Finding (and maintaining) part-time work in China can be a wee bit of an adventure because businesses aren't run the same as they are in the U.S. Just like trying to mesh in with a new business in any other culture, rule number one is never assume anything. For example, in some of the less-prestigious English centers here there are no contracts, schedules/hours can change literally minutes before you are supposed to be somewhere, classes can be taken over by a different teacher without you being informed, meetings are canceled without any advance notice and there is a seemingly general lack of organization, planning and confrontation. To stay sane you have to relax, be flexible, patient, and have a generous sense of humor.
You also have to be able to think quick on your feet and be able to execute a fun and coherent lesson plan with the preparation of about 5 minutes. For example, on Thursday I had an interview with Newave, an English training company for kids ages 5-12. I was told that I would have to do an interview, but when I arrived, I found out that I had to do a 20 minute teaching demonstration in front of a group of Chinese teachers pretending to be 5 year olds. Even though I protested that I didn't really prepare anything, they put me in a room with some flashcards of parts of the body for about 10 minutes and told me to make a lesson plan. The more games, songs and fun activities the better, they said. I started to sweat. This was just like graduate student summer T.A. training at OSU all over again - it was terrifying! I was grateful that I had worked a little time at Small Talk for Kids so I had a few ideas that I could whip together quickly.
The teaching demo went ok and thus this morning I was up bright and early teaching English to a surly bunch of 12 year olds. I don't have a ton of experience teaching children and I have forgotten how exhausting it is. After an hour of using body language to the extreme, shouting, hopping around, singing and dancing the Hokey Pokey (twice), acting like a robot and belting out "head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes . . . " I am still deciding if getting up early, the commute and 120 yuan was worth it.
Tonight, I was supposed to teach a group of engineers but after waiting for them to pick me up, they never showed. I called them and they said that they were too busy and forgot to tell me. This is not unusual. Tomorrow I am teaching an "Interpretation" class at Super but am still not sure what the course is actually about or what I am supposed to do for 2 hours. Fortunately, I had an interview at one of the best English training institutes in China, a company called Web and might start working with them a few hours next week. If not, there are a plethora of other companies to try such as Global IELTS, LongBridge, Only, Linguaphone and World to name a few.
Though this kind of teaching is really different than what I am used to and carries with it some distinct disadvantages, the main one being pure chaos, it does have some advantages: (1) There is never much boredom in part-time work - students, classes and companies are always changing so it keeps things interesting. (2) Since you never really know what you are going to teach you don't have to spend a lot of time preparing outside of class. (3) You get to teach a variety of subjects to students who vary in age and ability. Finally , the bottom line is that we don't really need the extra work or money. Our salary at the university covers everything we need and then some. Working a part-time job that can be inconvenient and a little frustrating at times isn't so bad if in the back of your mind you know you are doing it "just for fun" and that you could quit anytime without any serious consequences.
P.S. Speaking of teaching, CIEE put out their first annual teaching magazine TAUGHT with stories and pictures of other people living and working abroad. Check it out!
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