Getting ready to teach English

Several of my Chinese friends suggested that I should teach English to people in China.

I thought about it and decided to try it.

I joined Edufire as a tutor so that I could teach people online.

A site with so many possibilities, but it can't decide whether to be a community or a place for formal paid teaching.

So, after making many suggestions, and trying to change things, only to see very little happen, like many other teachers, I left and went my own way.

I can say that the Edufire experience taught me a lot abotu what is needed for successful online teaching. I developed and my Edufire Tutoring webpage to give some information about me and my teaching style. People seemed to like that.

Now I have put my material on my own site http://teachmetospeakenglish.com/

Getting started

Like many people I used think learning a Chinese language would be too difficult.

I retired last year, there are still many things to do, mostly relating to my family, but now I have more time to explore my interests. 

Some friends announced that they were going to China to live for a few years and suggested I visit. I looked into it, read a bit and became interested in this new more open China that had been difficult to visit during much of my life.The more I read about China the more I realized that if i wanted to see things for myself and meet people I would have to learn some basic language. 

Oh, English is spoken by some people in the major cities, but most people in China have limited opportunity to meet native English speakers and practice the language. So I started to learn about the language and where to find some good resources. After a while I found Italki http://www.italki.com/

Through Italki I met many wonderful friendly Chinese people who are helping learn me to Mandarin and I am assisting them to learn English.

Meanwhile I am still at home in Woden, a suburb of Canberra, Australia.