English teacher in China
Zhongshan
December 2004 – February 2005
The story…
During my first 8 months in Mainland China, in 2005, I taught ESL (English as a Second language) in Guangdong province.
I left South Africa in June of 2003 to go and teach ESL in Taiwan. I stayed for 18 months in Taiwan and then decided to also experience mainland China. I stayed for a period of 19 months in China.
My first ESL job was at the Bond Institute in Zhongshan. They placed me at an International boarding school on the outskirts of Zhongshan with a very scenic campus.
After two months I decided to accept a position with Skyline English in Houjie. You can read about that experience here.
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| House of Sun Yat Sen - Zhongshan |
About China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia. It’s the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing.
It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing) and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). It also claims sovereignty over Taiwan.
The country's major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Hong Kong.
It covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometers. China is the world's second-largest state by land area and either the third - or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement.
China has a vast and diverse landscape, ranging from the Gobi and Taklimakan Deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir, and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia.
The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, respectively, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long (Wikipedia).
About Zhongshan
Zhongshan (中山) is a prefecture-level city in the south of the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province, China, with a population of over 3 million (2012). The city-core sub-districts used to be called Shiqi or Shekki.
Zhongshan is one of a very few cities in China named after a person. It is named after Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), who is known in Mandarin as Sun Zhongshan.
Sun, the founding father of the Republic of China who is also regarded positively by the People's Republic, was born in Cuiheng village in Nanlang Township of what was then Xiangshan County. In 1925, the year after his death, Xiangshan was renamed Zhongshan in his honor.
Thousands of years ago, much of the Zhongshan area lay within the Pearl River estuary, with only scattered islands above the surface. Gradually from south to north, the area filled in with alluvial silt and became dry land. The northern parts of today's Zhongshan did not fill in until the time of the Ming Dynasty (Wikipedia).
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| Crossing the Pearl River |
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| Zhongshan scenery |
My first job was at a private school in Zhongshan. I was a TEFL teacher responsible for teaching English to grade 3-5.
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| International school near Zhongshan I taught at for 2 months |
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| View from my International school apartment - Zhongshan |
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| View from my International school apartment - Zhongshan |
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Time for morning exercise.
Every morning the students had ‘controlled’ exercise with music before school started.
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| Playground scenery |
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| Playground scenery |
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| Playground scenery |
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| Playground scenery |
Judging a public speaking contest
I was asked to judge an English speech competition at the China Hong Kong English School (Zhongshan), which was broadcasted on CCTV.
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| Speech competition I judged - Zhongshan |
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| Group photo - Speech competition participants and judges - Zhongshan |
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| At the China Hong Kong school in Zhongshan |
Visiting Shamian island - Guangzhou
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| Old buildings - Shamian island |
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| Shamian island - Guangzhou |
After 2 months in Zhongshan, I accepted a teaching post in Houjie, a town in the same province (Guangdong) where I would teach Kindergarten for the next 6 months.
