Chinese kids

Last week I finished my teaching career in China. I had the last class at the middle school and thought this would be a good time to write something more about those students. These kids are about 14 to 16 years old, so they are right in their puberty, which is everywhere an very interesting period. Although they are in their puberty, they look like they just started it, the first time I saw them, I guessed their age at about 12 to 13. It’s not only the way they look, it’s also their behavior. They behave a bit childish. I’m not sure if it’s just my perception, but I got the general idea that most Chinese students grow up a bit slower than those in Europe. I guessed the daughter of my boss at 15, she turned out to be almost 18.

My theory is that they grow up slower because of a lack of freedom, and responsibilities. Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for them, cause they have almost no free time, and they never have to decide anything. For them there’s simply no choice, they already have been told what to do. A normal day in the life of these students, starts with their first class at 8am, then they have a break and have lunch at 12, class starts again at 2pm until around 5:30, then they go home to their parents, have diner, which is followed by their homework, and then finally they can go to bed. In the weekends they usually have some other classes, or their parents put them on some kind of language or music school. And of course there is still homework to be finished for the next week. All in all, they have about one afternoon left of free time. Which made my question on the spoken examination, “What do you like to do in your free time?” a very difficult one to answer.

The students are also extremely competitive, which is stimulated by a list, which shows the best student of the class all the way to the worst students of the class. This list is based on the students performances on all the important examinations they have to do. Maybe I haven’t been a teacher for long enough at this school, but I do have the impression that the students don’t learn how to work together, or the value of cooperation. Which could be more important for some of them than the English language will ever be for them.

The teaching at the middle school reminded me of my own time at school. The contrast however seems to be quite big, cause at my Dutch school we had a lot of afternoons free, and the homework was often voluntary. We could usually decide for our own if we wanted to do the homework or not. After all it’s for our own good to do the homework or not right?
Because a lot of those students don’t want to learn English it also reminded me of my French classes at school. I really disliked those classes and in the end I failed the subject, and apart from about 2 sentences I am not able to pronounce or understand anything of it. Which I now think is a shame cause it would be nice to speak another language, but also proves me that it really doesn’t make sense to teach something to someone who doesn’t want to study it in the first place.

This last point shows that there are similarities as well, I’m just pointing out the differences in my post. The kids attitude towards school is more or less similar, both the Dutch and Chinese kids dislike some subjects. Like me not enjoying my French classes, a lot (most?) of Chinese students dislike their English classes.