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Why children in China are being taught Glasgow slang at school

8 January 2019

“I dinnae like maths!” — You might expect to hear an expression like this in a Scottish classroom, but probably not in southern China. Until now.

And it’s all down to 19-year-old Glaswegian Victoria Groom, the only foreign teacher working at Shangyou Middle School.

Teaching Glasgow slang in China

Neil Oliver meets young Scottish teaching student Victoria at work in the classroom.

Shangyou is in Jiangxi province, one of the poorest in China, where a lack of opportunity has led swathes of residents to leave and seek employment elsewhere.

Shangyou Middle School hired Victoria not only to teach pupils English, but to offer them a window to the wider world.

Speaking to Neil Oliver on Scots in China she explained, “In my lessons I teach them about different things that we do [in Scotland], my home town, and some Scottish slang.”

And Victoria immediately noticed the impact this had on her pupils and how it influenced their plans for the future. “They go, ‘Oh! I want to experience that!’”