Teaching in China - Learn Before You Land.

Part of what I was looking forward to when I went to China was weekly two hour lessons, provided by the school - lessons which the school was contractually obligated to provided, might I ad.

How awesome would it have been to order your favourite meal from KFC, or have a chat with a street vendor, or asking something of a store clerk in conversational Chinese?  Or be able to ask directions if you got lost.  You get the idea.

Anyway, I'm sad to say those lessons almost never came, and when they were offered it was nothing more than the school offering us students to teach us.  The few lessons that did come were from students whose English wasn't good enough to understand what we were asking.

So my suggestion to you, if you're ever either foolish enough or brave enough to take on such a venture as teaching English in China with few qualifications, and literally no practical teaching experience, I highly, highly recommend you learn as much of the language as you can before you leave.

I knew I was heading to China with more than enough to time to learn some of the language, but I was so stressed by the whole situation (and what other things were going on in my life at the time) that I wasn't thinking clearly enough to just learn something.  Anything.

Anyway, below are three titles you can check out for learning Chinese, if it's something you're interested in.

I'm personally a big fan of the Pimsleur method of language learning myself.

Enjoy.

- Ian.