No Voice

Ever since the school and all it's sister branches started accepting subsidies from the government in 2006, many changes have started to take place... Well, I can't speak for the other branches, it all depends on what their principles decide, but since Monday, everything has literally exploded into motion in the school that I work at. The main objective? To get through the EDB inspection (Education Bureau, equivalent of OFSTED in the UK) in April.

Children are can now "choose" what they want to do at school i.e. they are provided with a selection of activities, and they can decide the order in which they want to do it in... it's been proven that children will learn better this way... although it is definitely more bothersome for the teachers.

... and does it affect the English teacher? You bet it does, my English lessons have become one of their activities of choice, so therefore everything accept my syllabus has changed i.e. location, schedule, duration. I won't be teaching them everyday like I normally do (classes will be halved and each half will be taught English every consecutive day), so to compensate for this, the principle has filled up my time slots with extra classroom visits, which doesn't even make up for all the English time that they could have had normally. This gives me less time to prepare for morning and extracurricular classes, let alone finding the time for a drink or a trip to the ladies. Last year, the Head Principle had even mentioned that children would have a maximum of 80% English time in their schools, and this was during a seminar for parents... at this rate that's unlikely, and you know what? This is still a work in progress, the voiceless ones better brace themselves for what's coming.