Author: Sarah Williams
Date of Publication: September 2012
Series Title: Scottish Languages Review
Notes: Issue 25
This article details the experiences of an MFL teacher from London, working on a co-teaching project to ‘internationalise’ the teaching of English in Beijing. This was as part of the Chaoyang English Project, a five-year strategy, now in its second year. The article gives a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the Chinese school day and an overview of the way English is currently taught in middle schools in Beijing. The article details the author’s experience of the Project, of co-planning and co-teaching with a Chinese teacher of English, and in so doing, training both teachers and students in current best practice in communicative methods of language teaching. It details how her job as a foreign languages teacher in Beijing differed from her teaching experience and practice in the UK, and both the challenges and success she experienced in the co-teaching process. It concludes positively with an affirmation of dynamic, student-centred, kinaesthetic teaching, and a healthy respect of Chinese rote learning, both of which the author hopes to introduce or retain upon her return to the UK.
Keywords: Teaching English abroad; China, language pedagogy; team-teaching; use of target language; language teacher education