Could you be a teacher in China?
The daily life of a foreign teacher in China is the stuff of an article by Kilcullen-born Garreth Byrne in the current issue of ‘The Far East’, the magazine of the Columban Fathers.
Garreth, who has had a long career teaching English in Ireland, Africa, the Middle East and China, was recently awarded the Lushan Friendship Award, given to selected ‘foreign experts’ working in Jiangxi Province in China.
In the piece, ‘Come and Teach in China’, he details how he has learned to adapt to working in a country where he doesn’t speak the local language. “Although I have learned to count to a thousand in Chinese, which is a great help when shopping,” he notes.
Garreth has been back to China many times over the last decade. He is currently teaching in Nanchang University, which specialises in technical and engineering studies.
He details the work and daily life of a ‘foreign expert’, up to six of which may be working at any typical third level institution in China. Many are sent there by the Association for International Teaching, Education and Curriculum Exchange (AITECE), an organisation based in Australia but with national offices in Ireland, Britain and the USA.
The people it sends must have a university degree, and a Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate is a welcome bonus.
“Not all of the teachers have a degree in English per se,” Garreth says. “Actually, some of the best English teachers may be retired engineers, accountants, or classics graduates excellent at wrestling with tricky Latin or Greek irregular verbs.”
But he stresses that what the Chinese students want most from those who teach them English are ‘clear diction and happy personalities’.
“The most important thing to bring with you is a sense of humour and openness to the ups and downs af the varied and often exciting China experience,” he adds.
On many Friday nights, that experience for Garreth includes going to a tree-shaded area on his campus, where students hold a weekly ‘English Corner’. Any student can come along and join the many conversations in English, in huddled groups.
“If a foreign teacher like myself arrives, he or she is immediately surrounded by a welcoming cluster of students anxious to chat with and listen to the words of a native speaker. My strategy is to get through the ritual patter of phrases they learn in classrooms and then politely steer conversations into areas I personally like, such as classical and folk music, art house movie techniques, or travel.”
It’s a long way from Kilcullen to shopping for fruit and vegetables from street vendors outsidehis apartment, to whom Garreth has become a welcome face as a regular customer. And it is different ... and yet, so much the same as anywhere else, even here at home.
If there’s one thing Garreth’s travels have taught him over the decades it is that behind the languages, the different clothes, the unusual customs, people the world over will always react in a friendly way to friendliness.
Life is worth living anywhere to find that.
(Anyone interested in this kind of work should in the first instance contact Danielle at AITECE@eircom.net)
