What's Old is New Again

I ended up getting another class, bringing my current total up to a whopping 8 hours a week, from Sarah as she got a new Oral English class from the school. The class I got from Sarah was the same type of Society and Culture of English Speaking Countries that I taught last semester. I checked to make sure they weren't literally the class I had last semester which would have made a lot of the material a little repetitive. Now of course the students haven't been told that they will suddenly be having a new teacher, why should anyone inform them of about anything, but I was quite surprised when I walked in the door and recognized a class that I had taught in my first semester in Changzhou. Now there are both good and bad things to having a class that I already taught for one semester. On one hand I know some of the students better, and they know more what I expect as well. But it can also mean that it's a lot harder to control the class. In the beginning there's a lot of distance from the students but as I get closer to them it actually makes them more difficult to control as they see me less as an authority figure. Also despite my belief from years in public schools that control is necessary for education I really a softy when you get down to it, I just don't really like punishing the students so I usually avoid it if I can. When they know more about what exactly they can get away with it can create problems. In an odd way having the same class again can actually be a very different experience.