This was a very long email to answer my questions from the teacher before me at this school explains a little about my daily life =)
Teaching at your school:
At this school, they will actually tell you what to teach, so you don't really need to come up with your own lesson topics. (This makes me super happy!) Usually it's a group of vocab words that you need to teach the kids. They don't tend to tell you beforehand what you're going to teach that day. They tend to tell you on the spot at the last minute and expect you to just do things and come up with ideas for things without warning or notice. It can be a little frustrating. It was for me, but I learned to work with it. Be positive, ask questions and use your liason (The lady in charge of the foreign teachers)! If you want to be more prepared, ask them as much and as often as you need to for them to give you the contents of the week's lessons in advance. Even then it is good to have some game ideas on hand that can work for anything, in case you get to class and they are not having you do what you expected to do.
They like you to sing songs with the kids, but it seems to me like they don't want you to spend too much time on songs as opposed to games or just drilling the kids on the words. I usually do a short song with the kids at the beginning of each lesson. It's best to do songs with hand motions and actions (I've done the Hokey Pokey, Do What I'm Doing, One Little Finger, Popcorn Popping, Once There Was A Snowman, and a few others I found online). The kids have more fun with that and remember things better that way (though they can get a little crazy with them sometimes). If you want to do a song that doesn't normally have hand motions or actions, then I recommend coming up with your own actions for it, or at least doing some sort of hand clapping.
Come up with LOTS and LOTS of games to play, especially ones you can use to teach the vocab words. This was a challenge for me personally and I felt like I ran out of ideas really early on. Brainstorm ideas as much as you can (the older kids love to do Pass it Down and all of the kids like Musical Chairs). Try to keep things simple too if you can. The more complicated the game, the less likely the kids will understand, and the less likely even the teachers will be able to understand the English to explain the games to the kids in Chinese. These kids are so young, most of them don't really understand very well much of what you're saying to them. Also, sometimes the kids can be pretty timid if they are put on the spot, or if they are doing something new that they haven't tried before. Just be patient and have backup plans. You'll learn what works for them and what doesn't just by trying stuff out. Trial and error.
Also, during the first week, your liason will go to the classes with you and show you what to do and give you some ideas. Try to be as prepared as you can right from the beginning and be confident and assert yourself as a teacher to the kids and to the Chinese teachers.I felt very under-prepared and spent probably the first month just trying to figure out what I was supposed to be teaching from day to day and what they were expecting me to do, before I finally stopped stressing and started having fun with the kids.
The kids will tend to goof off a lot in your classes, when they don't normally do that with their Chinese teachers, so I recommend figuring out a good way to keep them in check (something I have not done so well at personally, because I was so unprepared), but always remember that they are just little kids, and kids do that. Concerning the Chinese teachers, most of them are really nice and you should try to be friends with them. I kind of felt like some of them were sometimes a little too controlling when it came to my teaching, but I think it's just a little bit of a cultural difference and the fact that you are new to teaching there. I don't know if you'll feel like that too, but if you do, then all I can say is it just takes a little getting used to and just be friendly and be flexible and prepared for anything.
Most, if not all, of the kids should have English names and most of them should know their English names and be able to tell you if you ask them "What's your name?" Again, they often get really shy and might not tell you their name, but the Chinese teachers should know the kids' English names too, so you can ask them. There are a lot of kids' names to learn, and honestly, I didn't learn them all. I think it would help if you did though. It might make things a little easier while teaching and the kids like it when you know their names. That's all I can think of for the moment about how to teach at this school. These kids really are just so cute. Just try to have fun with them. They like it when you can play with them and just be a fun person. The kids will love you for that.
A little tip: I taught these kids to LOVE doing high fives and I taught some of the older kids to like doing fist bumps with me as well. The kids will probably try to do high fives with you and will probably often overdo it if you let them, but they just love it when you do that with them.
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