A typical Saturday eve

As I’m writing this entry, I’m drinking tea and listening to music with Jean-Jacques. In many ways, it’s the fitting end to a perfect Saturday. 


We had a relaxing, but entertaining day. We held our regular tutoring session and discussed the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, art (Mona Lisa), persuasive writing, and fashion at the Oscars. We only had about five girls in attendance, but I think they learned some important things and enjoyed practicing their English speaking skills.


After the tutoring, I ran to the bakery to buy bread and cookies, while Jean-Jacques made a “drink run” for gatorade, juice, and iced tea. We made grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. Following the meal, I read my new book (Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand) in bed for a little while before falling asleep for about an hour and a half. 


Once I awoke from the nap, I drank some tea and read more of my book. At around five o’clock, Jean-Jacques and I left the apartment to walk to a tasty Taiwanese restaurant that’s about twenty minutes away. We were extremely proud of ourselves because we successfully ordered, ate, and paid for dinner without any assistance from English-speaking friends. Look ma, no translator! We’ve really gotten adjusted to life in Anqing now.


This evening we watched an episode of The Event and have been tootling around on the internet. Sounds like a rough Saturday, huh?


P.S. I'm so thankful for the wonderful life I have. Seeing all the horrific images from the disaster in Japan (and elsewhere) has made me even more appreciative than normal. My thoughts and prayers are being sent to those who have been impacted by the disaster; my mental hugs are being sent to all of my loved ones, both family and friends. Love you guys!


P.P.S. Yesterday, there was a fire that emitted black plumes of smoke in a building relatively close to our apartment. For a little while some people were stuck in the upper floors, but they were safely rescued by firemen. Jean-Jacques was out buying groceries and observed the blaze close-up; I only saw the smoke because I was leaving the apartment at the time to get lunch and my view of the event was obscured by tall buildings. It’s been a sad couple of days...

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.

Chinese jokes

Here are a couple of jokes that I heard today:


Student: Why is the number “e” sideways?
Me: I have no idea.
Student: Because it’s never in cash and always in debt.
Student: Why is blue jeans the saddest clotheses?
Me: I don’t know.
Student: Because it is blue.

Another excellent day

‘Twas another fabulous day. I know I say that I lot, but it’s often true. My classes were enthusiastic and I enjoyed meeting with them all. They boys especially seem to enjoy this week’s topic and are quite impressed that I know all that I do about basketball. Sure the students are often noisy, but I think that most of the time they’re so excited about the content that it’s difficult for them to be quiet and listen. They’re very social individuals and they enjoy orally interacting with one another.


I was pleased with myself this morning because I was able to plan most of next week’s lesson about St. Patrick’s Day. Hopefully, it will be interesting for the students (many of them mentioned an interest in learning about other cultures).


There’s not much other news. The weather was a bit warmer today, but I still got a little chilled. We ate noodles for lunch (from Sichuan Noodles) and dinner (from Muslim Noodle Shop), we watched a few more episodes of The Event, and I started a new book called The Hangman’s Daughter. See, I told you there wasn't any earth-shattering news. But I do have some new pictures:

The kleenex gift from No. 2 Middle School

Terrifying Chinese graffiti

Repeat Monday

Then it was Monday. The weekend seemed to fly past, although we did enjoy ourselves. Last night we went over to some friends’ house for dinner and to watch a movie. We brought chicken sandwiches, french fries, drumsticks, and two milk teas. Our friends showed us how to cook some popular local dishes. I’ve been intimidated by cooking Chinese food, but in reality, it’s not that complex to make. The secret is to do the cooking on high heat. 


We saw a Woody Allen movie called Scoop. Normally, I’m not much of an Allen fan, but I did enjoy this particular film. Maybe I was positively influenced by the company.

Nothing terribly exciting happened today. I taught my first two classes of the week, so I tried out the new lesson about March Madness and basketball. I think the students enjoyed the topic, though I did have to kick out two students for talking (I had just finished warning them that I would do it, too...). 


Something heartening also occurred today. Two female students came up to me after class and one of them said, “Your classroom is dirty.”

I responded, “Yes, it is.” And that’s the truth, because no one cleans my room. The students are normally responsible for keeping the room clean and they take turns staying after school to sweep and clean the chalkboard. (Remember, they stay in the same classroom all day, so they feel a connection to the room. I’m an anomaly because I have my own room; my school helpers were worried I would get lost, so that’s why they provided me with my own space.) However, since I only see my students once a week, none of them feel terribly responsible for cleaning, so it quickly becomes a pigsty. 

Back to my story. One of the girls said, “We’ll clean your room for you. It’s our duty and we would like to clean it.”


I was shocked, but thankful. We agreed to meet at 5 o’clock so I could open my room for them. They did a wonderful job of cleaning and I gave them each a pack of gum as a “thank you” present.


We cooked a vegetarian dinner this evening, so we’re feeling healthy. We've also started watching a new TV series called The Event. 

The red bits are firework remnants

The sky is dripping

Sadly there isn’t much exciting news from today. We had a slightly challenging tutoring session (one student snapped at another one for “hogging” our attention) and Jean-Jacques and I are in the process of discussing our goals for the meetings. I remind you again that we’re dealing with a radically different educational system where the students want teachers to talk at them for hours on end, instilling them with wisdom. Well, as you can imagine, neither Jean-Jacques nor I teach in this style, so our world views can clash with those of some of our tutees. (They feel that there are only so many hours in a day and every second must be meaningfully used, not wasted by talking about how one person gets nervous about speaking in front of people.) I have empathy for the students, but I firmly believe that we need to continue running classes the way we have been because it’s a good exercise for the students. The majority of them enjoy our time together, but I think some of them are starting to be less thrilled by the meetings.

Other than that it’s been a relaxing day. It’s misting outside and I’m happy to be inside wearing my comfy pajama bottoms that I bought in Scotland. I read some of a murder mystery I started the other day, took a two hour nap, washed and hung up a load of laundry, and ate a new noodle dish for lunch. This evening we’re going to watch a movie, eat grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and probably play a board game on the iPad. It sounds like the perfect way to spend a drizzly Saturday evening. 

Friday night ramblings

Jean-Jacques' green bean mustache

Though difficult to believe, it’s Friday again. Strangely, this week was both short and long. I feel like it should be Friday, but the days seemed to pass quickly. 


My two periods this morning went fairly smoothly. As I’ve mentioned before, some of the students are a little less enthusiastic to attend my class, and have a difficult time being motivated to work on assignments I give. I’ll simply have to step up my discipline a bit. 


This year has definitely helped my classroom management skills. Not only do I have large classes, but many of them don’t speak English very well, are not used to focusing their entire attention on a teacher, keep breaking the same rules (are they testing me to see if I’ll respond differently the seven hundredth time I see a student using a cell phone?), and don’t receive a grade in my class. Plus, the course doesn’t directly help them prepare for the national college entrance examinations, which can be disastrous for me since I’m working in an extrinsically motivated education system. 


Our experience so far has shown us that the English taught here is very different from the English that Americans, English, Scottish, Welsh, South Africans, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, or Irish use. We’ve discovered that in China, English has become another subject that’s used to test the students’ abilities to answer multiple choice questions. It’s not a creative or fluid subject, with all the complexities that make sense to us. (Example: think of all the different ways you can respond to the greeting, “How are you?”. In Anqing, the only response is this: “I’m fine, sanks.”) English in China has almost been reduced to a mathematical problem that makes sense on paper (if you think about it creatively), but would never be used in a real world circumstance. (Who says that a dish is “mouth-watering and delicious” or “I’m going to relax myself this weekend”?)  For Chinese students, English has become robotic. Here’s a sentence, fill in the correct word from a multiple choice list. Conjugate the highlighted word to fit the sentence. 


Sorry for the detour into EssayTown, which is conveniently located in RantLand. I’ll return to my original story. My students need to be reminded of their responsibilities in my class and I will make it clear to them next week. Sometimes I feel bi-polar because one moment I’m stern Mrs. Têtu who-must-firmly-discipline-a-student and then in the next second I become enthusiastic Mrs. Têtu who-is-bouncing-around-the-room-while-explaining-the-meaning-of-“brag”. It seems to work, though. Maybe I am so unpredictable that I shock the students into paying attention.


I was surprised when sixteen students showed up to my Friday Movie Lunch. Normally I have around five to seven students, so I wasn’t expecting such an impressive turnout. We had fun watching the movie Cars and I only had to stop the movie a few times to explain the plot. 


After I returned home from the Movie Lunch, I crawled into bed and spent most of the afternoon there in a comfortable, but semi-comatose state (or semi-awake state, depending on your world view). Jean-Jacques cooked dinner while I kept him company, we watched the latest episode of The Amazing Race, and we’re in the middle of this week’s Castle. I say in the middle because we had to pause the show to use the bathroom in shifts (that's a plural, mind you). I think our lunch of spicy noodles wasn’t the kindest on our tummies. 


Until tomorrow...