Returning to teaching in China during a pandemic
It has been a long ten months since I have seen my students in person. The class of 2020 has graduated from our Chinese high school and they are navigating western university studies online. The class of 2023 has commenced their study on our campus and their English teacher will be back in the classroom with them in a matter of days.
During Chinese New Year, I headed back to my native Australia for a two-week vacation from the northern hemisphere winter. The pandemic in China worsened and thus began my (almost) year of online teaching.
Initially, the creative juices flowed like a waterfall, with hundreds of ideas of how I could capitalize on the opportunity to try new things with my students in this new format. We were all working or studying from home in February.
In April my students returned to the classroom but I was battling with closed borders and unable to join them. For seven months (ten months of total of online teaching), I conducted hybrid lessons, my student, together in the classroom, with myself projected on the screen. This worked well until the limits of the hardware meant I was unable to hear more than one student's response and the blurry faces made it near impossible to learn student names.
Here is what I’ve learned about education during the year.
- Understanding that we need to operate within the context of our limitations.
For me, this meant understanding that I was not teaching at an international school with access to Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom. We used a native Chinese working suite called Dingtalk to conduct lessons but it was fairly limited in terms of students being able to submit work electronically. Being across the globe and knowing that my students were working from behind the Great Firewall of China lead to a number of fun online tasks being scratched off the list of things to try.
2. Sometimes, you need to just switch off.
Starring at a screen for hours on end, trying to keep up the energy so you and the students don’t lose interest is exhausting. After a number of hours of straining your eyes in order to place the blurry face with a name from the class-list is a different type of pain.
3. Be firm but understand your authority means less when you are not physically there.
Proximity is power and when you are not there to instruct the dance, there really is a point where you have to throw your hands in the air and choose your battles in terms of class management. I have a blanket no device in the classroom unless asked policy that has become outdated. My seniors have thoroughly enjoyed being able to push this boundary.
4. It is harder to reach the weaker learners
Without being able to walk around and eavesdrop during ‘think, pair, share’ or group discussions, the ability to spot the students who need the most help is limited. In the classroom, a teacher is able to work with a student individually immediately. Online, students are less excited about an online meeting in their own time to consult their weaknesses.
5. Be kind to yourself and to them
While the rest of the world battles to combat staggering COVD-19 infection numbers, my students in China have lived relatively normal lives, with minimal restrictions since April. Their year was blasted all over the news, fingers have been pointed and a shift in mindset has set in. What we all need, as educators and learners needs is a little compassion to get through to the end of this remarkable year.
If you are an educator, working remotely, hang in there, trust your instincts, you’ve got this.
