Teach Teach Teach

Hey all. So I have settled into my teaching schedule now. I have taught my intro lesson to all 20 classes, and most are fabulous (ooh, good vocab word). My intro lesson was about seattle, which after being told that it is in the state of washington, they all immediately think is in washington DC. I show a picture of the white house, where "boosh" lives, and explain that I am as far away as i can get. :)

I show them a beautiful picture of downtown with Mt. rainier and the space needle and tell them how much it rains and all that. then I show a picture of bill gates, who they all immediately recognize, and tell them that he lives in seattle. i do the same with Obama when I tell them i went to this school called "occidental college," for those of you who dont know Obama went to Occidental for 2 years. they all immediately scream Obama! when I show his picture, which always makes me happy. I showed them pictures of my family, highlights being trying find the word for Niece, A picture of me with my long hair (they all guess "your sister" when i ask "who do you think this is?"), and trying to guess Carter's age. They start at 50, and one kid in every class eventually shouts out 100! and they think it is a riot. After getting through this I get them to talk by tossing a beanbag to volunteers or random kids that havent spoken, asking questions about what they like to do for fun, what music they like, where they want to visit, those types of things. If the class goes well, which all but one did, I show them a powerpoint with nba stars and basketball vocabulary. They go crazy over this, and know an incredible amount about the nba.

My second lesson is on american slang, teaching them words like gonna, gotta, wanna, etc. and phrases like "what's up?" and "hang out." it is too much fun to say, whats up class? and have them all reply "not much, wassup with you?" This is followed by a game where they pull phrases out of a jar and have to turn them into slang. If they are able to do this they get to take a shot with a foam basketball i got from walmart, the hoop being me with my arms in a circle. They LOVE this, and the winner gets to pick an american song to listen to at the end of class. They like obscenely cheesy music, like backstreet boys, celine dion, and "Westlife" an even cornier boy band from the UK. but hey, give the people what they want.

There are a couple of rowdy classes but physical violence is a surprisingly effective class management technique (j/k). Students, even the troublemakers, really do not like to be called out. Bringing them to the front of class and making them speak english in front of everyone, or asking them to stand in the back of class quickly shuts them up. I also teach the fun class, so the threat of ending games or assigning homework is quite effective. Additionally, many of them think I'm cool because I'm a giant american and I play basketball and ping pong with them so i have it pretty good.

Really the most problems arise when the class does not undertand me. Often times they will split up two classes. so i teach, for example, class 5 and class 6, but class 6 has all the best students. So it is like night and day between what class 6 understands, and what class 5 understands. However, they don't tell me which is which prior to the class. so I get out of class 6 feeling like a superhero, and get out of class 5 wondering why i came to China. kids start glazing over and goofing off when they dont understand what the heck i am talking about. understandable, really. so what it usually comes down to is how interesting and appropriate the subject matter of my lesson is. I have newfound respect for all of the good teachers in my life, cause it aint easy. Especially with younger kids, their attention spans are short, so each lesson has to have a few good ideas to keep them engaged.

I am also now teaching "activity class" three times a week, to the top 3 students from every class. These kids speak a ton of english, and are very well behaved, so I can do more advanced lessons with them. However, it is a fine line to walk. For example, I did a madlib of "Eleanor Rigby" ("All the fancy toilettes, where do they all come from...") by the beatles with them, and their vocabulary is impressive. Next I wanted to show them some "Darwin awards" but ran into trouble introducing Charles Darwin, because the vocab involved in the evolution of species is a bit out of their league.

The school has also followed through with the "teach the teachers" class, which basically consists of me sitting down with all of their english teachers (all women) each week and talking about america for a half hour. this is kind of great, but also a lot of pressure. I try to make it clear that i only speak from my own experience, but I dont know if they are taking it with a grain of salt. I am hoping this will turn into more discussion of the differences between our countries, but so far it has been mostly me talking. Last week I talked about the education system and job market. Standardized tests, public school vs. private school, individuality, group work, debate, leadership skills, hierarchy in the workplace, etc.

I am on a regular schedule of 3 private lessons a week, which are a lot of fun. I found a huge resource of english board games online, soccer turned into a word game, snakes and ladders, all that good stuff. i actually turned down a job today teaching classes at a private school walking distance from my school. It would have been a lot of extra work, and only paid 3/4 what I make doing private lessons. Also, I have been feeling really busy. My activity class goes until 5:45 and I often have an hour private lesson after that, so i don't get done until about 7. Fortunately, its vacation time!

We have next week off for "national day." However, we did not know if we would have our permanent visas in time to leave the special economic zone until very recently, and most of our travel destinations were already booked (all 12 million people in Shenzhen have the week off, and it is a city of migrant workers). We did manage to get train tickets to Xia Men, which is a village (and when i say village, i mean like the population of Seattle) on the beach northeast of here. It is supposed to be beautiful, and ill be going with 7 other folks from the program. All hostels seem to be booked, so we are planning to figure it out when we get there. If we cant find a spot, I guess we'll just have to party all night. Hey, my name is Danny, I like to party.

Fun things to leave you with. First, awesome english names that students told me straight-faced:

Mars
Girl Named Andrew
Brilliant
Jackie Chan
Goofy


Next, an excerpt from the website of a hostel that, shockingly, was booked. the english translations here are hysterical, even in museums and on public posters.

"The culmination international youth hotel has provided comfortable luxurious, the honeymoon as well as the family anteroom for the donkey friends, simultaneously has also provided during neat, the simple and elegant standard for the back person who hires a prostitute, and the multi-worlds and so on many kinds. The hotel facility is complete, helps oneself washes clothes, the self-service kitchen, the Internet bar, the book shed, the parking lot, CD to engrave records, the personal safe cabinet, the goods to check, the text printing, the bicycle to rent, wireless network turning on, the home and the international call, the bar is momentarily open for the donkey friend; The bathroom 24 hours provide the hot water; The hotel provides the ticket clerk the service and the peripheral traveling consultation."

Later donkey friends.

Settled in Shenzhen

Hey folks. So i write to you now from my school in Shenzhen. And i have pretty much hit the jackpot - let me try to put it in perspective: There are like 7 districts in Shenzhen. two of them are the main downtown area, and 5 of them are off in the middle of nowhere - factory districts, rural towns, all that. These people have to take a couple buses and it takes them like an hour and a half just to really get into the city. i am in the upscale downtown area called futian. you name it, i got it. Numerous Banks, two wallmarts, all kinds of fast food (and chinese restaurants), a short walk to many bus routes and the subway, a short walk to the electronics district where you can buy pretty much any bootleg (or legitimate) piece of elecronics equipment you could want. I also get free breakfast and lunch at my school, which would have made me much more excited if i wasnt absolutely sick of chinese food. but wait, it gets better. I am at a "Key school" of which there are only a handful, and they are the most selective schools in the city. So even though i am teaching classes full of about 40-50 7th/8th graders, so far they are amazingly well behaved and very sharp. I think my middle school is ranked like 2nd or 3rd out of all the schools in the city. I have a room complete with air conditioning, kitchen (microwave, toaster, fridge, etc), western style toilet, Washing machine (no dryers in the whole counry but it is hot and things dry quickly outside), tv with cable, dvd player, and cable internet (to all of you who told me i should bring a laptop, you were right, i hope you're happy :) but it doesnt even matter because I have a little cube with my own computer that has about the fastest internet I have seen so far in china. pretty much the same speed as at home. i have a key for the door and they say I can use it whenever i want. This is going to be very crucial when planning lessons on weekends and evenings. This may not sound like much to all of you, but this is about as good as anyone has it out of all the placements. I feel like it is too good to be true and they are going to switch me to another school any day now.

some goofy 7th graders just walked by my cube and said "hello, nice to meet you" and walked away. That happens multiple times a day. Now where was i...

My contact teacher is AWESOME. She is a tiny asian lady whose english name is Susan. She studied in the UK and her english is very good. She has a very cute chinese/british accent. She is very nice and very helpful with anything that i need. My school has a soccer field, a track, basketball and volleyball courts, and a room full of ping pong tables. I played ping pong a little bit with another teacher and was able to at least return some shots, so maybe he will play with me again. My school has a few campuses in Shenzhen, and i am the only foreign teacher at my particular campus, which I think has about 1500 students. however, i am very near a couple of our coordinators and some other foreign teachers. this is perfect for me because it will force me to learn some chinese, but im also near americans when i need them. I have Junior 1 (7th grade) one week, then Junior 2 (8th grade) the next, then back to the junior 1 kids. Classes are 45 minutes. ARE YOU DOING THIS MATH? I only see each class of kids for 45 minutes every other week. This means 2 things. 1) They really arent going to improve much - im ok with this. 2) I only have to come up with one lesson plan every 2 weeks. Some teachers see the same class 3-4 times a week. I also only teach 10 classes a week so far, and do not have any classes on fridays.

like i said, Im trying not to get too excited about this yet, because things are subject to change at any moment around here.

Most sentences that are said to me begin with the word "maybe." I feel that many years ago someone in china got the meaning of this word wrong and it just stuck. Here are some examples:


Chinese authority figure: "How many classes you teach per week?"
Me: "I believe the contract says up to 15."
Chinese authority figure: "oh...Maybe you can do more." "Maybe you teach class for our english teachers as well." (They havent actually followed through with this yet, but who knows)

Chinese authority figure: "You teach tomorrow?"
Me: "Yes, I have two classes in the morning."
Chinese authority figure: "Oh...Maybe you teach them on thursday instead."

Chinese authority figure: "You come tomorrow?"
Me: "What's happening?" (its like 6 oclock)
Chinese authority figure: "It is teacher day. Maybe you come to ceremony at ten to 8."


I think the real reason for this is that they want to be non-confrontational. However, they have no problem punking me as long as they begin the sentence with a "maybe." Yesterday, after numerous commands beginning with "maybe," I ended up dressed nicely at the back gate of our school where a bus picked me up and took me to a teachers day celebration with the mayor of shenzhen. Let me try to paint this picture. Very fancy stage and audience of Chinese people, important chinese people giving speeches during wich i mostly only understand the word for teacher, very warm, starting to dose off..........and EXTREMELY LOUD CIRCUS MUSIC STARTS BLASTING. Attractive young chinese women appear as if from nowhere dressed like stewardesses and hand plaques to the important men sitting at a table on stage. teachers parade onto stage, the important men give the plaques to the teachers, then little girls come out holding flowers and stand in front of the teachers and do a salute. then they all leave stage and it happens again with another group of teachers. Next scene, Im riding the subway last night and see the ceremony on TV. I was really hoping to be on TV after having my picture taken so many times while sitting in the audience, but the crowd shots are all from afar.

Sitting at my desk earlier today one of the english teachers propositioned me with a tutoring job. After a bit of discussion, i will now be tutoring three 11-year-olds for an hour twice a week (starting tomorrow). As of this afternoon my going rate for tutoring is $30 an hour. Hell ya. Jeez I better figure out what I am going to do with these kids...

Well thats all for now. If you are reading this, I probably miss you :)

Much love,

Mr. Danny (Oh ya, that is totally what they call me)