So the first week of teaching English in China has come to a very unceremonious close: i missed my last class because i was told it was at 13:20 when it was really at 12:30, oops. oh well, not my fault.
So the teaching, by the numbers: i have 23 classes a week and about 260 students. I walk up at least 13 flights of stairs every day going from class to class! i was so tired the first two days all i did in my free time was sleep and go out to by some fruit.
i teach two classes of Primary 1 (6-year-olds) and four classes of Primary 5 (10 to 11-year-olds) and one class of Junior 7. It will take a while for me to get a handle on the whole planning lessons, making them fun and interesting thing. Since the week is finally over i'm gonna try to plan out next week in advance and make sure we don
't have any mishaps like this week.
Example 1: duck, duck, goose is dangerous. i injured at least two little girls by introducing them to this diabolical game. Running on concrete in shiny, new sandals is not a good idea, they face planted and it ruined the game for everyone else! Really i felt so bad, and i was pretty sure they would hate me forever, little did i know that 6-years-olds have the memory of a goldfish and therefor the next time they saw me they were all smiles.
Example 2: i have been instructed by the administration to skip tea
ching the primary class the alphabet (you know the building blocks of the English language A-B-C) and instead to teach them words with pictures and lots of repetition, how fun and effective that will be! i'll work it out, at least this way i get to draw a lot of pretty pictures...
The weekend is upon us, and i'm so glad! TGIF for reals. I will commence exploring the new city that i live in, Huzhou, Zhejiang province, China!
Gino and i live on campus, yes this means in the boys dormitory. These little monsters tear down the stairs everyday at 7am and then again for a solid three hours in the evening. Luckily they go home for the weekend, so we'll have some peace and quiet, it might be kind of spooky actually... John lives in an apartment in a really good part of town. But he found cockroaches! and his a.c. doesn't work, but he does have a full kitchen, which i am seriously lacking (components of my kitchenette below.)
ok this is all for now, i will leave you with this jem: when purchasing cell phones from a kiosk downtown, i was on the phone and then i felt something in my hair... it was an old chinese woman petting me, she looked so happy! as she and her companion walked away they mustered up what must have been the only English words they knew "I love you!" they shouted to me. it was surreal.
3 comments:
omg that story about the chinese woman petting you is so funny! is it because you are a foreigner? incredible story.
it's your gorgeous hair! (so says your modest mommy, from whence it came) Interesting that we get told all kinds of warnings about respecting boundaries when in a different culture... "don't use first names" "avoid eye contact" etc. Maybe they get told how we are so open & touchy-feely?? May next week be an easier sort of fun.
hee hee, i almost peed my pants when i read that you are an old lady petting zoo.
sounds like you're having experiences! i'll keep reading. --sunny
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