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.