A Chinese teacher’s impression of foreign ESL teachers
Today I sat down with a long time director of international programs at a local Beijing school – lets call her Ms. Wang. The school has been employing foreign teachers for the past 7 years. In that time Ms. Wang has seen foreigners come and go and has worked closely with all of them. I asked her to give me an honest general impression she has of foreign teachers in Beijing. She did me one better and wrote down all her thoughts.
“I work and teach with the foreign teachers for about seven years. My office is the next door to theirs. I saw so many stories happened and have a very deep feeling about work with them. I also heard lots of words about them from my Chinese colleagues.”
Ms. Wang went on to express some frustrations with the foreign teachers, “As a Chinese teacher, I think most of the foreign teachers are too independent to get along with. They don’t like to be cared by the others.”
She gave an example, “every autumn semester the school will give all the Chinese teachers some suggestions in letter about how to be in health in the autumn season. I need to transmit this to the foreign teachers… I finished writing the letter of defending flu happily and excited. But my happily and excited turned into embarrass when I gave the letters to them. The foreign teachers felt the letter I gave to them is funny and useless. I know it maybe caused by different culture, which is hard to explain but only to feel by the heart.”
My point here is just to show how such little things can leave impressions. I’m sure Ms. Wang was censoring her words for me so if something negative came out my guess is that there is more behind this.
Be kind, be sensitive, stay open-minded, and say thanks.
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