Thanks for the back-up CL

'Amused' was way out-of-order with his assumptions. I have studied Chinese since 2009 and I love my job here in China. I am a highly qualified ESL teacher and not the 'teecher' as I attempted to jokingly imply

I work at the (currently undisputed) number 1 - rated International school in this province, and have just signed a new contract until 2018.

Therefore, I guess I am saying (publicly) that I am not the 'muppet' that 'Amused' did his best to imply I was.

I teach grade 7 kids with better English ability than more than half of my grade 11 students, and typically, every class is literally strewn with students who range from 'conversational fluency' to complete 'dumbass' when it comes to their English ability. So you are right, we have no choice but to teach at a 'mid-point', but that still bores the 'good students' whilst leaving the lower-level ones completely flummoxed.

'Apply yourself', said the teacher.............haha, now we know what it means!

The lower-level students are not stupid nor thick, they are just lazy.....end-of, and they exist in all schools and always have done.

Two of my ESL female students have just achieved IELTS scores of 7 and 7.5 and I have 6 x grade 9 students (in a class of 20) that are equally able to achieve at LEAST a 7 when they take the IELTS test. Does that make me a 'good teacher'? No, but it certainly makes them 'bloody good students' who are a joy to teach.

Anyone who is not a 'teecher' knows that our job is not to 'teach' these kids, our job is to HELP THEM LEARN and if they don't WANT to learn.....well, as they say, 'you can lead a horse to water................'