A day in the life of a TEFL teacher

With just one month to go, we've definitely got settled into a bit of a routine in the general Monday - Friday school week.... so, for anyone who cares even slightly, here is an insight to what it is like being a foreign teacher in China...

7am. – Alarm goes off. I turn over, daily I wonder where I am for a good 5 minutes. It hits me that I am in fact in China and I have somehow become an English teacher. I hit snooze and roll over in an attempt to go back to whatever dream land I was previously in.

7.20 – I have to eventually drag myself out of bed and face the reality that I am actually a teacher in China. I struggle to find an outfit that is both suitable to wear in a work environment, and also keeps me cool when the weather is actually hot enough to go to school in a bikini. Anything that shows up sweat marks is also a no-go. Humidity is a killer here and it is more than likely someone will take photos of me at any point during the day.

7.45 – Walk to school with Iris and Phil, all of us complaining the whole way to cheer each other up. Normally cause a few road accidents on the way when locals nearly crash on their way to work, they're so shocked to see foreigners walking the streets. Breakfast is either a solid disapointment or we have missed it altogether, so we head to our offices to check the daily news report (Facebook) before class.

10.00 – After two hours of dancing around and making an idiot of myself for my student's amusement (with the occasional English word chucked in), they make their way outside for their morning exercises. I haven't been asked to join them yet so until they force me to, I hide in my office and listen to Backstreet Boys/Shakira/Chinese trance music or whatever music choice they have selected for the exercises today.

12pm – Lunch time. After a full morning teaching classes of 40 kids, I'm starving. Oh good, the canteen is serving up fish heads, bean sprouts and boiled rice. AGAIN. We leave the canteen as quickly as we entered and instead head to our favourite local dumpling shop (aka 'dumpling lady') for some 30p dumplings. This is followed by compulsory nap time when every head in the school is firmly put down on their desk and the whole school has a rest. Silence. Bliss.

13.40 – The students wake up (noisily), which wakes me up/forces me to leave my daydream. It's English video time... normally this involves something ridiculously inappropriate for their age (I don't pick the movies). They don't understand it, but I appreciate 10 minutes of whatever that class has the pleasure of watching today.

13.50 – Afternoon lessons. Cue more dancing around making a fool of myself.

14.30– The students do their weird afternoon eye exercises. I either watch them, confused about the entire point of this, or hide in my office until I'm called upon again to mould some young minds (/babysit).

15.35- School is over!! Home time... oh no wait, first I have to teach Grade 1 VIP.... aka the 'smartest' or as I believe the cutest kids from each class. I'm meant to help them with their oral English, but they normally complain and sulk until we end up playing London bridge for 30 minutes. I wish London Bridge would just bloody fall down so I never have to hear that song again.

16.30 Finally allowed to clock out and leave. However it normally takes us about 10 minutes just to make it out the gates as every child wants to come up and say 'goodbye'. Then we have to stand and wave to every single school bus that drives out the gates as the kids press themselves up against the windows to wave goodbye. Our cheeks hurt from smiling but secretly we feel a bit like celebrities and love it.

17.00 - Mandarin class. This basically means an hour of feeling like the biggest idiot in the world because TONES ARE SO DIFFICULT. Don't feel like such a celebrity any more... Mandarin is stupid and just want to go home.

18.00 – Meet the others at the local food market for some cheap rice/noodles/dumplings/meat/veg/beer/all of the above if it has been a particularly rough day. Moan about our students/assistants/mandarin/life/all of the above if has been a particularly rough day. Feel a bit better about life and generally being in China. After a while of sitting in the warmth of the evening, enjoying the lovely weather and being outside... the heavens will generally open with extreme thunder and lightning and we will be forced to head back to our prison-like apartments for our our health and safety.

Put on a film of whatever someone has downloaded that day. Spend 90 minutes in the world of the film where people eat normal food, speak unbroken English to everyone around them, wear normal clothes, do normal Western things. This is more often than not inturrupted by a suprise visit from our crazy landlady who likes to let herself into our apartments, wonder round looking at our stuff and talk to us in Chinese.

Head to bed at whatever time I can be bothered to drag myself there, lie on my rock hard mattress and stick the air con on full blast.... drift off to sleep wondering how I ended up here and thinking how hilarious the whole situation is regardless of how love/hate my relationship with China is at times... 

AND REPEAT! Who said being a teacher was easy...