Peizheng College – My Experience

Having worked in Peizheng College for nearly 3 years, I feel I have some knowledge of what it is like for a working teacher here.
Speaking to other teachers in Peizheng, they mostly all agree that the college is a pleasant place to work in and that the students and pace of life are two big incentives. There are, of course, always a minority who don’t enjoy the experience, for a variety of reasons, and I have no intention here of denying them that right. However, surprisingly, quite a few teachers that do leave come back again, and often say, after experiencing other work environments, that Peizheng College was a far better experience than they had at the time realised.

The social life in Peizheng is, putting it simply, great, and with many opportunities – games, sports, events, restaurants, etc, to get involved in.
Of course it’s not all perfect, and if I said it was I’d be lying. That’s not what I’m trying to do.
For foreign teachers the English teaching here is aural based, and for that reason the classrooms were setup, some years ago, quite sparsely by the then foreign directors, purposefully, to encourage an environment that is geared towards aural teaching and practice. Many teachers love this form and find it easy to work with but some, perhaps instituted in the bed of grammar focused teaching, find it hard to stick to. The reason for this form is to encourage students to use what they had already learned in their pre-college school environment but which they had not had the opportunity to practice in real time. This is a serious issue in China and student-confidence in their English speaking abilities are low, even though they are well learned in most other aspects of English, especially writing. So, putting it simply, China has not been good at giving its school students the opportunity to practice any aural skills in class – the students have the ability but have not had the opportunity. Peizheng College, in this respect, is a forerunner and has taken the problem seriously by doing something about it. It has made the College a popular choice amongst potential students for that reason, though there are other factors too, and the growth rate has been phenomenal.
The students mostly love it, and find these types of classes exciting and beneficial.

One of the main issues that some teachers have had in Peizheng College has been to do with the strong application of control. Most teachers accept this, in varying forms, but some, I think, find it too difficult to adjust to and can become embittered by it (this is not intended to belittle and I acknowledge that in some cases I may be a mile wide of the mark by saying this). There are, however, teachers here who have been in Peizheng for a very long time – up to 16 years. Some have told me that the control issues that have taken place in the past, and that have upset some, are more bark than bite, and if not taken to heart almost always pass over. To be honest, this is how China is and, I suspect, is not just an issue to be found in Peizheng College by the foreign teaching fraternity but is something that happens all over China.

Though this is a sparse account of Peizheng College, I think it is an honest one. There is no doubting that the staff here do have the best interests of the foreign teachers at heart, and have provided ample evidence of that on many occasions, but like a very large ship there are many departments and this causes complications that make it difficult to fulfil every good intention. Peizheng College is a very big place with now 18,000 students, an increase of six thousand since I first came to work here. It is then, growing rapidly and with such rapid growth it is impossible that there will not be some growing strains. Yet despite this, I would still say that Peizheng College is a peaceable and pleasant place to work in, with, as mentioned, lots of activities and opportunities for those who are willing to give it a try.
The key, I think to successfully living and working here, is to not lean too heavily on one’s own understanding of how things should work – China is different in every way and culture shock is a very real problem to deal with.
I hope this will serve as a useful and helpful account of what it is like to work in Peizheng College, and a help for anyone trying to decide whether to come here or not.