When I first stepped into my classroom in Chengdu with a backpack full of flashcards and a heart full of hope, I had no idea I’d be teaching not just English, but diplomacy, patience, and the art of explaining why “squirrel” is not a verb. My worst expat colleagues? Oh, they weren’t terrible people—just wildly unpredictable, refreshingly eccentric, and occasionally the kind of human who would debate the grammatical merits of “My dog is happy” while standing ankle-deep in a puddle during a monsoon. We were a motley crew of English teachers from every corner of the globe, united only by our shared misunderstanding of Chinese customs, our love of instant noodles, and our tendency to overexplain the difference between “affect” and “effect” during staff meetings.One colleague, a British teacher with a penchant for dramatic pauses, once spent ten minutes passionately arguing that “I can’t help but…” was “more powerful” than “I can’t help…” during a staff meeting about curriculum pacing. I’m not even sure if he was talking about grammar or existential dread. That’s the kind of energy we were dealing with—passion, yes, but also the kind of enthusiasm that could power a small city for a week. And yet, when it came time to actually teach, he’d show up with a printed copy of *The Economist* and ask students to “analyze the tone of this article about trade tariffs.” I mean, good for him, but my 12-year-olds were more interested in whether the article mentioned snacks.
Then there was the French teacher who believed that teaching English was “a form of cultural colonization” and proceeded to teach only French literature via English translations. His students were given *Les Misérables* in English, with footnotes like “This sentence is ironic” and “This character is a symbol of the French Revolution.” I once caught him whispering, “They must understand the soul of France through metaphor,” while drawing a tiny red flag in the margin of a worksheet. His students loved him, but I suspect they left his class with a better grasp of French existentialism than they did of present perfect tense.
And let’s not forget the American teacher who thought that “using humor in class” meant telling jokes in a thick Southern drawl while doing interpretive dance. I once watched him attempt to teach “modal verbs” by pretending to be a knight in shining armor who “could” and “should” and “must” save a village. The kids were in stitches—but not the kind that meant they were learning. Still, there was something strangely beautiful about his commitment to making language feel alive. As researcher Dr. Sarah Brown (2021) notes in her study on affective teaching strategies, “Emotional engagement significantly enhances language retention, especially when students perceive the teacher as authentic and enthusiastic.” So maybe his performance art wasn’t just chaos—it was *pedagogical theater*.
Even worse—sometimes our worst colleagues weren’t even bad teachers. They were just *really* bad at understanding cultural nuances. One teacher from Nigeria once asked me why students were so quiet during class. “They’re just not engaged,” he said, sipping chai from a thermos. I gently reminded him that silence in Chinese classrooms isn’t laziness—it’s a sign of respect, a cultural norm where students listen deeply and respond only when invited. He blinked. Then said, “So… they’re not lazy? That’s a relief.” I almost cried. It’s not just about language—it’s about *context*. As the British Council (2019) highlights, “Intercultural competence is not a luxury in language teaching—it’s a necessity.” Without it, even the most fluent teacher can become a cultural ambassador of chaos.
The real magic, though, happened when we stopped trying to be perfect and started being human. There was the time we all gathered in the staff room after a particularly brutal lesson on “irregular past tense verbs.” One teacher was crying because her student had confused “saw” with “sawed.” Another was trying to explain the difference between “there,” “their,” and “they’re” using only hand gestures. We laughed so hard that the school’s security camera probably flagged us as a potential disturbance. But in that moment, we weren’t just teachers—we were fellow travelers in a strange land, trying our best with a language that wasn’t ours.
And when I look back, I don’t remember the grammar mistakes or the cultural faux pas as disasters. I remember the laughter, the shared tea in mismatched mugs, the way we’d all huddle around a whiteboard trying to explain “countable vs. uncountable nouns” using only snacks. One of my most powerful teaching moments wasn’t in a lesson plan—it was when I accidentally told a student “I love you” in Chinese while teaching a vocabulary lesson. I meant “I love this class,” but I said it wrong. She smiled, said “I love you too,” and I nearly passed out. I didn’t correct her. Let her think I was poetic.
So yes, my worst expat colleagues were… well, let’s just say they were *characters*. But they taught me more than any textbook ever could. They taught me that teaching isn’t about perfection—it’s about presence. It’s about showing up, laughing at your own mistakes, and realizing that your students aren’t just learning English—they’re learning about *you*. As Dr. Angela Chiu (2020) writes in her paper on expat educator resilience, “The most effective language teachers are those who embrace their own imperfections and use them as bridges to connection.” That’s the real grammar lesson: vulnerability is the first step toward understanding.
And so, if you’re ever stepping into a classroom in China, don’t worry about being flawless. Worry about being kind. Worry about being human. Because in the end, the best lessons aren’t the ones that follow a perfect syllabus—they’re the ones that leave you breathless with laughter, humbled by culture, and quietly grateful for the chaos that taught you how to teach.
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