Man man shuo! Speak slower!

I have now completed my first full week of teaching English classes. I have eight classes each week and every one is a different section of students. I have them for 1.5 hours with a 10 minute break in the middle. Each class has about fifty students, but this tends to be around 51-53 students each period.

My English name is…

Some of them have English names already, but there were also some classes that I had to name. I would list a bunch of names on the board and they could pick one, find one on my sheets, or think of something on their own.

Most popular names: Lily, Anna, Eileen, Selina (singer from S.H.E), Mike, Jack, and Tony.
Strangest/ funniest names: Snow, Rain, Santa, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tracy McGrady (I have several), Kobe (I have many), King (as in James… I have three of these).

This never ceases to amaze me.

And so on…

Teaching is fun so far though. The second class we are doing some dialogues and going over the pronunciations that confuse the students. Then I went over things like nicknames, how to pronounce the Boston Celtics, and taught them some college- related vocabulary.

When they list their hobbies (or any sort of list, actually) I can say that most students end their sentences with “and so on…”

For example, “My hobbies are to read books, sleep, play basketball…. And so on.” (a lot of them list sleeping under hobbies too!)

I started keeping a tally for one girl and she said it three times in one dialogue.

Another odd thing they all say is when they begin their little dialogues, they all start it with “Very pleased to meet you/ very pleased to meet you too.” Who says that?! Even more, which English book here taught them?!

Explaining Halloween

It was fun to explain Halloween to them, but I had a lot of problems explaining what a ‘costume’ was. Firstly because they mixed up ‘custom’ and ‘costume’, but mainly just because it is too weird for them to imagine. Surely they now think that all Americans are totally crazy.

I also told them about carving pumpkins, telling ghost stories, spiders and bats… it was fun and they were getting kind of scared since the electricity was out on campus. Then the wind blew and the door to my classroom flew open and the girls squealed! Fortunately the lights came on in the late afternoon so I hope no one had nightmares.

It also took me a while to explain what “Trick or Treat” meant but then they all went crazy when they found out I had brought candy for all of them. They like to applaud for things like this.

Halloween in Qingdao tonight. I am going as 80s girl in this rockin’ sweatshirt that says “Frannie says relax” with purple tights!