Exams.... kaishi!

It's exam time and this is why I've been seriously slacking at blogging.  I have two weeks of final exams because I split my classes into two.  It's just easier that way!  Imagine listening to 24+ partner dialogues in 1.5 hours... it's just too rushed.  Each week I have about 10-12 groups of two or three students presenting their dialogues to me. 

Each dialogue needs to be seven lines long, no notes, no book.  They have about 20 minutes to prepare after I give them the topics.  I've been really happy with my results and I think they are proud of themselves too.  They definitely couldn't do something like this when we started! 

Here are some of the topics they had to choose from:

• Help a Westerner order Chinese food at a Chinese restaurant
• Discuss the differences between Chinese and Western food with a friend who just got back from America
• Order at a coffee house, but the order comes out incorrectly
• Order at a bar, receive very bad service
• Help a foreigner take a taxi to a tourist location in a city
• You are taking a taxi somewhere and they go the wrong way
• Your friend loses his/her wallet in a mall after buying some new clothes

Grading my nearly 500 students is taking a tremendous amount of time.  Each class takes about one hour to grade.  Then add the time that I have to take to readjust the scores and enter them into a computer.  I easily have a total of twelve hours of exam grading to be done.  I'm half done with grading my classes, but still have a long way to go once I start to adjust the grades based on participation and classwork.

In true American fashion, I camp out at Starbucks to get my work done with a large mug of coffee (Americano, please).  It's been a busy one and this past weekend my good friend Max and his friends from college were also in Qingdao. 

In other news, I'm in complete denial that I am leaving next week. 

The good and the bad

Follow-up to the Day of Mourning

As usual, the Chinese government always manages to make even the most solemn of days and turn it into a propaganda campaign.

Domestic media coverage has been tightly controlled, with reporters instructed to focus on the heroism of rescue workers and to avoid stories about the thousands of Buddhist monks who dug through debris or handed out food from the trunks of cars. 

(The New York Times' article can be found HERE.)

I'm not shocked that they did this, but I am still embarrassed and saddened that this happens in a country that I am living in and helping to educate.

In an interview on Wednesday, Woeser, an influential Tibetan blogger who is in frequent contact with people in the earthquake zone, said several monks told her that they had been ordered to leave Jiegu in recent days, although such accounts could not be immediately confirmed. 

Whenever the Tea Party "activists" or any other similar protest group in America claims to be suppressed by the government, they should be reminded that in other corners of the world there are more drastic measures taken to suppress any unsavory opinions and viewpoints.  Being in China (both times) has made me really proud to call myself an American and proud to be living in a country of freedoms.

OMG RU 4 REAL?!?! NOWAI

I taught my students slang this week using dialogues that Matt and I co-wrote this weekend.  Here are the dialogues that they had to read:

(calling on the cell phone)
A: What’s up?
B: Not much, you?
A: Nothing really, just hanging out with my friends.
B: Oh that’s cool.
A: Hey wanna meet up after class?
B: No, I can’t. I’m swamped with homework.
A: Bummer. I want to go to the new coffee shop. Catch you later!/ See ya!
B: Alright, later!

(at school after a test)
A: How was the test?
B: Oh my gosh, I think I bombed the writing section.
A: Seriously? You’ve been studying your butt off!
B: Yeah, I totally froze and forgot everything.
A: That sucks.

(after seeing a movie)
A: That movie was awesome!
B: Yeah it was pretty tight. / Yeah, it was really legit.
A: What did you think of the actor?
B: I thought he was really hot.
A: Truth, but the dialogue was pretty lame.

After hearing 55+ students repeat "that sucks!" and "seriously?" I realized that I might be teaching them to sound like valley girls and bros.  I nevertheless found this pretty funny and I think that they had fun learning more informal words rather than stuff from a formal textbook.

I also taught them about IM (they knew we didn't use QQ but thought we used MSN... weird, right?), AIM and Gchat.  I also listed out some nice little words for them to use when IMing me or their friends, such as nm, brb, h/o, ttyl, gtg, thnx, and jk.  Many of the ones that they use online are numbers.  For example, they type 886 because the numbers "ba ba liu" sound like "bye bye le."

What was even better was when I drew an upward arrow to explain the levels of laughter online.  I listed the ones I use most frequently: hehe, haha, HAHA, lol, lmao, and lmfao.  They have all sorts of weird ones here, including "嘻嘻“ (sounds like 'shee shee') which is somewhere between haha and HAHA to them.

One of my students was IMing me tonight and actually typed "ttyl" to me and I was so excited that he (a) remembered what I taught her on Tuesday and (b) put it to good use.  Success!  Being a teacher means finding fulfillment in the little things like this.

Tomorrow I will go see the cherry blossoms downtown with my friend Allie.  Hopefully I'll also get to meet up with Anna, a Polish girl I have met at my Chinese school, and go out.  I love warm spring weekends. 

Anonymous question time

Last week I let my students write me questions and suggestions anonymously just to see what they were thinking.  I was kind of apprehensive at first, especially with the students who have also had me last semester.  I was getting told that they were bored and sick of my little routine of making dialogues and reading from the book, so I decided to ask them what they suggested we do. 

I got some really helpful suggestions:

- At the begining of class, you can make serve several topic to us. We can discuss them.
- I suggest you use computer to teach.
- You can show us some news about USA by English newspaper, TV pictures, I like this way of teach.

Some expected questions:

- I want to know more about the USA, can you let me know more?
- I want to watch more movies ^_^
- Will you let your kids learn Chinese culture in the future?
- What's your favorite food in China?
- What's your QQ number?
- Do you like China?
- What do you think of China football?

Some that broke my heart:

-I have a dream that one day I can go to USA, but I don't know how and when I can make it true.  So will you give me any suggestion?
- I want to ask you a question.  I know you and your boyfriend in the different place.  I want to know how do you improve your feeling?  Do you think it's bad for your feeling in the different countries. Thank you. ^_^
- In your eyes, we're children, yes or no?

And some weird questions:

- I think we can have a party. invite several foreign teacher take with every student.
- Do you want to have a baby? Why?
- What's do you think about Christopher Emmanuel Paul?
- How many boyfriend would you have?
- Do you have any view for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 201 World Exposition in Shanghai
- I want to see Can you dress on a skirt next week later someday this summer?
- what kind of men do you prefer?
- What do you think TaiWan's question?

Overall, I found this to be pretty helpful and it gave me ideas for class.  I was getting pretty bored too and frustrated with simply reading from the book and making silly dialogues.  I ended up making a photo slideshow to show them my life in America because there were a ton of questions about my family, friends, and life.  A few also just wanted to see pictures of Matt, my family, and my friends.

It felt really weird to do it because I knew that some of the slides would result in a huge "oooh!!" or "wahhh!!" by 55+ students.  I also kind of enjoyed a sort of distance with my students but I guess it's better in the long rung if I do this now.  They still don't know how old I am though. 

No, I did not tell them what I think about the "Taiwan question" and I have no clue who Christopher Emmanuel Paul is. 

It was a pretty fun week though, just to figure out what exactly they were thinking about me and have a more laid-back class that wasn't so academically driven.  This next week we'll be preparing midterm dialogues and I have a powerpoint about slang and how we use IM.  I'm excited to teach this lesson plan, a feeling I haven't had in a while.   Change is good. 

It is still cold here in Qingdao but this weekend we actually broke 60 degrees and I actually felt warmth outside!  I also stopped wearing my puffy coat last week, so I'm very excited for the beginning of what is sure to be a short spring leading to a beautiful summer. 

Exam week sucks for teachers too

This is the point of the semester where I salute all my college professors that had to read final papers a foot or more high.  Thank you, dear professors, for reading all of those pages and still managing to like me enough to let me pass your course.  I take back any frustrated thoughts and expletives that came through my mouth as a result of waiting for final grades. 

I have eight classes of about 52-56 students, one class of 30, and one class of 25.  This leaves me with a lot of finals to grade before I leave on vacation.  Here's what I had them do:

Part One: Listening Comprehension

I asked them ten questions that they then had to write the answers to.  Spelling didn't count and I basically wanted to make sure they understand what the hell I've been saying the past few months.  I asked questions like:

- What is the weather like during the winter in Qingdao?
- Do you like spicy food? (the most commonly misunderstood -- many thought I said 'seafood')
- What are you planning to do for Spring Festival Vacation?

Part Two: Oral Dialogue

I had my students pull topics out of a box which they then had to create an oral dialogue with their language partner(s).  These dialogues had to be at least 5 lines per person, greetings and simple answers excluded and they were not allowed to read from notes.  Topics include:

- A is meeting B for the first time and they will be roommates in college
- Something really bad happened to person A
- What are you planning to do after graduation?

The first part took half the class last week and then I helped them prepare their dialogues.  This week I've been listening to oral dialogues in the freezing hallway.  It's taking a surprisingly long time to grade all of these. 

Now I am going back to merge their individual grades with their group grades and weighing attendance and the final exam.  It really sucks.  I also was overly generous with the first few classes I graded so I then have had to go back and deflate those grades. 

I've failed two kids already.  I've processed seven out of ten classes and I have to have this in before I leave on vacation on Sunday.  My bosses originally wanted it in this evening but we all told them ther was no !@%^@ way that we could have it all done yet, especially considering we were still doing exams this morning and afternoon.  So yeah, that is my life right now.  This is going to be a fun weekend. 

This is what happened when I left my students in the classroom when I was doing oral dialogues in the hallway.  I wrote "Chill out, guys!" because they were getting really antsy and rowdy!

Creating more Twilighters

I am declaring a war on dust bunnies in my apartment.  I don't even know where they come from, really.  It's not that dusty here, I take my shoes off when I come into the room, and wear my ugly slippers inside.  If I sweep, there will be more dust bunnies like a day later.  So I mop the entire apartment, only to see them start collecting in piles a few days later.   It's not even that I don't clean this place.  I end up cleaning twice a week because these dust bunnies drive me crazy!  Grrr...

This past week I gave my students a test.  It would be pretty easy if they were paying attention during class, but if they weren't, it really showed.  I also didn't care about spelling, so also got some really funny misspellings.  I even got a test where the student meant to write 'good' but flipped the character and wrote 'dood.'  Apparently, I am also teaching Liz Lemon because someone wrote "I want to go to there."

After the test I showed them the first hour of Twilight and they really enjoyed it.  Turning the movie off after an hour was like taking candy from a baby and the students would yell 'Nooooo!!!' when I stopped it after the bell rang.  They are also big on making dramatic noises such as "ayoh!" (when Edward stops the van), "wah!" (when he speeds away in the car), and "ayah!" (when he speeds up the mountain.  They're also not quite sure if Edward is handsome or not and seem to be more creeped out by the fact that he is a vampire and is disturbingly pale.  If only I -- and other American women and girls -- had the same logic.

The word for vampire 吸血鬼 (xi1 xue4 gui3) literally means "suck blood spirit" and the students seem to enjoy the vampire-in-love-with-human thing.  They really like love stories here.  Even the boys were calling out "kiss her! kiss her!" in the meadow.

I wanted to show them the other half of the movie this upcoming week but am having problems moving my classes to rooms with computers and projectors, so I will feed the addition in a few weeks.  I now have a 1.2 GB copy of Twilight on my flash drive, any takers?

Apparently I moved to the Bay Area

This morning I woke up and thought my windows were fogged up for whatever reason, but really it was the insane fog that has descended upon Qingdao.

 This is seriously thick fog!  I feel like I'm walking around in the Bay Area, or into an elven forest looking for the lost members of the Fellowship.

It was really eerie - as though when I blinked my vision would clear, but it wouldn't.  I walked at my normal pace to my first classroom building until I had to walk through this:

Craziest feeling ever.  Please insert metaphor here.

That is all.  Today I had my morning class sing "God Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts.  It was just me making stuff up because they had already seen "Twilight" with another English teacher.  And man it was funny.  Some of these guys really get into singing karaoke!

Happy December!  

I just want to say, "Pound it!"

 

I've been wanting gloves like this for a while now.  A lot of the girls in my classes have them and they come in a variety of cute animals.  I bought this pair on the street in LiCun for 15RMB and they are incredibly warm because they are wool and lined with fleece.

I'm going to start wearing these in public.  It should be more acceptable in America to be wearing things like this out!

Clarification on the Backstreet Boys

I need to clarify that the students really wanted to sing the Backstreet Boys.  I did not force or coerce them into singing the song.  Many of them requested it and have it on their phones.  The students were very excited to learn the song and finally know more than the refrain.  They just look so serious in the video, but I promise it is because they really wanted to learn it!  The boys are often more excited about singing the song than the girls and get totally into the song.  It's rather funny and I wish I could have captured more on video before my battery died.

Lesson Planning

This week’s lesson plan was the most fun I’ve had so far. Here are the basics of my lesson plan:

Week Four – Congratulations and Thanks

Attendance (10 minutes)
Reading Unit 2 Dialogue (10 minutes)
- When can you congratulate others?
o Graduation
o Engagement/ marriage/ having a baby
o New job
o Pasing a test
o Promotion at a job
Reading Unit 3 Dialogue (10 minutes)
- How do you tell someone that something bad has happened?
o I’m not sure how to put this but…
o I’m sorry, but…
o This is hard to explain, but…
Create a Dialogue (10 minutes prep + 25 minutes performing)
With your language partner, create a dialogue like the ones in the book. Please use congratulatory phrases and express your thanks. You may also apoligize or break the news to someone that something bad has happened. You can make up your own scenario, but be sure to act it all out!
Song
“As Long As You Love Me” – The Backstreet Boys

I got some really great dialogues from the students, including:
- “Oh no! I have H1N1!”
- “I lost my dog!”; “I think I ate your dog.”
- “I lost my son in the park.”


The funniest were actually the sad ones and there was also an overwhelming number of “I passed my English exam” dialogues. Apparently they are all worried about some English exam, which is clearly not coming from Miss Alison. 






The class really enjoys singing the Backstreet Boys and I filmed a video of them singing. It is actually the boys that enjoy singing the Backstreet Boys the most! 


Here is a picture of my Wednesday class from 1:30 – 3:10pm. They are a riot!

Some of the funniest dialogues today went something like this:

(two girls)
A: I fell in love with a boy today.
B: Congratulations!
A: No, it is bad news. He has a girlfriend.
B: That is too bad. Maybe you can just be friends.
A: I hope so, he has a good heart!


(two boys)
A: My girlfriend broke up with me. I am broken hearted.
B: I’m sorry to hear that. Forget about it.
A: Thanks.
B: We will go and find you a more beautiful girlfriend now.


(two boys)
A: Why are you so happy?
B: The Lakers won a basketball game! [Student then launches into a play-by-play speech on how Kobe Bryant saved the game]

After all the crappy internet, lack of a real heater, and funk pockets, the students really make teaching here worthwhile and I am looking forward to many more fun days with them. Except that they really want to sing “You Are Not Alone” by Michael Jackson… that might be the end of me.