On Friday August 20th, 2010, i will return to China to begin my 2nd year of work with Jiangsu Department of Education working as a IELTS teacher. i’ll be going to the small town of Danyang in Zhenjiang prefecture. With a population of 900,000 it will be the smallest Chinese city I’ve worked in.
People who know me know that i am an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher but always wonder what exactly IELTS is. A year ago I would not have been able to exactly answer this question, but now with a little research and my year of teaching it, I can better inform the curious.
iELTS stands for International English Language Testing System, and was established by British Council in 1989. The test comprises of four sections: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. in the past it was considered a test for students to get into western universities not in the United States, but that has changed as now many US universities accept IELTS and TOEFL.
As an IELTS trainer, I take my students through many different exercises in the four sections of the exam. Many are book generated, but in my job the ability to create activities based on the exercises is key to the students understanding and interest in the work. I’ll save the post further explaining the different sections for a later time.
Many people do question my working for the Chinese government, but I have found it to be quite an enjoyable experience. Many teaching jobs in China have not been set up legally so many foreigners go through pain with thoughts of school raids, deportation, and dreaded Hong Kong business visa runs (which do not make teaching in China legal and can be expensive). I‘m most certain as long as i don’t get into too much trouble, visas and passport hassles are a thing of the past.
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I’m proud of you son.
Posted by Super PJ at August 17, 2010, 12:52 am