First Day of Teaching

There's something invigorating about walking up to a stranger and addressing him in a foreign language you barely know. Last night I was hoping to find a tennis partner for today, so I ambled up to the courts to look for someone around my ability level. I watched two guys for while and decided that, had they had balls less than two years old that still bounced, they would have been fairly good. So, I walked up and introduced myself and told them I was an English teacher here and that I didn't yet know many people, and that I was looking for people to play tennis with tomorrow. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a father and his son, and neither could play tomorrow, but I was nonetheless able to get my point across and understand them! Today, perhaps I will be successful with both the language and locating a tennis partner.

Other recent successes in Chinese:
-ordering a meal and getting what I asked for
-picking up passport photos
-directing a taxi to ad from the only known bank that accepts foreign debit cards


This morning was also my first day of class. It went relatively smoothly, though I did basically run out of things to do. You really should plan about twice as much to do as you think you have time for, especially when the students don't take the 2 minutes you a lot them to introduce themselves and instead take only 30 seconds. My first class, entitles English Composition 2, had 25 students. Some were pretty shy, mostly the boys, but some were very outgoing and promised me that we would become friends. Unfortunately, their names weren't as funny as I would have hoped, but the best ones are Clover, Falin, Lacko, Grystal (I think it might be Crystal), Sunny, Bessie, and my personal favorite, Panda. I started out by introducing myself and then having them do likewise. Then, I explained what idioms are and we played a game where they tried to guess their meaning. After that I did a vocabulary game where they have to brainstorm items that they would need in a certain situation, such as when camping or on a spaceship. They seemed to enjoy this one, though they did try to cheat a little by reading off of their pieces of paper. After a 10 minute break, I explained the grading policy and assignments, and this is where the trouble began. I guess I had gone a bit overboard with what I expected them to complete for class. I had planned on having them write three 200-word journal entries per week and edit one of them to turn in each week. I had also planned on assigning one 500-word essay each week. By the end of the class, this was down to one 150-word journal entry and one 300-word essay. Apparently they only had to write two compositions during the entirety of last year, so perhaps I had gone a bit overboard.

After a brief introduction of the topics we'd be covering this year, I decided to play another game, one in which the students have to ask yes or no questions to determine which famous person's identity another classmate has assumed. The guys chose mostly sports stars (Yao Ming was guessed after only two questions), whereas the girls often chose politicians and slightly more obscure figures (ex. Churchill). The class descended into hysterics when one girl decided to take on my persona; I didn't even figure it out until after the class had erupted into laughter, but I guess I should have know once the pieces "handsome" "foreigner" "living in America" had come together. All in all, it was a fairly smooth class, though very similar to one you'd find in middle school in America. The students have almost every class together as English majors and groaned at the idea of having to introduce themselves to one another once again. The main problem will be coming up with enough material to fill a 2-hour class each week.