Snowy paradise

Anqing was a regular winter wonderland today. The snow began midmorning and continued to fall throughout the day. Students were freezing, but excited to see the ground covered in white and many  threw snowballs during breaks. It was wonderful to observe them having fun.


Yesterday was difficult, but today was infinitely better. My classes went smoothly, I received numerous words of encouragement from supporters stateside, and I had some wonderful interactions with students. I learned a valuable lesson about teaching in China -- in the classroom I must act like a crazed circus clown on crack. I’m really not exaggerating very much. The students require copious quantities of energy to keep them entertained by and engaged in the lesson. It’s not an unattainable challenge to keep fifty plus kids interested in a topic for forty-five minutes, but it does require me perform like a rock star sixteen times per week (my Senior 2 class was cancelled). I enjoy the job and I’m certainly perfecting my pedagogical craft.

Here are some amazing stories from the day:


As we were singing “Jingle Bells” together, one student had an amazing ability to project his voice so that I could hear it above all the others. However, he didn’t fully comprehend the idea of rhythm (or was unable to use the skill) and constantly sang out of time. It took all of my self-control to keep myself from laughing.


In response to my comment, “Americans can learn much from the Chinese about not being wasteful,” one student said, “Don’t follow Chinese!”

An answer to my question -- “Does it snow very often in Anqing?” -- was “Only in the winter.” I responded, “I hope it only snows in the winter.” The student thought this was so hilarious that he almost fell out of his seat laughing.


One girl took video of the class because she wanted to write about it in her blog.


Another girl came up to me after class and said, “Great lesson, of course.”

I have learned that when addressing Chinese students, I need to be careful about how I phrase my questions. For example, during the first few run-throughs of the new lesson, I asked the students, “Raise your hand if you know one thing about Christmas.” In my mind, I thought that the question intimated knowledge of one (or more) facts about Christmas. I grew frustrated when the students didn’t raise their hands, so I repeated the query a few times, slowed down my speech, and eventually gave up attempting to coax an answer from the teens. However, a girl was finally brave enough to raise her hand and say, “I know more than one thing about Christmas.” Well, this explained the problem. When I rephrased the question to include “one or more facts about Christmas” I received the responses for which I had been searching. It was an important lesson for me to learn and I told the story to many of my classes today; they all thought it was a hilarious misunderstanding.


Today I also donned my photographer cap and took a number of pictures of the snowy scene at the No. 1 Middle School. Hope you enjoy the images!