were forced to learn English by their parents so it wasn't very fun to teach them. Only a few were truly interested.

My job in China

Location: Zhangzhou, Fujian Province. It's about an hour away from Xiamen on the coast. Not a single thing to do here. This is a very small Chinese city that is in the process of developing. The old city is currently being torn to pieces and high rises are being put in its place. There is no place to take a nice walk and it's a high stress place to live.
Expat community: There is no expat community. I know of 7 other foreigners who live here. None of us ever get together and do anything. I've only met 4 of them.
The stares: Everywhere I go I'm the center of attention. On good days it's great, on bad days it sucks.
Days per week: 4
Classes per day: 4
Teaching hours per week: 16
Work hours: Varies, either 8 to 11:30 or 3 to 6:25
Class length: 45 minutes
Student ages: Young adults
Class size: 50 to 60 students
Vacation: 10 WEEKS, plus national holidays
Health insurance: Expat health insurance
Pay: Below poverty level by western standards, way higher than local wages.
Food: Cheap and so-so.
Housing: Rough around the edges. Big apartments though.
Internet: Unbelievably slow, with most ports blocked.
Weather: Not bad, except for summer.
Chinese co-workers: Outstanding.
Foreign co-worker: Normal, but hasn't adjusted AT ALL to life here after one and a half years. Very negative about his entire experience and life in general.
Students: Failed so miserably on their national college entrance exam that our program is their only hope. Half are completely uninterested, the other half at least make an effort to tie their own shoe laces.

The winner is:

Location: Suwon
Expat community: Tie
The stares: Suwon
Days per week: Zhangzhou
Classes per day: Zhangzhou
Teaching hours per week: Zhangzhou
Work hours: Zhangzhou
Class length: Tie
Student ages: Zhangzhou
Class size: Suwon
Vacation: HAHAHAHA, not even close. Zhangzhou.
Health insurance: Zhangzhou
Pay: HEHEHE, not even close. Suwon.
Food: Suwon
Housing: Tie
Internet: Suwon
Weather: Zhangzhou
Korea/Chinese co-workers: Zhangzhou
Foreign co-worker: Tie
Students: Tie

Korea job: 6
China job: 9

I will say this about Korea. It's much easier to adjust to life there. At the end of my year in Korea, I was calling it home. It FELT like home. I wonder if I will ever feel the same way about Zhangzhou? Learning Chinese is certainly helping me adjust, so maybe I will.

Earthquake

The thing that bothers me the most about this earthquake is the number of schools that collapsed. I couldn't imagine something like that happening to my students. I hope this will force stricter building code enforcement.

I hinted that there were problems at my school in an earlier post. I guess I will let the cat out of the bag. According to my students and an administrator, the last president of my school was accepting bribes from a construction company. In turn, they were using sub-standard building material. When the government found out they arrested the president and condemned the building. I wonder how common this is?

On an unrelated note, I am moderating comments so if your comment doesn't appear do not worry. It will appear eventually.

My job and students

I guess I'll tell you a little bit about where I work and the students I teach. The school I teach at is a very low level college. We have about 12,000 students and 700 teachers. If I were visiting different schools looking for a job, this school would be the last on my list based on appearances. It is currently a giant construction site, but when it is finally finished it should be a pretty nice school. There is one building on campus which is incomplete and construction has stopped. Nobody can tell me if the building will ever be finished. It has something to do with the last president of the school, according to rumor, he is now in prison.

The program I teach in has the lowest of the low as far as students. These are the students who completely failed the national exam, but their parents have enough money to buy them into our program. So, students are either in this program because they failed the big exam, or they are in it because their parents are forcing them into it. This doesn't make for a very good teaching environment. I'd estimate that one-fifth of my students are pre-intermediate level and are interested in learning. Another one-fifth are pre-intermediate level and are only somewhat interested in learning. One-fifth are beginner level and are only somewhat interested in learning, and the rest are completely uninterested in learning. Despite this fact I am still able to have fun when I am teaching them and enjoy my job. My philosophy is that if the students want to learn they will, if they don't want to learn they won't, but either way, I'm going to enjoy my life.

The class sizes are between 40 to 60 students. The maximum number of students recommended for the type of teaching I do is 25. Teaching 25 students ESL is challenging, teaching 60 is stupid. They aren't motivated enough to do pair work or group work, and only speak English when I talk to them. In one of my classrooms they decided to ban the teachers from using the chalkboard and computer/projector due to chalk dust damaging the computer. Oh yeah, two of my classes have no books. So, let's go over this for a second. Two classes back to back, 1.5 hours each, no books, no computer/projector, no chalkboard, all the students failed the national exam and 50 students on average for each class. All I can do is laugh.

My internet connection is back

There are sweeping changes taking place at my school. We have a new president, new buildings, lots of construction, and they just changed some settings on the network. In order to connect to the internet I have to install and run a program called H3C Client. It authenticates to the network using 802.1x protocol. It's a windows only program, and it sucks. They used to have a generic login password for every computer, now they have a unique login and password for every computer.

Besides the fact I have to use windows on my brand new MacBook Pro, the internet is incredibly slow, and they are blocking almost all the ports. I cannot download torrents or anything else. It's like I'm living at my university again, except it's in a developing country.

My rhythm of updating my blog has been broken, but I will try to get back into the habit.