Teaching

Week 3 done with classes.  Having survived three weeks of classes, an equally impressive feat for both the students and myself, I am sure, I have gained a great deal of perspective.  First off, I don’t know how in the world my mom rarely came home after a day of teaching and didn’t complain.  If I had a family to come home to, I would definitely have some whining to do, or stories to share, or frustrations to vent.  It is not as easy as she made it look.  And I don’t remember her working at night making lesson plans or thinking of activities, which has become, sadly, my routine.  I hope that with time I become more time efficient.  So, my hat is off to you mom and all the other teachers in my past.  You made it look easy.

       Secondly, I am learning that being the teacher is artful, tactful, mindful.  You blend exercises like a painter does colors to keep the audience’s attention.  You are tactful in your lesson plans, thinking of different ways to present to all of the learning types and how to be efficient at it.  And you are mindful of the future, both over the semester’s and the student’s future; trying to make the lessons build in a logical and useful way.  It is harder than I expected.

       Some words on my classes: I have three classes, all are the same topic (New Concepts English 2), and all have the same majors: second year art majors (non-english).  Two of the classes are 47 students and one is 27.  That’s a lot of students.  At first, I thought this would be easy- having to only prepare the same lesson for all three classes twice a week.  Wrong in 3 ways.  #1: Assessing students’ abilities.  Day one was going into it blind.  I had no instructions from the Dean on what to teach besides “just make them talk and teach them something,” so I did a nametag game, a class counting game, and a questionnaire for each person.  Immediately I discovered that no one understood what I was saying- too much English.  So I became a mime and acted as much out as I could for directions.  Class was painful with the main success surviving and getting the questionnaires back to assess their writing abilities.  Deciding that I was starting from square one, the next class I went in with a bunch of fruit and had them repeating what is what, doing a worksheet, and then an activity asking how much prices are.  I thought it a hit and even had fun.  This week, however, I heard that one student went and complained to their teacher from last year, exclaiming “we aren’t in kindergarten!  I know what an apple is.”  That got me down for a moment, but it made me reflect on the fact that students here in China have a huge disconnect between their written knowledge and their spoken knowledge. Classes rarely ask students to respond to a teacher or use the lessons creatively.  Instead, its all about tests and worksheets.  So, while they are really good at writing about apples, asking them in front of the whole class to identify the apple was like asking them to kill a kitten.  So, #1: writing skills > speaking skills and now my goal is to make them speak English.

       #2: Teacher obstacles.  This is how I’m used to it working: the teacher comes to class with all the handouts already copied at the teacher copier, the projector turns on instantly, and class runs smoothly.  After asking the teaching assistants for English to make me 131 copies twice and seeing the shock on their face, I knew something was wrong.  Turns out, teachers do not make the copies in China.  In China, I don’t think they usually make copies or handouts much at all.  ‘That’s just not in the budget.’  Instead, the students all pay into a class fund at the beginning for copies and one student, the monitor, is the one in charge of it.  So, if I need a handout made for class, I have to give it to them at the beginning and have them copy it during the beginning of class.  These copiers are independent operations in little shops in the college and 47 copies runs about 14 RMB (~2 USD).  This hinges, however, on the monitor being there.  This person is supposed to be very responsible, but one class has a monitor who’s been consistently late (karma biting me back I believe) and another who’s been totally absent before.  There’s also a tech who unlocks the projector/computer/speaker box at the front of the room at the beginning of class.  No student = no key = no projector.  That has happened unexpectedly.  And when the monitor was late one day, I had the tech girl do copies and during the break (more about that), I found her charging each individual student for the copies.  Another day the electricity simply didn’t work in one room.  Top floor on a hot day, no fan, no projector, no lights.  Teaching in China is rife with unforeseeable obstacles. 

       The class schedule is also a thing of brilliant chaos.  The first class starts at 8:50 and goes until 9:35.  10 minute break and then class goes again until 10:30.  Then from 10:35 to 11:20 with a 5 minute break and then class is over at 12:05.  The afternoon is equally baffling.  This amounts to the bells that ring around campus meaning very little if you aren’t in class as well as myself continually worrying I’m missing a class at some weird time. 

       #3: my classes are at different units in the book.  I assumed they were all at the same lesson because no one told me otherwise, but that became visibly wrong when I told one class to open to page 225 and I almost had a riot for a classroom.  They were only at 135- didn’t I know?  After some rough patches, I now know that my three classes are at Lesson 27, 28, and 34 respectively.  This week that meant three lesson plans, but once I can catch the one class up a lesson, only two for awhile. 

       Already some students have emerged as gems.  Shelly from the 27 student class gave me a mooncake last week and wished me a happy Mid-Autumn Festival (which was this Monday and is the traditional Mooncake giving and eating holiday).  And Apple and Emily did as well yesterday- these small acts of thoughtfulness make me feel like I’m back in Whitman.  Barton- the BIG guy who sits in front, everyone refuses to sit next to him, but he always has a big smile and will give answers loudly.  My goal is to make him the cool kid in class.  Lewis is in another, who answers anything loudly and has a great sense of humor.  He’s also my go-to guy.  Madam, who sits in front of the small class, is up there simply because I like to say “Madam, what is your answer?”  Some names that stand out on the roster: Rax, Rain, Eiffel, Windy, Monkey, Atland (from a small Western village- also a gem- who I silently call Asland in my head), Oven, X, Bok, Ix, Zva, Brilliancy, Beyonce, Nova, Jade, Daisy, Eleven (I think of the House character 13), and Bella.  131 names are way too many for my poor brain to learn quickly, but I hope to get them sooner than later.

       Life on campus is like how I imagine life as Brad Pitt must be.  Today after class, I was walking back to the apartment and I saw a girl hiding in the bushes taking photos of me as I walked by.  I smiled, waved, said hello, and then posed for her.  I thought she might die of embarrassment.  The paparazzi is everywhere, be it students staring as we walk by or camera phones following us whenever we go about.  Already we are the popular dinner dates with students, with one such tonight.  Knowing Alex has been a blessing because we get to meet senior English majors who carry on great conversation and love to answer out questions and laugh with or at us.  I’ve truly enjoyed many of such outings and we are planning a big trip for next weekend with Alex, Serene, Cassia, and the two of us.

       At first I was very surprised that I was teaching non-major English classes to low level students.  I thought that I was being underutilized.  But after being here for 3 weeks of classes and talking to many major students, I realize that the education here orbits around tests.  And for most of the English majors, there is one test that is the center of their universe (what it is called escapes me at the moment).  One major student told me that they never take a writing class in their 4 years here.  They all work very hard, ridiculously hard day and night (that topic is another posting entirely), but all that work is geared toward bookwork and passing a certain test.  Can you tell I’m judgmental?  With this in mind, I realize that its safe for the college to put me in charge of a classroom that isn’t accountable to scores on a test later.  Its safe for them and gives me freedom for what I’m teaching.  Maybe next semester (I don’t think this is a year long class), I can do a majors only writing class after the tests are all done in December.  The Dean promised to reshuffle the schedule later (‘sometime’ is the common Chinese timeframe for doing things), but who knows what will happen.  For now, I’m an entertainer with hopes to make them excited about speaking English.

       Tonight there is a competition that sounds like “America’s Got Talent” but “Sichuan University Jinjiang Campus’s Got Talent” with most of the students filling the audience and there being actual judges.  Alex and Luke and I have decided to sing Jason Mraz “I’m Yours” tonight to please and humor the paparazzi.  We shall see- Luke and I sound pretty good so far in rehearsal.  Who knew that I’d be in China singing to the masses?

       Thanks for reading!

~4 hours later~

       Well, it happened.  We went to the competition, which was a stage set up next to the track with an enormous line of people waiting to compete.  A panel of judges, 20-30 second sound bit, and no musical background to accompany you was the obstacle to reach round 2 of the competition.  We were told immediately from some friends that they knew the judges and it would be ok for us to go for fun.  It took some egging, but Alex, Luke, Stone (a singing English major we met on the way) and I all ended up on stage in front of a rather big crowd of Sichuan University students with mics in our hands.  We sang the first stanza and chorus of the song, all the while flashes were going off throughout the crowd.  A cheer greeted us onto the stage and bid us farewell.  Luke and I agreed the judges and crowd would have let us finish the song had we wanted.  And as we got off the stage, we were rushed by ‘fans’ all wanting photos.  It was so funny, and fun, to be a rock star for an evening.

       Then we regrouped with the rest of the American teachers and went to the teacher’s KTV lounge, where they serve you free beer and food trays in a private room and have 5,000 English songs to pick from.  Highlights: Homecoming by Kanye, I’m Yours, ChumbaWhumba TubThumpin’, Alicia Keys I Keep Falling, Jessie’s Girl, Ghostbusters, Robyn singing Frosty the Snowman, REPLAY BY IYAZ (Willie, you would love it), and Bohemian Rhapsody to end the night, everyone together.  A day of singing; my vocal chords and ears hurt.  Success.

       Off to Chungqin tomorrow for a 3 day adventure to a new province.  Taking the bullet train there, where the food is said to be the spiciest and the women the most beautiful in China.  Funny how places get reputations…..