Online ESL courses come to the fore in Nanjing

Expat English teachers in Nanjing are now adjusting to online classes.
English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in Nanjing are now being forced to adjust to a new way of online teaching.

The massive Chinese city has long been a hub for ESL teachers, with a huge number of both public and private schools providing the service to Chinese wishing to learn the world’s official second language. Since the pandemic began, lessons have morphed from the classroom to online, forcing expat teachers to learn new skills suited to the new era of online education.

As the pandemic spread across China, Nanjing schools of all types were forced to shut down for just under two months, during which time both students and their expatriate teachers faced the challenge of a new style of education for at least as long as the virus continued to be a threat. As is usual in China, ESL schools adapted swiftly to the new challenge, thus ensuring their pupils didn’t lose valuable study time and slip back as regards their knowledge.

Now that normal life is beginning to return to the vast city, the question as regards online education is whether the new way of learning can supplant the traditional classroom style education system. The answer may well depend on whether, now the lockdowns are over, the virus will return and stop the city’s ongoing transition back to normal life. As regards ESL, one innovative school has launched a new method enabling teachers to better continue their work with their students after a period of retraining.

The response was more than satisfactory, leading to the vast majority of language-learning centres in Nanjing adopting the method and swiftly retraining their teachers. Most expat ESL teachers in the city opted to stay rather than be repatriated to their home countries as they realised how important their work is to ensure Chinese young people are able to successfully communicate in English in the world of international business and commerce.