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Stories like that make me feel better after a bad day. So nice to hear a happy ending! Was there any a-ha! moment when things turned around or was it a gradual change? How did you muster the energy to go back the next day? Did your school give you some advice or did you work it out on your own? Great story!

I worked it out on my own although my principal gave me a few pointers and my school owner and the principal sat down with me and gave me a list of things that they liked about my teaching which really boosted my confidence in teaching the kids. Today I was practically tackled by some of my former students while they were waiting to wash their hands because they wanted to play with me when I was just passing through. I honestly love the fact that my job includes having a good laugh at least once a day. I can’t remember when things suddenly clicked. I don’t think there was ever really a point where it clicked at once…more like a series of snaps. Maybe when the first Christmas concert came around and my boss remarked that I had the best behaved class in the school. Or when the mother of a difficult boy came up to me and said, “_____ changed yesterday.” I panicked thinking that one of my teaching assistants (they realized that I needed two helpers after a point) changed his pants from an accident or playing in water without my knowing it so I started to explain that he was playing with the water and that’s probably why he changed. She told me that she meant his behavior changed and for the first time since he has been able to run, he did what he was told and was well behaved. The one who ran around the table after knocking small buttons and collage paper to the floor on the first day. I think that’s when I felt everything was finally coming to fruit.

Hexuan wrote:

I think this qualifies. Names, places, and times have been changed to protect the innocent. Otherwise this account is unembellished.

The sun had just set on another hazy summer day in Nantou as I entered the classroom. After a three-day self-imposed hiatus I was ready to teach. As it turned out, the local police were even more ready.

It was my favorite class. Jamie, sitting in the front row with an angelic look on her face, ran a local tea shop with her sister, who was sitting beside her. Combined, they had convinced me to try my first (and last) deep-fried chicken foot, claws and all. They’d also gotten me hooked on milk tea and thick Taiwanese toast with peanut butter. The other 12 students couldn’t have been more diverse, from the eager 14-year-old boy to the 70-year-old man who could speak only Japanese and Taiwanese but was serious about working on English. Middle-aged housewives, auto mechanics, even a police officer. We all got along well and had a great time in class. They even did their homework, for the most part.

The classroom was on the second floor of a 4-storey building, one floor down from the taofang I called home. We’d known for quite some time that the local foreign affairs police were beginning to crack down on illegal foreign teachers. Back then, in 1991, that was about the only kind there were. I was unique in the area because I was actually applying for a work permit. But when Fabulous Freddy, the underling foreign affairs officer, deported his first victim after taking her out for dinner the night before, I stopped teaching immediately and told the boss I wouldn’t start until I was officially legal.

After 3 days of losing money, the owner of the school had a chat with the head of the local police department and worked out a deal that allowed me to teach until I got my work permit sorted out. So when I walked into the classroom I was more at ease than I had been for some time. Apparently the laoban hadn’t spoken to the right people.

The police didn’t use lights or sirens when they raided us, slipping through the reception staff with barely enough shouting to tip me off that something was amiss. Panicked, I decided to try to make a break for it, slipping out the door in front of a classroom full of students and hightailing it up the stairs toward my bedroom. What a sight that must have been.

Sometimes in dreams when I’m running away from something I just can’t seem to get my feet under me. The harder I try, the worse it is. That’s what my trip up the stairs was like. My feet slipped out from under me halfway up to the landing, and I had just managed to get them back under me when the police shouted for me to stop. I did.

That was probably my worst teaching experience.

I was on an airplane out of Taiwan by mid-afternoon the next day. The school put an ad in the paper for a new teacher a few days later, or so I heard, and I waited a solid half-year to come back to Taiwan. Couldn’t help myself.

Was that at Apple English?

I forgot that my first day of class in Taiwan I had to do my medical exam which involved a urine test that I was…ahem, ill prepared for. It was also my first experience with a squat toilet with which I had trouble. I walked into a cosmetic surgery clinic thinking that it was the hospital that I was supposed to do my physical there before they told me to keep walking. I had to look back in my travel journal over my first four days in Taiwan before I spotted those little nuggets.

I wrote this some time ago, but I might as well post it here so a few people can have a chuckle.

I do my best to avoid telling my students that I can speak Chinese. This is mainly because I want to keep them focused on learning English and having a total English environment in the classroom. While this helps the students learn English it also means that when they speak Chinese they are totally unaware that I can understand what they are saying.

Students often ask personal questions in class. Often they are very curious about various aspects of foreign culture and asking me is the best opportunity they might have to answer their questions. I always do my best to answer the student

I used to teach high school, except when IACC ballsed things up for me as they did several times in my early career.

On one occasion I found myself having to take the only job they had available for me - and found myself standing in front of a group of hyperactive eight year olds in a windowless classroom. This is not something I know how to deal with, and I told the school owner so. She just grinned and said that if any of the kids caused problems I should bring them to her.

OK.

We play some games, we’re getting along fine. Wow, I can do this! Then Julie starts acting up, and won’t relinquish the flyswat. They’re all a bit boisterous, but she’s decided to make sure I know who is in charge and when I tell her to sit down I get a loud defiant “NO”.

Oh shit!

I try being nice so she laughs and hits me with the flyswat. I try ignoring her so the hits me with the flyswat. I try looming threateningly. I try raising my voice. All to no avail. I take the thing off her forcefully (but gently) and she starts sobbing hysterically.

I can face down a room full of resentful teens, in fact I’ve been known to stand up to crowds of angry construction workers in previous lives, but this little girl was beyond my abilities.

I try being nice again, and she hits me. So I grab her hand and march her off to talk to Joyce. She grabs the chair, doorframe, anything that comes within reach. I pick her up. She kicks and struggles, now I feel like a viking raider abducting a woman from the beaches of olde england.

Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensues. We slowly negotiate the stairs with me fighting the red mist that is settling over my mind as I try to get her the hell out of my life without actually harming her. I’m staring to worry that the berserkergang will overtake me, and some remote corner of my mind speculates that I should wear my horned helmet to work tomorrow.

Eventually I give up. She promises to be good and we go back to the classroom. The other kids are terrified, but she won’t be cowed. She’s won and she knows it. Ten minutes later she’s at it again.

This time we make it to the ground floor before she promises to be good. We clean the tears off her face, class is over, and I walk out (shaking) to phone the Taichung mafia and get the hell out of there. They told me that there was nowhere else for me to go, which turned out to be another lie but they had my passport and (I thought) owed me a lot of money. So what could I do?

It got better but I only lasted a week. Then I received 2 emails from IACC. One detailed my first salary payment, which after all the deductions came to NT$1000. As I had been on their books for two full months I was a) a bit upset, and b) at the end of my 60-day visa.

The second email was to inform me that as they hadn’t got around to processing my work permit yet I had 3 days in which to get out of the country and could I send them some money so they could book me a ticket?

I think that’s about as bad as things have been for me here. Anyone else?

I met my wife in an English class :blush:

I never went out with a student of mine, but I know plenty who did. It is a good way to score on younger, unsuspecting and oftentimes virgin girls.
It has all the advantages: captive audience, you see them a lot – multiple chances to impress, and you have the aura of respect that teachers get here even if they don’t deserve it.
It’s the “shooting fish in a barrel” technique.
Of course if you tried dating a student as a professor or teacher in the States, you’d better be pretty sure of the girl, since you would lose your job and jepardize your career. But Taiwan is a whole different kettle of “fish,” isn’t it?

Teaching “Bidness English” opens up a whole different demographic - the women are often in their 20s and 30s, (usually) less virginal, but no less fun…

This is all hearsay, of course… :wink:

ummm… not in my English class.

erm… I never asked a student out - Ever.

She asked me out so I never broke my personal rule of never asking a student out.

Small town.

My wife is hot.

ermmm… any other way to make this sound better than it sounds?

Oh damn, it’s Wolfie, just ignore him and maybe he’ll go away.

Don’t Hogg it all yourself…show us the proof!