How to be a Good Chinese as a Foreign Language Teacher (US Practical)

Actually, I used to be a master's degree graduate in Chinese as a Foreign Language in China. My alma mater is BeiJing Normal University. I used to study and work in Beijing, but now I'm settled in California, USA, with a stable job. I have lived on both the east and west coasts of the United States, and I have had experience in finding and working in both China and the U.S. My family is grassroots, and it was the right time and place that brought me to my current life. I didn't want to talk about my major, but I've seen all kinds of descriptions of Chinese as a foreign language on the Internet, some of which make it sound incredibly popular, some of which vigorously promote the Chinese as a foreign language teacher's license, and some of which are very interested in finding a job teaching Chinese in the U.S. In my own experience, I think some of the online news is confusing to young people. I would like to casually talk about my own little attempt.

1. Have a good command of Chinese and English. Getting into graduate school is just the first step in a long journey. It's really no big deal, and a lot of people don't have great Chinese or English skills. For me, my English is very bad, although the university also through the four or six levels, to get into graduate school, but the English is still very poor, especially oral, before graduate school is basically mute English. So I paid a lot of attention to practicing English during my graduate school. Not only for the exam, but also for my future job. I used to ask myself, "What else can you do besides speaking Chinese? Can you explain the interesting aspects of Chinese language and culture in English with a clear voice? Can you think skillfully in English? Can you move freely between two cultures?"

This doesn't mean that you speak a lot of English in class; in fact, if you can get your students to understand better in Chinese, the more Chinese you use, the better. But you must have a good command of English. This makes it easier to understand where students are struggling. Especially if you live in the U.S., even if you teach Chinese, English is still an important language for you, can you pass your employer's interview in English? Especially your listening and speaking skills, communication with coworkers, future promotion, daily life, which can't be done without English. Of course, writing a dissertation also depends on your reading and writing skills.

2. Classroom teaching is popular among students. Even if you are a great scholar, but you have difficulty communicating with students and they find you boring and give you low evaluations in class, your future is not very bright. A few of my classmates in graduate school were employed full-time at Princeton University as soon as they graduated, with the title of lecturer. Their lectures were very popular with the students and they were the best evaluated students in the Princeton class that year. No need to rank according to seniority and do not have to trust people to send gifts, the United States of America's university hiring mechanism is so flexible. Princeton University and Normal University have a long partnership of more than ten years, Normal University graduate students can teach Princeton University undergraduates, who teach well have the opportunity to work in the United States. A young man who wants to teach as a career gives bad lectures and loses the foundation of his career. No matter what country you are a doctorate master's degree, in the job-hunting arena are pulled out to show their own in the end how much weight, a want to be a teacher of doctoral lectures lecture bad as usual can not find a job.

3. There is a wealth of practical experience, it is best to work in the program of Chinese as a foreign language, for example, in addition to the Pubei class, Beisiisi Normal University, there are many other programs, Harvard and Beiyei language also has a cooperative project, Tsinghua and Beisi University, Bei Wai, Shouji University, Shouji University, and so on have a very good program of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, do not work too much mixed without achievement, but to one or two beautiful results of the work. It is enough to have nice achievements in one place.

4. It is not necessary to have any qualifications. A friend who majored in translation asked me before if I needed a qualification to be a teacher of Chinese as a foreign language. Because I'm a graduate student in this field, I still have a lot of job opportunities in Beijing without a certificate. I know a lot of colleagues in this field, and some of them are not majoring in Chinese as a foreign language and do not have certificates, but they are still working. It depends on what the hiring school has to offer, but if you can pass the written test, interview, and audition, you should have no problem getting the job.

As for finding a job in the US teaching Chinese as a foreign language, I have my own experience.

1. Look for your strengths, and don't give up on previous experiences so easily.

When I first came to the U.S., I was confused at first, and at first I didn't find a job that was right for me. A friend told me to go to business school and get a master's degree in accounting, and said that this specialty was good for making money. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that, but I'm sure I'm going to be able to do it, and I'm sure I'm going to be able to do it.

Realistically, tuition was a problem at the time, my parents were penniless and could not afford the tuition, my husband was still a law school student at the time; there were not many scholarships available for accounting majors, and the tuition was very expensive, and I did not have any experience as an accountant. Regardless, I kept insisting on getting a job that was somewhat related to my major, and before I could go to any business school, I found the job of my choice. And in times of a less-than-stellar economy, being an accountant likely doesn't pay as well as the job I have now.

3. Still, certificates aren't that important. I think a formal degree is important, both in the US and in China, and getting a degree and having good relevant work experience is very important to get a new job. If you are living in the US for a long time, it is better to get a US degree. In the business of teaching Chinese, certificates are not that important. It's nowhere near as important as a lawyer's or doctor's license. There's also the issue of US elementary and secondary teaching licenses, so if you have to be an elementary or secondary teacher, get a teaching license.

Public elementary and secondary schools generally don't pay very well. ... However, if you are a permanent resident of the U.S., there will be a lot of choices, government agencies, universities, private educational institutions, large and small companies, no one is demanding that you must have a primary and secondary school qualification; if you are not a permanent resident, but just studied in the U.S., and got a U.S. master's degree, it is not difficult to find a job at a college or university or a company, which is the case for many of my colleagues. If you are in China mainland, did not go to school in the United States, but to get that U.S. government public school primary and secondary school teaching license, it is very mysterious, it seems that I have not heard of anyone in this case came to the United States to work. So there's no need to fret about a little certificate. Of course, if you are already in the U.S., have a job and income, and have nothing to do to recharge yourself, it's not a bad idea to get a U.S. teaching license. But if you don't have a job yet, you'd better be realistic first and find a job that can earn you money. If your job is good enough, there are opportunities for education and certification later. Some states require public elementary and secondary schools to have an elementary and secondary school certificate, while others say that a temporary certificate is fine. A colleague of mine told me that she had a temporary secondary school teacher's certificate in Florida, and she had a master's degree in finance in Florida, which had nothing to do with education, but it was very easy to get that certificate, and she didn't need to go to school for a few years. It was easy to get that license and didn't need to go to school for it for a few more years. The primary and secondary teacher's licenses are divided into full and single subject, the full subject is to teach all classes, and the single subject is to teach only one subject, such as Chinese.

4. Chinese as a Foreign Language is not as hot in the US as some people say. The people who say they can send you to the US to be a teacher, ask him if he has the ability to come to the US to teach. You have to rely on yourself, don't believe the propaganda of some people. When I lived in Virginia, I also looked for jobs teaching Chinese in the neighborhood, and I even flew to California for job interviews and auditions at universities. There were two schools that had good reviews, and then both of them said they were not hiring new teachers for the coming year because of funding issues. In the past, I had taught some students sporadically, but on a short-term basis, making very little money, and not at all as a full-fledged career. There are also very few elementary and middle schools that offer Chinese classes in the city where I live in Virginia. I don't have a degree from the U.S., so I spent some time doing Chinese degree evaluations, and if I had gone to the U.S. for my master's degree, and then went for an elementary and middle school teaching license, I should be able to find elementary and middle school jobs as well. The point is that there are just very few elementary and middle schools there looking for permanent Chinese teachers, and many public middle schools are still laying off staff. Most of the community college Chinese teachers have been in the U.S. for many years, and only a few of them have been teaching there for a long time. They also use Chinese students who are studying in the U.S. for their doctoral degrees, and they don't recruit many new teachers. What about the weekend Chinese schools, they can only teach for a couple hours a day or two on weekends, and earn so little that if you're a single young person here, you'll have problems making ends meet, not to mention supporting your family, and you can't make a long-term career out of it. But I've been in Virginia a **** for just over a year, and the economic crisis was raging at the time, so I'll only talk about what I encountered at the time, and only about my own feelings.

Quite a few teachers come to the US to teach through Chinese or US academic programs, and this is divided into many situations, volunteers, visiting scholars, exchange scholars, etc.. Most of them are here for a year or two, and then they must return to their home country to work in their original organization. It's still a great opportunity for many people to learn more, but it's not a long thing, and you'll need to land back in your home country eventually, right, especially when it comes to evaluating titles in your home country. There are a very few talented and lucky people from the country directly apply to the United States to work in the university, but generally six years of work, do not continue to work visa, do not resolve the status, six years almost to the time, some people went back to their home countries, but also some people through a variety of ways to make their own way. Even if you settle in the U.S. and find a long-term teaching job, there are many scenarios, how is the salary? What is the salary? Does the job have long-term potential? What is the quality of life like in remote areas that are sparsely populated? What kind of people live around you? Is it possible to build a happy family there? Is it conducive to the growth of children?

5, Timing is not as good as location, location is not as good as people. Whether you're studying for a degree or working, the people you surround yourself with are far more important than dead knowledge from a textbook. If you are with a group of smart people, even if you are not smart yourself, you will be greatly enlightened. My classmates and alumni have been my role models and have helped me in so many great ways, from graduate school to every job I've had. Some have sent me books, some have told me where to find jobs, some have given me ideas for interview details or resumes, some have written me letters of recommendation, and some have told me about her own job search experiences. I remember that one of my old classmates in the U.S. even provided me with food and lodging for more than a week while I was on my way to look for a job; some of them helped me with miscellaneous things; I remember that I was also confused about the issue of teacher's license, and at that time, I wanted to evaluate my previous degree in the U.S. First, one of my university classmates was about to go on maternity leave, and she still dragged her pregnant body back to her old university to look for the original transcripts and mail the materials to me. There are so many people who touched my heart.

Looking back at the road I've traveled, the detours or the good times, I'm very grateful to my family and friends. I've been lost in my search for a job, and my husband has always been my best friend and a strong supporter, and my friends have always encouraged me and given me courage. I benefited from NNU, from the Pubei class and all the universities I worked at, from my teachers, including Prof. Zhou from Princeton University, who trained me rigorously in classroom teaching and introduced me to some very useful websites for job hunting. I benefited from my classmates and friends, and my former students taught me a lot.

I've been in the U.S. for almost four years now, and I started my current job a little over a year after coming to the U.S. It's been a long, full-time, stable job. I've traveled to the east, west, and Hawaii (I don't have time to travel as much as I did when I first came here), organized weddings, honeymooned, learned to drive, looked for a job, learned English, and sporadically worked as a Chinese teacher. I didn't want to be a housewife for a long time, and felt that work was important, not only to help my husband with his financial burden, but also to be happy at work, to have my own circle of coworkers, and if I had the ability to go to work, why not? As long as the workplace was not far from our small home. At that time, as long as and teaching Chinese or Chinese-English translation jobs related to a little bit, in Virginia near my home I looked for jobs, and then my husband said that he was going to go back to California after graduation to settle down in his hometown, and asked me to lock California to look for a job, and good luck has finally come. Mr. Wang Guowei said that there are three realms in life, and I would like to say that there are also three realms in finding a job: the first realm: the road is long, and I will go up and down to find it. The second realm: the poor blue water falls into the yellow spring, the two places are not seen. The third realm, there is no way out of the mountain, and there is a village in the darkness.

Today I would like to use my personal experience to give the young people who are still groping on the road with their bare hands a little encouragement, don't be confused for too long, don't envy others, don't be gullible, down-to-earth mastery of skills, don't do too much, too much and nothing, but really do at least one thing well, be brave and determined, walk your own way, live a wonderful self.