Teaching in Hualien

Overview

Hualien has 11 elementary schools which host ETAs and ETFs. The schools vary widely in size, with the smallest having less than 100 students and the largest having over 900; however, most schools fall around the 250-350 range. Regardless of school, you will be expected to teach English to grades 3-6, but some schools, especially the smaller ones, will also ask you to help with other courses and activities. These vary by school, but normally will include PE, story time with 1st and 2nd grade (or even kindergarten), English club, and others.

About how many students attended the school that you teach at?

The number of students depends on the size of the school. In the year 2019-2020, out of Hualien’s 10 elementary schools, the largest had over 600 students and the smallest was just over 100. The average sits near the middle of these two extremes.

How many students do you teach?

The number of students that we teach depends on the size of the school. In Hualien, there are schools of all different sizes so it depends where you end up being placed. At my school (Alex), I teach 2 classes in each grade from 3rd to 6th. With about 20-25 students per class, that comes out to about 160-200 students.

At my school (Isabelle), I also teach 3rd-6th graders, two classes per grade. There are about 15-20 students, so a little bit less than 160 students.

At my school (Carol), I taught 1st-6th grade. There are three classes per grade, and each grade had a varying class size (for example, each 4th grade class was about 20 students or less, while 6th grade had at least 25 students). In total, I had about 450 students.

How large are your classes?

The size of classes depends on the size of the school. At my school (Carol), the smallest class is 15 students and the largest class is 29, with the average near 24-25 students. Sometimes, we travel to a remote school to run English camp with other ETAs. These class sizes vary significantly, and the students’ ages vary. Sometimes, we would group the students together based off age/grade and teach them separately.

How are you placed into schools?

We visit schools during the orientation period in August and afterwards rank our preferences. The program then takes our preferences into account and places you into schools accordingly.

Are you teaching in Hualien City, or just within the county?

Currently, the majority of our schools are inside or at the outskirts of the city. The English Camps are in more remote areas. These schools are spread out throughout the county in more rural areas and we typically visit them by train or bus.

What are English Camps?

English Camps are opportunities for ETAs to interact with different schools in Hualien County, since we work at one main school full-time. The English Camp schools are typically smaller, have fewer resources, and allow you to have more freedom when it comes to independent teaching and designing the curriculum. While English camp is challenging in some ways, you can experience other areas and populations of Hualien.

What are your responsibilities at the school?

At school, we are required to teach 18 classes a week. Beyond that, our responsibilities vary based on what we are interested in or what your school asks of you. Some of us have meetings every week with the staff, others coach various sports teams and after school activities, yet others help with P.E. or art during normal school hours.

I (Alex) run an extracurricular class alongside a co-teacher for about two hours a week, during which we “travel” to a different country and learn about its customs and history using basic English. Prep for this activity is a little atypical (e.g. making country-specific bookmarks, presentations, researching a wide variety of content that students will enjoy) and is simply the result of my school’s specific arrangement.

As for me (Isabelle), I teach about two extra classes a week. I also work with my most advanced students (from 8:00 to 8:40 every morning) and remedial students (from 4:10 to 4:50 on Mondays and Thursday). I also run English Club with my LET on Thursdays (English club only happens for one month during the semester). During the months I am not running English Club, I help the school’s soccer club. I’m pretty busy during the day, but I like the workload and being with my students.

Something that is unique at my school (Carol) is the weekly morning school assembly. I have 15 minutes to do a school-wide mini English lesson. I use this time to expose my students to culture, teach common phrases, dance to English songs, or announce an interactive activity. For example, during Halloween, I made a poster of several words such as “ghost” or “vampire” and encouraged students to draw a picture of one of the words. They could then exchange this drawing for a piece of candy. The assembly requires quite of bit of prep, but it is a great way to engage the entire school in out-of-the-classroom learning.

I also tutored in the morning period before school started, from 8-8:30, four times a week. This was to help those who either needed to do homework corrections or simply had fallen behind on the material. I would do small groups of 2-6 students per grade each day, or sometimes do one-on-one. I did not co-teach during this time. I could do anything I wanted; usually, I would teach/reinforce the material and then we would play a game.

Do you have your own class or do you co-teach with others?

The ETAs in Hualien all co-teach. How this manifests itself in the classroom is dependent on the schools and LETs that you end up working with. Sometimes you teach together other times you have half the class to run an activity and your LET has the other half.

For about 6 of my (Alex) sessions each week, I spend a majority of the class working with smaller groups of 8-10 students to focus on conversational skills and apply material that has already been introduced. It gives students more direct speaking practice, it’s easier to manage, and it has helped me get to know on a more individual level.

Do you teach the curriculum that is being used at the school or do you have the flexibility to design your own curriculum?

When it comes to curriculum, the county has a set of standards and books that each school needs to teach from. However, within that set curriculum, you are given a degree of freedom to create your own lessons and activities to teach the materials and are free to bring in a few additional topics if there is enough time in the calendar. 

To echo a persistent theme in the co-teaching environment, your room to maneuver will depend largely on how amenable your co-teacher is to new ideas. The relationship with LETs and your LETs relationship with administration will both influence how much scope you have to introduce new ideas and run with them.

How much Chinese do you need to know going into your first few weeks in the classroom?

In terms of Chinese ability, the ETAs in Hualien ranged from many years of Chinese experience (heritage speakers) to none at all. While knowing Chinese is not required, it is helpful to have this skill and we encourage you to take time to improve your Chinese in Hualien through classes or independent study.

FAQ

Helen Griffin (2021-2022 ETA & 2022-2023 ETF):

Do you co-teach or do you teach more independently? What are the pros/cons of this type of teaching?

All ETAs will be expected to co-teach to some degree, but the level of independence varies by school. In my school, my LET and I co-teach every part of every lesson together. There may be some situations where one of us is primarily leading the class while the other is providing examples or backup support, but there is never a situation where we split up the class and I “take one section” and then we switch. I know there are some schools in Hualien that do it differently, but I think having both of us as active participants keeps the kids more engaged.

What is the role of Chinese in the English classroom ?

I think for everyone, the level of Chinese usage is heavily dependent on grade level. In my school, 3rd graders are primarily taught/ instructed in Chinese, just by nature of them needing to build a language learning foundation first. But once you get into the 6th grade classrooms, nearly all of the classroom instruction is given in English, and Chinese is just used as a tool for introducing vocab and providing backup assistance.

What can I contribute to the class?

In my opinion, the biggest thing an ETA/F can provide to their school/ classroom is their own experience. Many of us aren’t trained English teachers (unlike our LETs), but we can offer our voice, perspective, and experiences to try and help break down some misconceptions our students might have about the English language and what it’s like to live wherever we came from.