Teaching English as a Second Language: Not For Everyone

Reading time: 9 minutes

By Katie Stone 

It’s a Saturday morning, a little after eight o’clock. I’m standing at the front of a small, airless classroom, and there are fourteen sleepy little faces staring at me. Behind them, fourteen pairs of parents, also staring, but much more alert. Some are poised with pens and paper, ready to record whatever wisdom this pale-haired stranger is about to impart to their offspring. 

The room is stuffy. The windows don’t open, so the air is ripe with morning breath and savoury pancakes (hasty breakfasts from the street stall below) and, well, the smell of my own fear.  

I am terrified. 

By 7pm, I will have experienced this scenario six times over, teaching every age group from new entrants (three to five years old), middle school (six to ten years), to adults. 

On Sunday, I’ll do it all over again.

It was 2011, and I was one of four foreign teachers (FTs) hired to teach at a private English school in Hohhot, northern China. It was my first ‘official’ teaching job. It was also my last. 

Teaching ESL: The passport to the world