I’m just wondering how you other English teachers cope with your job? Especially if you don’t have any experience or training before starting here.
I know teaching was never meant to be an easy job, and I never saw myself as a teacher, but this job is really taking a toll on me. I spend all my day preparing for lessons or doing lessons except for the few hours before I wake up or go to sleep but I’m too tired to do anything else. And I feel like I’m doing a bad job; not teaching the kids well. A lot of them are just falling asleep during my class and I feel most of them don’t like me
What’s working?
Start there.
Try to make a connection with the kids and the CT, if any, when they come in, or when you go into a new classroom. Tell a funny story about foreigner’s life in Taiwan. Ask them to tell you Chinese/Taiwanese words you “don’t know.”
If you’re in the circus and you’re the freak, put on a show. 
I posted this a while ago in another thread.
Not sure about your age group. But for 4-6 hours of quality lessons with kids you don’t know squat about, try this:
Get a bunch of files for each kid for record keeping. Then give them a phonemic awareness assessment to find their deficits. If they honestly don’t know anything, no big deal. Here’s a few phonemic awareness assessments for different ages.
https://www.literacyresourcesinc.com/resources/assessments/
Then, you know their individual needs. Make groups. If they are all beginners, awsome. Less planning. Do you have a “Chinese Teacher” who assists you in class?
Ok, then go here:
https://hickmank12.org/west-virginia-reading-first-explicit-phonics-lessons/
This is a goldmine of phonemic lessons, like all done for you lessons, in easy how to.
I’m legit in NY, and we use this in our district. It’s totally free.
So, divide and conquer. Teach to small groups if you can. A CT could run drills with the others, and some could do individual rote/busy work. Re-assess them every quarter/tuition date and re-group them, rinse and repeat. And mix in a story time. Kids like being read to, and it will provide an opportunity to learn/practice your Mandarin.
how do you make a connection with the kids?
I’ve never really made a conection with anyone
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honestly, create a persona.
exaggerate stories of yours from the U.S.
if you have no stories, take others and use them.
find out what they like. If they say Spiderman, then randomly say you were once an extra on the first movie. Get them to ask questions about the “experience” in English
That seems sad. Now I’m sad.
Is this seriously the case? My buxiban job requires about 5 hours total prep a week. Plus my teaching hours it’s still not even full time by US standards. Did I just get super lucky with this? I hear so many stories on here that make it seem like the most tiring time consuming job in the world. If I were you I’d look for a different job or something to start with…
That was an exaggeration but I am very bad at it. Playing my own psychologist here I guess it’s ultimately down to self-consciousness and a fear of other people disliking me.
Actually thanks for the tips though let me think about them.
It is discouraging observing the kids laughing and hanging on their teachers words, and then when I step to the front only like 1 or 2 kids respond at all to what I say and half of them are falling asleep.
I am curious about this and how the situation is for other teachers.
I take over a different class each hour for the regular teacher for one hour and do what they would have done; teaching and practicing the new content. I guess that’s extra tiring for me because it means I need to be up and active the whole time, and I’m not doing any of the more administrative stuff.
I’ve gotten faster over time with more experience, but for each class I need to pour over the book and work out how to present the story, vocabulary and grammar and come up with hopefully entertaining activities to practice them. I guess I’m not an efficient worker either, often drifting into lala land, so I end up spending as much time in the office as I do in front of the class.
Well if it makes you feel better. You’re there to be their teacher and not their friend. Probably not good if they hate you but your focus shouldn’t be so much about them liking you. If they’re learning new things as kids do generally like learning new things. And you make their long hours of studying slightly more bearable, they will like you.
I suspect you aren’t one of the few people that are born teachers. My advice is to not over-analyze. Identify your problem and look online for tips and tricks. YouTube is a great resource with many veteran teachers doling out advice on any number of problems. As you stated, teaching ain’t easy but it gets (much) easier and more rewarding with experience. Hope this helps!
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Get your very own sticky balls and set them up at home, practice, practice, practice! In a year or so you’ll be better than most 4 year old kids and will gradually win over their respect.