Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

Having taught English in China and in Britain, it's fascinating for me to compare students from the two countries. I've taught middle school, high school and university students in China, and in state and private schools in the UK, so I've seen the whole range, from the poorest British students to the most able, and Chinese students barely able to say their "English" name to those shortly to attend Ivy League colleges in the US. How do they differ?

In many ways kids are simply kids, wherever you are. But in China, when they get to middle-school age, around 10 or 11, they can often be shy or diffident, whereas British students are usually energetic to the point of unruliness, if not managed well. You might think that having a classroom of quiet, self-effacing students might make your life easy as a teacher, but you'd be wrong. Classes that sit back, fearful of participating, terrified of answering, are painfully hard work. All the energy has to come from you, the teacher.

 This isn't every Chinese student, of course. The younger ones still have usually a zest and energy about them that makes them a delight. But by the time they get to 10 or 11, something happens to them: the spark seems to go out, perhaps extinguished by too much homework and extracurricular classes. They're not active trouble, but it is hard to teach them.

But by the time they get to around age 14, they seem to liven up once again, as competitiveness and adolescence combine to make them more animated.

By contrast, British kids are mostly golden until the age of 13. They're fun, approachable and amenable; pretty much all levels try their best. Then something horrible happens, first to the girls, then the boys. Adolescent angst drops on them like an atom bomb of disdain and pointless hostility. Eye-rolling and tutting, sighing and head-shaking become endemic. As a teacher, you're forever crimping their style. This is generally hilarious, but it does make teaching harder.

Group work becomes fantastically difficult to arrange when the class forever has warring factions whose sides seem to change by the hour. Games and activities that you think might be fun are suddenly repulsively immature. And the worst thing any student can do is be seen to study hard. It's radically uncool. Fortunately this phase only lasts perhaps two years, after which they emerge, chrysalis-like, into fine independent young men and women. But what agonies of transition!

Another significant contrast is in students' ability to speak to a group. British students, for the most part, absolutely detest this. They physically cower, and if the whole class has to do it, they groan as though nauseous as the time for them draws nearer. I sympathize, having felt exactly the same back then, but solo talking is a prescribed part of the curriculum. But at private schools, where confidence is inculcated as part of the school ethos, this isn't a problem.

Here, like China, students are more accustomed to having to perform for others, often attending confidence-raising extracurricular activities. So they can stand up and do a group presentation, or give a solo talk, without agonies of self-consciousness. Despite the diffidence of some Chinese middle-school students, they could always do this effectively, with none of the gawky giggling or dumbstruck awkwardness of British students.

In general, though, kids are kids, bound by their stage of development more than any cultural disposition. Any teacher will have his or her favorite ages to teach. In China I liked the 14-16 year olds much more than my colleagues, who preferred the simple fun of the kids aged 7-10.

By that age, I liked how they were more independent, able to be a little sassy and to take it back from their teacher. In Britain, by contrast, the youngest and oldest students were easily the best. The middle period, cursed with puberty, was occasionally comical but often was fruitless to the point of futility.

But looking back, every class, every individual, has their own particular charm. It was just that occasionally you had to dig really hard to find it.

The author has been a freelance journalist in China since 2008. Follow him at @bucketoftongues. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn