Mydayandsomethoughtsonteaching

Today was the first day back to school after a over a week break. The school that I taught at today was one that I had not been to in 3 weeks or so due to the holiday and also they were out on military exercises ( all public schools do this it seems, i am not sure what it entails although the kids seem to like it). It is also one of my favorite schools in that all of the kids are well behaved and enthusiastic. I had fun. I am very new to teaching, had no education on how to teach, and was only trained for a few hours on how. Sometimes it can be intimidating and frustrating; however, it can also be very illuminating and fun. As Winston says, "I get paid to play with kids all day; its the easiest job i have ever had ( I am actually paraphrasing him here)" Exactly. I look at this way, i spent somewhere around ten years working in bars and such, busting my ass and getting no respect. This is great compared to it. I do teach alot: i have 27 classes and teach around 300 kids. This seems like alot and it is; it can be very draining. But I actually work around 23-24 hours a week ( although the lesson planning can be time consuming), there is not physical labor, i get to talk alot, and i usually laugh my ass of at the kids. I teach a few different level. the youngest are primary 6; i just started with these kids and they seem cute and enthusiastic, but they're English level is very low. I was told that they have moved from the country because their parents have found shitty jobs in the city; they are poor. However, they seem great. I also teach middle school 7 (the school i taught today). These kids are better at English, although their levels very greatly. These kids are fairly shy. I teach grade 8 in another school,; they are less shy, higher level, and somewhat harder to control. They are also pretty funny sometime. I have been doing a waste basketball game with the younger kids and one kid( who speaks alot, but it s usually in Chinese to me!) was really into it. He got to shoot early( they had to construct a sentence in English using already, just or yet) and i had moved on... I get back to his area, and he is sitting in the next seat( behind his) with a jacket and sunglasses on; He was in disguise to shoot again! I told him to get back to his seat, but it was pretty funny. Another funny phenomena about the students at this age. It is not unusual for a boy to say something stupid and get whacked hard in the head by some girl sitting next to him. I have seen it many, many times. I have seen boys get smacked so hard that spit comes out of their mouth! But they seem to like it. I think it may be some form of flirting, and i generally ignore it because it doesn't seem harmful and i doubt that i could stop it. also, it amuses the hell out of me!
I also teach at a very expensive private school--the sunshine( ashsun) school. These kids are rich, lazier (generally), and have worse attitudes than the public school kids. I teach seniors ( grade 11 and 12). I have 12 classes a week here, and it takes much more lesson planning and real teaching. My 11th graders are difficult, although i have been making progress. The 12th graders are better; they are lazy but we get along. I like this school and most of the kids; But i have to really teach here and they can be more challenging( some are jerks). However, I am getting better at this, I believe. In the public schools, I only see them once a week and the classes are huge( 35-56 kids a class). My job there is to play games and get the kids to speak. Chinese schools are strict and brutal; the kids are expected to work very hard. All of the American teachers try to show the kids that English can be fun. At Sunshine, my job is to actually teach the little jerks! I like both types, but the younger kids are easier...

Today was good, though. A few stories. One, i made what i thought was a great discovery. In Dalian, you see motorcycle (real motorcycles, not with the carts) guys on their bikes just hanging out on the sidewalks. They are usually very friendly. I often thought about what they might be doing; I assumed that they were just hanging out, looking cool, maybe trying to pick up chicks. Well, they might be doing that as lo, but today at lunch, I walked down the massive hill to go to the store. I saw students riding up the hill on on the back of motorcycles( the kids wear uniforms with their schools on them, so their is no mistaking them). It turns out, the motorcycle dudes hang out at the bottom of hills and will ride you up them for 2 yaun ( very cheap). I thought that this was pretty cool; those hills suck. I may just have to take advantage of this! People in China are very good at thinking of ways to make money, although, i think this way is pretty fun and awesome.

I was wrapping up class today and went to get my phone. It was in my hoody pocket and when I grabbed my Hoody, it slid out into a full bucket of water. Chinese classrooms always have containers of water everywhere ( wash the board and such-- also, kids in china actually have to wash down their classrooms and halls, sometimes on their knees, sweeping and washing down stairs, everything. Could you imagine if they tried that in America!) and I have had run ins with these things before, ball in water, foot in water, spilling water. I grabbed my phone a few seconds in, but it was already sinking! The kids let out a collective sucking air sound that echoed the panic i felt. I picked it up and continued with class. It acted a bit goofy for a hour, but it has been working fine since then! I still have it under watch, but it seems good.And it was a cheap ass phone ( about 50 american)! so that could have been very bad.

Well, that's enough for today. I will continue with teaching soon. And hopefully, I will tell my best story so far, Granny panty's!

Fairy

you can click on any of the images on this blog to get a better view. These one's were taken by Winston.

The Little girl in the pictures is Fairy ( her self given English name). Fairy was the first person to talk to me at the English corner. We have sort of bonded since then. Fairy has about the best English I have ever heard from a Chinese person and she is 11! She also speaks Japanese! She plays four instruments. She has just returned from Beijing where she competed in a English competition and came in 2nd place in her age group ( out of the whole country!) She is not my student, but we talk every sunday at the corner( i did help her tidy up her speach for the competition, but she had very few errors). I am very fond of her and amazed at intelligence! She is also very much a regular kid. Sometimes, at the corner ( which is really zhong shan square), Chinese people think that she is not chinese because she speaks English so well.

It's starting to get cold here, so the English corner was a bit lame today. However, i had fun as always. Two weeks ago, i was still sweating, and now my hoody is kind of not enough for the weather.

Good bus example today. I got on the five after the English corner. Downtown has the stop where the five ends/begins and is one of the few places where the Chinese line up. So i get in line, which is massive. I dread this ride because the five tends to be extra crowded. Two fives come and I think that it won't be that bad. There is a Small metal frame that forms the Que line. Now, for some reason, many chinese won't break that line. They will break any other line, usually. They will jump in front of you at McDonald's. They will break traffic. but many of them will not break a line that has the metal que thing. If they do, they will only do it when the line stops( the non- que breakers will stop when the seats are full, which is ridiculous to me because they will pack a totally full bus any other time. So i get on the first bus, and get one of the last seats, although there was some lady racing on my hip trying to push me out of the way to get a seat, she got one, i don't know why they do that--old ladies and men really like to push people out of the way here. So the querers stop soon, and then people who don't care about the line will come on. Well, i was pretty lucky to get a seat. The next bus won't board until the first one leaves. Well, people just kept coming on. It was crazy; about the fullest bus I have ever been on; not a inch of wasted space, people pressed up against the door. The thing that i found insane is that was a totally empty bus behind us that would board as soon as ours left! I don't understand why all those people did not just wait! The only thing i can think of is that they are just very impatient. Oh well, Chinese buses...

Back to school tommorrow. Will write about teaching soon