You will act as an assistant teacher teaching conversational English to children and young adults. We can offer you the unique opportunity to teach to kindergarten children (under six years old) up to college students(18 years old and up) – we have links with all kinds of educational institutions including primary and high schools and a specialist agricultural university. No previous teaching experience is required although any TEFL experience would be useful to those who wish to teach to pre university adults.

For those who wish to broaden their contribution we would encourage volunteers to get involved in drama, music (piano is very popular in China) and art classes – this would be well received by the schools.

You will be assigned to either the head teacher or to the main teacher of English within the school. They will help you plan your teaching activities but volunteers are not expected to follow the rigid rules of the curriculum.

Schools welcome volunteers who can make their lessons fun, challenging and worthwhile. You will be expected to plan your lessons and provide useful feedback to classroom teachers.

You can expect to teach about 12 to 20 hours per week with the average being 16 hours a week. Schools generally begin at 08.00 and finish at 16.00 from Monday to Friday.

Volunteers will need to follow a fairly strict dress code – shorts, flip flops and T-shirts in the classroom will not be acceptable. However outside the classroom this would be fine. A smart casual approach would set a standard that would help build a respectful attitude from your students and teaching colleagues.

Volunteers can offer evening time to tutor students on a one to one basis. In return you can improve your Mandarin Chinese!

To view videos of the volunteer teaching programme do hit these two links:

Part One:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTc5MTM0ODg0.html
 
Part Two:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTc5MTMxODU2.html

Changing Worlds can also offer the exciting possibilities of joining the Summer school programmes that start in mid July of every year. Here the teaching is much less formal. Again the expectation is that you arrive as a teacher of conversational English but a keenness to offer other pastimes would be extremely well received. The Summer school programmes run for four weeks.

Changing Worlds offer short volunteer experiences (up to one month) working at the local city zoo in Yantai. You will work side by side with your local colleagues. You will help feeding the animals and birds, cleaning the pens, maintaining the buildings and general maintenance duties. This would be appealing to those who enjoy working with animals and birds. You can expect to work a six hour day.

In all cases on the completion of your placement you will receive a reference and certificate of completion from your school or zoo.