Teaching English as a foreign language

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed to the thread! I start my course tomorrow and I have a job lined up in Hong Kong for September! x

Just out of interest, PQ, and if you don't mind tellin', what's your job gonna be, language school, middle school, ... ?

You start your course tomorrow. You're gonna be asking more questions than Oristar!

Haha, yeah... probably.
It's at a language school. It's quite long hours so if I see any other jobs in the mean time then I'll go for those too, although apparently long hours are quite normal in Hong Kong.

One of the women I took dance classes with is just finishing off a two-year teaching English at a language school in Japan. A couple of former colleagues are teaching English in Korea right now.

What I notice on Fb from all of them is lots and lots and lots of travel and parties with other teachers. Seems like quite a congenial lot.

Thanks, PQ.

Again if you don't mind, could you tell me what the salary range is for Hong Kong?

I'd guess that you won't get top dollar/top pound ?? [does BrE have such an idiom?] as a beginning teacher.

The salary for the job I've got works out at about £1000 a month after they've taken the money out for accommodation, which I reckon is ok.

There is a night market in Temple Street with cheap stuff like a flea market. But it may have changed since then. Hong Kong now has those horrible elevated express highways that darken the street scene. A lot of Aussies roam around the place as it is very close. Save your money so when you get back you can get your professorship.

Usually rent is half the cost of living in HK. Food is cheap and goods are cheap. A lot of Japanese tourists come to HK just to buy Japanese watches as they can escape the taxes.
I meant half the income went to rent for most Hong Kongites or Honk Kongers.

I recommend spending some time reviewing oristara's questions over the years.

It gives a good perscpective of how EFL students get hung up on idioms.

http://able2know.org/user/oristara/

Yes, ehBeth, it can be a party town here in Japan...for those who come to go through the motions, get their kicks, and move on. (two years is kind of the magic number; the 'one-year stayers' are usually the disappointed, or the non-partying type) As for myself, I came here to be here, from the get-go...so I did my partying (and have seen many of faces come and go), pretty much got it out of my system, then buckled down for the long haul...it's been some 26 years now. (and yet, being only 25 yrs at heart, I still get in a bit of partying from time to time...hee, hee, hee....)

I went to visit my kinswoman in Hong Kong, which I liked a lot.
I hope you enjoy it there. It's a fascinating place.

It seems to be a holiday destination for people from other parts of China. I was walking by myself on the Kowloon side, and some Chinese people wanted to have their photograph taken with me, I suppose because (to them) I was an exotic westerner.

Yeah my cousin said that happened to her also!
I am sure it will be fascinating. Very excited!

How's the course goin', PQ?

You in Hong Kong yet?

Thanks guys done the course... I fly out on about the 8th/9th Oct... AH!

Congrats! go and teach the hell out of ém and have a great time.

Good Luck, PQ!!!

If you don't mind me asking, what was, in your mind, the most difficult aspect of your course?

Thanks guys.

JTT:
It was definitely thinking of ways to elicit the grammar point whilst making sure it remains concise. That and the workload, which is ridiculous.

That one is a tough one for every new teacher and I warn you, PQ, not to scare you but it will only get worse when you get into class. Be prepared with extra material and don't worry about making them repeat, not blind repeating but contextual repeating.

What will make it easier for both you and your students is if you use actual context, not ethereal context to do practice. Ethereal practice should come when students have a firm grasp of structure and vocab.

EXAMPLE - Contextual Practice

Items needed: stationery items

Verb list:

pick up/put away/down/under/on / etc

take/give

take away/give away

Students practice until they have the verbs and vocab solid. You can do this practice as commands/imperatives, present progressive, past progressive, past progressive while describing another action, simple past tense, ...

EXPANSION - to an advanced structure made easy

teacher and teacher only does an action using one of the verbs and items from above.

A: If I were to do that, what would I do?

B: If you did that you would [_____] a [____].

OR

A: If I had done that what would I have done?

B: If you had done that you would have [___ed] a [___].

OR

A: If I were doing that, what would I be doing?

B: If you were doing that you would be [___ing] a [____].

By using real items, in real situations, you remove the tendency to think and translate from the mother tongue. When students do this, they produce dictionary verbs which often are not natural uses of language.

Thanks, JTT. Yeah, I recognise context as important.
I'm really excited about the teaching actually.