Conversations

It’s strange to think I’m back at Thursday again. It seems like Monday was yesterday, not three days ago. This week has zoomed past. 


Classes went well. Some students I haven’t seen for weeks turned up today. One girl mentioned that the teacher had yelled at the skippers, but I think that they only attended class this afternoon because some officials from Anhui province were visiting the school today. Most of the kids were extra well behaved today. 


I forgot to write down some classic stories from this week, so I’ll do so now.


During one class, which is mostly filled with girls, a boy explained that the reason that more girls didn’t play basketball was because they “liked to do quiet things”.
As I listened to the male student, I could feel waves of discontentment flowing off the females in the room. I decided to ask, “Ladies, do you like to do quiet things?”
They quickly responded in a shout, “No!!!”
That instantly silenced the boy. Normally, I would have felt bad about embarrassing a student, but I don’t enjoy blatant sexism (especially on Women’s Day), so I let him learn a valuable lesson: don’t speak for females without consulting them first.


After class, one boy came up to me and asked, “Why is America considered the king of basketball?”
I responded, “I don’t know.”
He said, failing to hide his frustration, “I don’t know. Chinese like basketball more than Americans. Why we not better?”
I shrugged, and tried to interject my thoughts, but the boy had other ideas, “We have more people that like basketball. Why aren’t we number one?”
I finally broke into the conversation and asked, “Do you have organized sports teams in high school?”
The boy answered, “No.”
I continued, “No. Chinese students only focus on school. American students often play sports while in high school. It’s very important to our culture.”
The male student nodded, “We don’t have professional help.”
Me, “No, you don’t have a chance to get good. We have teams in both high school and university. It’s a big deal in America.”
The guy replied, “Yes. That’s true.” He waved goodbye, though he seemed a little discouraged by the conversation.


Following another class, two girls came up to me to chat. One of them said, “How can we speak English better?”
I answered, “Practice is important. Listen to native speakers of English and practice speaking.”
One of the girls asked, “How can we learn to speak without an accent?”
I replied, “You probably won’t be able to speak without an accent since you’re learning English after puberty. But if you practice, you can get good at speaking English.”
The other student posed another question, “How do students learn English in America?”
A little confused, I said, “Our English class is like your Chinese class. We read books, talk about them, and write essays.”
The two students nodded and one of them added, “So they memorize pmz?”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” I queried. 
“Do they memorize poems?”
“No. We don’t do as much memorization as you do in China. We have a lot of discussions. So I might ask a student question and then she or he would answer it.”
The girls both nodded, “Yes, you do ask many questions in class.”


In other news, I edited a couple of essays for a student who is trying to study in the US for college. Remember Amanda? She’s the one I’m helping. She’s currently in Beijing studying at a special school to help her increase her TOEFL score. According to Amanda, I’m proofreading her assignments more closely than her teachers. Though I’m impressed by her English abilities, Amanda does need to work on her persuasive writing skills a bit. I sent her an example of a well argued paper, so maybe that will help.


It’s early, but I’m going to sign off so I can crawl into bed a read for a while before nodding off. Sorry, but the photographer took a day off.