I have been somewhat among the missing recently due to myriad factors - end of term at the Uni, rapid escalation of classes at our own school, a new computer, my stepson returning home for winter breack, etc - so I want to comment on several ongoing threads...

Google - (and intenet access issues) after I got the new computer I decided to sign up for Express VPN so I have completely open access to the internet (yes, I can Tweet or watch Youtube!!   And for 70 rmb per month on a one year contract it is worth every rmb!).  From reading many reports from America and talking to some techie friends and family members Google's issue is not so much censorship but rather a seemingly coordinated attack on GMail accounts held by activists - an attack that certainly smells like it was, if not launched by the gov, most certainly had to have had government backing..  And, yes, I think it is very possible that Google would pull out of China.  This was not the first cyber attack against "enemies" of the gov. and if it continues I wonder what the US and other nations might do to protect sites - maybe surround China with a great wall of the west that would isolate China from the internet as a whole?  I think the situation is much more serious that anyone here seems to realize.

Morgan - I, first, welcome you to TACA and second I would echo many of the comments here about going for the longer contract but I would strongly urge you to look at University positions - training centers and private schools are busiest when the kids are not going to the public schools so there is usually much less time off over the winter holidays.  I turned in my last grades at the UNI on Jan 4th and will not teach again until March 1st - except for the fact that my wife and I have opened our own school so my teaching load actually increased last week from 10 at the Uni and 12 at our school to 26 at our school  We will teach until Feb 7th then I will be free until March 1st. so....go Uni!!

To all the other new members, WELCOME!!   It is great to "see" so many new "faces".

Recently, i found that my students' reading ability needs improvement. So i copied a lot of articles from some famous English websites like CNN and even the website of the whitehouse and printed them out after i replaced some difficult words with easier ones and just found that the students still found them too difficult. They complained that there were just too many new words for them. And they are not familiar with some long sentences. Of course, i felt that the articles i chose were just the simplest and easiest for them. I can't find earier ones than those. And besides, I taught them the texts on their textbooks everyday, and the articles i printed were just complements. I thought the best way to improve the reading ability is to read a lot. But in reality, it seems the students and i are facing a lot of troubles. So, do you guys have any good ideas? Can you recommend some good sources where i can find better and easier articles for them to read? The topics and contents of the articles has no limit! Anything in English is worthing reading, i think.

I'd appreciate any suggestions and help !

Robert V had just updated his status to "nearing the end," and as usual, activities on TACA thins down, as another semester waves good-bye, along with some Foreign Experts leaving their jobs/cities, and maybe even this great country.  One Foriegn Teacher I met recently is moving to a bigger metropolis, for a bigger school that offered a bigger salary, and I am working feverishly to get my end-of-term marks posted, while sorting out the things in my apartment to make room to accomodate the "left-over" items from this FT friend.  (I have been round this building long enough that the workers know me as THE ONE-MAN CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION -- I take in discarded items from expats and redistribute them to people I know either need them or they know others who can use the items somehow.)

Doing all these takes time.  And I like making my own meals, which also needs quite a bit of time each day.  I do my own cooking mainly because I want to know what is NOT in my food, besides those invisible chemicals.

A week ago I tried one option on the induction cook-top: GRUEL.  On other brands the label reads CONGEE or PORRIDGE, if English is included.  And I'm happy that I have found a great time-saving way to prepare meals.  Before that I mostly only used the FRYING button.

All I have to do is to rinse the right amount of rice, prepare whatever I like to add to my meal in terms of veggies and meat, plus the right seasoning (some seasoning should be added before having the food and is put in only until then), set the pot on the cook-top and press the GRUEL button.  If I don't want to put everything in at the same time I can add the various ingredients later.  The cooking process then becomes unattended (unless I need to add those said ingredients during cooking) even for as long as two hours!  And when I'm ready, a piping hot meal!

At first I tried this method to make porridge and it was so worry-free I did that a few times, all with no sticky pot-bottoms to boot.  Later I tried to make "steamed" rice by reducing the amount of water, and added the other veggies and meat stuff about thirty minutes later.  Let me tell you, no burned offerings here!  No carbon-copies either.

As long as my menu does not call for frying, I can do this.  And I find this a good alternative way of cooking without being in the kitchen physically, while my food gets ready by itself!  If you like steaming, use one of them wire-racks and put the to-be-steamed food on a dish to get a fully unattended cooking, all in one pass!

I'm doing my cooking these days this way and today I can use some of the spare-time to post this up for whoever would like to try.  (A disclaimer from me: Results may vary. Ha!)

My arsenal of cooking-wares include two electric pressure-cookers, woks, pots and pans, a steamer, etc...  This discovery of the GRUEL button might save my budgeted funds on that slow-cooker.

Press GRUEL.  No stirring required.  Neat.

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations for good online TEFL/TESOL courses? I know that there are heaps of them online, however if someone has had a good experience with one of these companies I think it would be very helpful.

Another question I have is: has anyone just done a TEFL course (and not done the extra yards for a TESOL qualification) and regretted it? I have only got a TEFL certificate and I have never found the need to get a TESOL cert for teaching gigs in China (in fact a lot dont even ask for the TEFL).

I'm very interested to hear your recommendations/experiences...

Have to vent or I will kill someone!!!!

Had two kids from my class today come to me in tears because they didn't do well in the exam I set them. I work in a school where the focus is very much on spoken english as opposed to written english and because of this, they didn't do very well writing some of the answers. I tried to explain this to them (in general I am very happy with their work and their spoken english has improved dramatically) but wasn't getting through to them, they kept saying they were stupid and they would quit because they weren't good enough etc, etc. I am still a basic learner in Chinese and even though my spoken Chinese is improving, my characters look like they were done by a retarded monkey!!! So I decided to ask them if they thought I was stupid and they said no, I asked them if my Chinese was getting better and they said yes, so on the board I wrote some characters (nothing major, just go, mum and dad) and the kids laughed at them!!! So they went off feeling much better, because they weren't the only ones struggling with writing in another language. So I'm feeling really happy with myself, I have managed to make these kids feel good about themselves!!

Then, my boss came over to me (foreign but with perfect Chinese) and jumped straight down my throat, you should never write in Chinese, we don't pay you to get comments on your Chinese from the kids etc. I interrupted him and explained what had happened, and said that I wasn't asking them to teach me Chinese (which I think was the problem for him) and said that I was just trying to make them feel better, that normally I would never write in Chinese in class, but I felt that this was a special circumstance and that nothing else I had tried to make them feel better had worked, and that even though I'm not supposed to, I thought it was better to do that as a once off rather than lose these two kids from the school. He didn't accept this and gave me an offical warning and told me that if it happened again, I would be fired.

So I am just really p*ssed off here, and am wondering if people out there agree with me or with my boss? Anyone have any ideas about what I could have done instead, and do you think it is worth making a complaint to the school manager (my boss' boss) and hoping she is more understanding about it? Am marrying a Chinese guy next year and was hoping to stay working in the school, and don't want this stupid thing to get in the way of that!!!

Thanks!!!

Paul commented on the five year rule. This is something that is enforced at this school/or the PSB. The way I heard it is FT's are encouraged to move on because of tax reasons with Chinese Government. FT dont have to leave the country just change schools and they can return after one term. Many teachers like to stay at this place. Again it can be overturned. One teacher did ask for a one term extesion because of certain circumstances. The school put a case to the PSB and it was granted but only for the one term.

Anyone else got any "hearsay" about the five year rule.

I have just added an alert on the public edition of TeachAbroadChina.com regarding an agency called CNFTC. They are not to be trusted. We have received several reports about lies and broken promises.

To see the alert, please click here.