Siren Watcher

Happy Learning English

This platform is International (Engoo) but the bulk of the students come from Japan (DMM).

Author: Siren Watcher. Published: 2022-02-06.

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Job Title

English Teacher

Company

Company: Happy Learning English

Recruiter Company: Beijing Hang Xin International Culture Exchange Co Ltd

Job Type

Full-Time

Start Date

Begun end of February / start of March 2018.

Explanation

I worked for Happy Learning English in Guiyang, China, throughout 2018. It is a private language school where I taught children aged 5-18. I held classes on afternoons and weekends with three different (approximate) age groups of children; 5-8 years old, 8-10 years old, and 10-12 years old.

Job Skills

Learning of children’s names.
Being courteous to parents.
Ability to discipline children.
Ability to utilise reward features.
- Example, candy distribution when child did good task.
- Stars on board being granted or removed when child was good or bad.
Ability to judge competence of louder and shyer students.
- Noticing of confidence levels of students changes. Example, a shyer student acting
  confident or a more loud student being well behaved.
- Noticing whether a student is shy because they lack the knowledge. Or shy because of
  cultural need to not be outspoken when there is a possibility to failure.
When student’s conducted refresher tests on their knowledge. Was able to provide “hints” to the students which made it a little easier without telling them the answers. Example, “across” = “go from one side to another, go what?”.

Extra Activities

Collected items from stores and placed names on these items with a few words to describe them. Produced these items from a case once every few weeks as a refresher / game. These item names were taken from Cards the students learnt from in class. These may be items which were harder, so therefore easier for a student to touch to remember. Examples:

- “Books”
  - “Comic Book > Book that is mostly pictures.” [Asian Anime].
  - “Magazine > Words and Pictures. > Different stories/ articles.” [National
    Geographic]

- - Teaching method:
    - Produce Comic Book (to Student’s joy) and then show Magazine. See if students remember what they are called whilst putting your hand over the taped written “clues” on the front. Compare these to a Text Book, Dictionary and Book (fiction).
    - Book, all words. Dictionary, different languages. Textbook, book for school. Magazine, words and pictures, little stories. Comic Book, picture story with some words [emphasise pictures]. These can be hard to determine difference, so visual representations helped.

- “School Utensils”
  - Easy:
    - “Ruler”, “Scissors” and “Coloured Pencils”.
    - “Jump Rope > Rope, means material tied together > Jump, means go over something. Push with legs.” Let good student of the day have a go with for a few seconds, not too long as other student’s demand a turn. Tape back up Jump Rope when student done.
  - Hard:
    - “Pencil Sharpener”. Show how it makes Pencil’s sharp.
    - “Calculator > Use in Math class. > Use to add money.” Pass around to students and let them type on the item. Whilst getting them individually to say the item’s name whilst using it.
    - “Magnets > Put two together. This is use magnet. If you look, magnet not
      everything in toy.” Show students when two of the magnets go together and how other items in the magnet set fail to magnetise. Showing the students that the former are magnets only. Explain that this is Science.
    - “Geometry > Use in Math class.” Tape up end of compass well, yet are still able to visually explain how it works. Allow students to use protractors and dividers to draw. As them what shape the items are; ie, crescent / semi-circle / triangle / circle / diamond.
    - “Push Pins > Move with Force. > Hold together.” Tape up container so that student’s cannot hurt themselves. Show that they can be pushed. Pin is sharp.
    - “Paper Clips > Hold two thing together.” Allow students to open the container and clip two pieces of paper together. Explain this is to “clip”.
    - “Staples > Hold together.” Open container and show what staples look like.
    - “Stapler.” Open up stapler and show that staples can be put into stapler. Staple a piece of paper to show how it works, “to staple”.
  - Other:
    - “Ribbon > For put in hair. > Tie up present.” Tape up except for the end and allow the students to “touch” the smoothness of the item, “this item is ribbon”.
    - “Flash Light / Torch > Gives Light.” Turn on and off and explain what comes out is Light. Like from Sun, Sunlight. Explain flash is burst of light.
    - “Bookmark > Save page in book.” Put bookmark in book to show how it works. Explain that it “marks” or “saves” a page.
    - “Compass > Points North.” Draw on board picture of Earth (or use Globe). Explain North is top and South is bottom. Pick one student to turn around with Compass and explain that Compass is showing which way towards top of Earth.

- Made a game on the computer for students to play on a projector as a group.
  - Took a pile of cards from student lessons and separated cards into themes. Example, Beach and Camping.
  - ◦ Looked up pictures on search engines and edited and placed them onto slides in groups.
  - Example, fishing at the lake [whilst camping], playing volleyball [at the beach], etc.
  - Requested the students write the names of words they knew from the picture, on the Board. Example, dolphin, shorts, boy, girl, long hair, sunglasses, fishing rod, etc.
  - Students then see how many words they got right, or remember from prior time.

- Excursion:
  - Venue: Shopping Centre close to School.
  - Students: 3 separate classes, between 2-8 students per trip, parents were also invited to come.
  - Taught students words of items.
    - Fresh produce items, listening to see if the students got words correct from class.
    - Teaching students new words, example, hair dryer and soy sauce.
    - Seeing if Students could read English words on some imported items. Example, Orange Juice, Mango Juice, and Blueberry Juice.
    - Taught students Buying transaction.
    - Keeping track of all students locations and making sure they were grouped up close enough to hear me. Tried to avoid students touching fresh goods such as flour and vegetables.

Outside:

Inside:

A box of things I bought from shops close by and put names on for vocabulary exercises: