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. 

The run down

Who?  

 My students are 19 to 20 year old Chinese college students in their first year at a technical school for hotel management, hence the name Qingdao Hotel Management College.  All of my students are hotel management majors but the school also offers cuisine, tourism, customs reporting, business English, and exhibition majors. 

90% of my students are from the Shandong province and the rest are from as far away as Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, and Hunan. Of the Shandong students, 25% of them are from Qingdao and the others are from other cities of varying sizes including Heze, Jinan, Weifang, and Zibo, but there are also many students from smaller towns and villages. 

This is a public university and the tuition is about 6000RMB per semester (so I hear).  This isn't expensive, but it isn't cheap.  I am more often than not, the first foreign teacher they have ever had and one of the first for them to speak English with. 

What?  

I teach oral English which pretty much means that I have free reign to do anything.  I do have a book that I loosely follow, but for the most part it is up to me to fill an hour and a half with "The Alison Show."  Here's a rough format of my classes:

- Attendance (10-15 minutes): I may or may not ask them a question to answer when I call their name.  This week I did "If you had 300RMB what would you do?"
- Read the dialogue (20 minutes)
- Create your own dialogue (20 minutes): They do this with their partners
- Performances
- Sing a song/ Game:  This week I played a number writing team relay game where I called out a large number or price and they had to write it correctly on the board to earn their team a point.  Girls vs. boys was a riot!
- Movies: I showed them "Twilight" last semester and am going to show them "The Notebook" next month.  I will probably show another movie towards the end, but I try not to use movies too often unless as a reward for doing something huge like a midterm.

When? 

I have nine classes a week consisting of 50-60 students per class.  My earliest classes are at 8:00 - 9:40 am (with 10 minute break) and my last period is from 3:20 - 4:50 pm (no break, poor kids).  I also take my own Chinese classes downtown three times a week for two hours at a time.  Besides going to classes and teaching classes, I also go to the gym nearby frequently to pretend I'm not in China. 

On the weekends I also have two side-jobs.  I teach a 14-year old daughter of one of my bosses's friends that I basically do whatever random English assignments I want to do with.  Her English is nearly fluent and she is from a very wealthy family.  My other side job should be starting soon and I am helping a coworker with his own private students and assisting with middle school students.  I'll let you know how that goes...

Where?

Qingdao Hotel Management College in Qingdao, Shandong province.

Why?

I'm still trying to figure this out too... Ok, kidding.  I studied abroad my junior year of college in China and have wanted to come back ever since!  I enjoy China, meeting Chinese people, and learning the language, so it seemed only natural to return after graduation. 

How?

I don't know how I manage to teach this many students.  It's frustrating and rewarding at the same time and involves speaking very, very s-l-o-w-l-y, repeating myself, and creativity to figure out how to keep them entertained week after week. 

So that's my life as I know it right now.  I'm pretty settled back in to my life here, having just finished my third full week back in China, and am looking forward to a full semester of teaching.  I can't wait until it gets warm and I can finally enjoy the beaches and outdoor activities that I came to Qingdao for! 

And I'm baaaaaaack!

Today it snowed in Qingdao.  This is unacceptable seeing that it is March and it has been below freezing for four months now.  Otherwise, I'm pretty much settled in and have started teaching again.

I have a whopping nine classes this semester, seven of which are the same as last term.  This means I have about 500 students total.  There are pros and cons to having the same students.

Pros
- I don't have to learn 500 new names.
- I don't have to re-train the students to do what I want.
- They are used to my voice and rhythm of speech.
- They know I mean business because they saw the grades I gave last term.

Cons
- I can't reuse lesson plans from last term.
- Those that I failed or gave bad grades to may be harboring ill will towards me.
- I have to think of new tricks, games, and methods of keeping them in line.
- More work for me, basically.

International Women's Day 

 Obesity competition to Celebrate Women's Day in China

Nevertheless, this week started out pretty nicely with Monday being International Women's Day.  I received a nice card and a flower from one of my classes and then was bussed over to a ladies' luncheon hosted by my university for all the female employees.  It was a huge lunch complete with karaoke and raffle prizes!

After the lunch the women were given half of the day off and there were buses going downtown and to various shopping areas but I totally missed the memo on this (I was told about the lunch about 5 minutes before I had to get on the bus) so had no money and came back to campus.  Some people get the whole day off!  America should really take note and celebrate the holiday.  I also got a chance to see my boss drunk at lunch, so that was a bonus treat. 

And the weirdness starts...

Chinese students are trained from the time they are young to stand up and greet the teacher in unison but I have been spared this form of mass forced screaming until this week.  Basically, when the bell rings, the class monitor shouts (in English):

"STAND UP!"

After which all the students say,

"GOOD MORNING MISS ALISON!"

Then the monitor says,

"SIT DOWN!"

And they sit down as I laugh at them and then they nervously laugh at me, because they know that I think this is all very funny.

I also had some students that decided to rename themselves over break, including:
- Naruto
- bluice (I convinced him to go by Blue, complete with a capital letter and not a fake compound word)
- Lone Los (previously Andy Zhang who tried to name himself Amvipe last semester, a pretty brilliant attempt at phonetically spelling out 'MVP')
- Danny Nowitski (previously just Nowitski but I think he realized that it was a little ridiculous so he added a first name to his sirname)

It is tuesday and I am already over half done with my teaching hours this week. I guess that is what happens when you have two classes on Monday and FOUR on Tuesday.  Meaning, I am teaching from 8am to 5pm with only a break for lunch.

Otherwise, I'd really appreciate a slice of chocolate cake, a curry puff, and a hot fudge sundae right about  now.

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!

My fan page has 500 members

Teaching is for the egotistical.  I mean, who else would put themselves up on a stage or podium to tell others about the alleged knowledge that they possess?  People who think they are awesome.

I think I am pretty awesome.  Clearly I do, since I blog about my life, assuming that I'm snarky and interesting enough for others to pay attention.  And, well, teaching oral English makes you feel pretty freakin' awesome.

It's like having a personal fan club of 50+ students with ten different sections.  They love taking pictures with/of me, saying "Hello teacher!" or "Hello Miss Alison!" on the street, and complementing me on my smile or telling me that I'm beautiful.  If you ever feel like you have a self-esteem problem, come to China and these students will throw so many nice things your way, you will feel like you are a model turned genius.

Here is a picture of my class 15, my highest level that I teach.  They are all pretty great and have a very good command of English.

(and if you are read my earlier post from Brandon/ Pine, he is in the middle, below the guy in the yellow striped sweater, named James)

They think I'm awesome.  Because I am.

New Years Party, round two.

During the new year, Chinese make dumplings together and eat them as a family.  Many classes have hosted 饺子 making parties recently to celebrate with their classmates and enjoy a yummy meal.  I was invited to my Class 14's dumpling making party today and it was a lot of fun!

There is a certain way to roll the dough out into squares and I was taught by my students.  It's a little different than what we know as rolling out dough, and you have to rotate the little circle as you roll towards the center.  You don't roll out, you roll in.

Then we filled the dumplings with various fillings and pinched them shut.  This is also the part I always find the hardest, but some of my students can make some really pretty ones!

Feasting on the dumplings was kind of a zoo and involved a lot of running and squealing.  We had plenty to eat though, and I was pretty stuffed afterward.

Later in the evening, they held a party in their classroom which was more of a talent show.  It was really well organized (this is my second highest level class) and every student got to perform something either by themselves or in a group.

There were students doing a fan dance, kungfu, and nunchuks.  Singing karaoke songs was a very popular option, as was making up a funny skit.  There were also several groups that created their own choreographed dances to songs like "Billie Jean" and many popular Chinese songs.  I even saw a student break dance, complete with the worm!

 

 

These New Years parties are really wearing me thin and I am really behind on grading the final exams (read almost all are ungraded).  Besides the fact that I'm pretty sure I ate my weight in sunflower seeds this evening, the healthy snacks are pretty awesome.  It is also fun to hang out with my students in a more fun and laid-back environment.  So here you go, my class 14!

I'm off to Shanghai tomorrow afternoon to celebrate New Years with Max.  I've never been to Shanghai before and am really excited!  See you in the new decade --

新年快乐！

"Safe and sound" apple

I mentioned this before, but Chinese students here give each other apples for Christmas.  This is a relatively new trend (as in the past three to four years) among young people, according to my old teacher Linda.  I think it is also because the younger, more Westernized Chinese also want to celebrate Christmas in their own way. 

I wish we gave out fruits in America!  Some other random presents I've received include a mug with a lid and a glow stick.  This is actually the coolest apple I've ever seen.

 

The character is from 恭喜, which means "congratulations" and is frequently said during the new year. I think that there was some sort of sticker put on the apple to prevent the yellow parts from turning red.  Pretty cool stuff!  I don't want to eat it and wish I could bring it back to America.

The student who gave this to me, Myron, also wrote me a pretty sweet note:

Dear Alison:

Hello!

Your lessons are very interesting and you are very funny.  In your class, I feel relax and happy.  Besides, I want to learn more.

Before, I can only say "Hello" to a foreigner.  After I meet you I dare to lots of words.  Although I can't express my meaning well.

I write this letter is to thank you.

In China, apple means "safe and sound".  Now I send this apple to you.  I wish you're always safe and sound in your life.

I also wish that you can still teach us the next year!

Yours,

Myron

I have yet to decide whether I will keep my same classes next year or not.  I do really love my students, but am also open to meeting new ones and having a different experience next semester.  I guess I'll just wait and see what happens.  All I know is that I want Fridays free and all my classes earlier in the day so I can have my afternoons to take my own Chinese classes and work out.

This is my second to last week of classes and my students are being subjected to exam part one: oral comprehension.  Mwahaha. 

We're having a party...

I got a call this evening from one of my student inviting me to a New Years party that Class D2 was having so I gladly headed over after dinner.

It was so much fun to see my kids in a non-academic environment and just having fun! First we watched a slideshow consisting of various class photos doing different activities. Apparently they have also had a lot of field days and even a dumpling making party! This class is a hard-working and cohesive one, so I'm not surprised by this at all.

I found it amusing that their snacks were mainly fruits, sunflower seeds, peanuts, and very few chips. There was also something about feeding each other bananas, which I dodged because of my fruit allergy. I guess my allergy comes in handy, finally.

Then it was karaoke hour...

 

Then I met their homeroom teacher, who turned out to be really cool. Then a food fight ensued and sunflower seeds, banana peels, orange peels, and various cookies were thrown across the room.

This food fight ended after they ran out of ammo and it was all on the floor. There was also a growing number of girls hiding behind me. Apparently they thought I was immune to the attacks, which was proven wrong later. Don't worry girls, Ms. Alison will protect you!

Then we lit the birthday cake, which had this really awesome flower on it. When you lit the top wick, the petals all came down slowly and there was a huge flower flame in the middle as it played the tune of "Happy Birthday." Oh these Chinese people. This cake was everyone's birthday cake and essentially was for the New Year too. There is an old Chinese belief that you should just celebrate everyone's birthday on that one date, or something like that.

And then this ensued...

 

 

 

I was involved in my first legitimate food fight, complete with icing smashed into my hair and thrown around the room. I eventually washed my face off in the sink, but when it's about 25 degrees F outside, this was not a fun thing to do! I told my kids "this is how much I love you!" and they laughed.

So thank you, class D2, for an eventful Monday night that I will never forget. Just another day in my life.

William

I caved and had dinner with my student last Tuesday because he was preparing for an oral English exam as part of a summer work program.  It sounds really sketchy and borderline illegal, but basically these students apply to a program where they pay a fee and then go to work in the US at a variety of different jobs including working at McDonalds, as is shown in the photo on the brochure.  I am against this on so many different levels and also want my students to get a better view of American than this warped cheap labor one.

It's marketed as some sort of "Work & Travel" program where they work for 3 months and then have money to travel around the US for a few weeks.  I question the legitimacy and legality of the whole thing.

So one of my students, William, is applying to this program and asked me to practice speaking English with him after class to prepare for the test.  I invited Jenna along so we could tag-team test him, but it was simultaneously the strangest, most hilarious and awkward dinner I've ever had with a Chinese person.

After we grilled him on some basic interview questions, the conversation took a turn to all sorts of weird topics.

• William asked us what we thought about love, and apparently this meant homosexuality (quote, "What about boy and boy or girl and girl?).  We told him that it was perfectly fine for a man to love another man and a woman to love another woman and he said this was just wrong and not correct while making all sorts of faces at us.  Moving on...
• Apparently the poor kid has an ex girlfriend that he is still in love with and still is his cell phone background.  They broke up at the start of the school year, but he says he is still in love with her.  He also said that she was "up here" and he was "down here" (then we couldn't really describe to him how to say 'out of your league').  
• Then he declared that he "wants a wife!" and basically spends all his extra time out of school looking for a girlfriend.  This is actually pretty common with students and they are obsessed with finding a significant other. 

Then the conversation shifted and he decided that he was in love with Jenna.

• William was perplexed that Jenna was single and had no desire to have a boyfriend.  He just didn't get it.  No matter how many times we said it, he would just be flabbergasted and say "I don't understand!" This is also a pretty common feeling in China.  We then tried to explain to him about the American desire to get to know yourself before you settle down and look for a wife/husband and he just didn't get it.  You'd think we were speaking a completely different language or that we were from a completely different planet. 
  
• Jenna is probably going to teach in Taiwan after this semester is over.  When she told William, you would think someone killed his puppy because he yelled "NOOO!!" and the color drained out of his face.  I laughed hysterically and was pretty much tearing at this point. 
• Then he decided that he wanted to be Jenna's boyfriend and kept asking her out to be his girlfriend.

When we walked back to our dorm, we got into this really awkward standoff when William wanted to give Jenna a hug but she wouldn't (teacher-student relationship... very dodgy here).  His logic was like this:

Americans : casual --> Jenna : American --> Jenna : casual

This ended in a standoff and a "joke" about whether he could hug her off campus.  On the whole, this was a very awkward dinner on many levels but shed light on many cultural differences between us as Americans and the Chinese.  I have a feeling I'll be mentally digesting this one for a while...

We will become goodfriend

Whenever I have a crappy day and China really has me down, it's my students that get me through.  They're all so sweet and eager to learn (well there are a few exceptions...) that it makes me job easier and the days more exciting.  The weekdays fly by and weekends come faster than they ever have before.  Each class has a personality and I look forward to the days when I have a fantastic class.

Today I had one of my favorite classes and received a letter from a student via his friend (Stone, formerly known as David).  Actually the story how they changed their names is quite funny too.  This happened last week:

David: We want to change our names.
Me: Why? I like your names.
Brandon: We don't like our names.  I want to be "Pine."
David: I want to be "Stone."
Me: Boys, those aren't real names.  Foreigners don't think those are real names.
Brandon/David:  Well, our Hotel English teacher's name is "Apple."
Me: Touche.  You are now Stone and Pine.

Here's the letter from Brandon, the student formerly known as Pine.

Miss Alison:

I'm Brandon that have changed name to Pine.

At first, I'm sorry that I can't go class with you, because I have something must to do on this Friday in my hometown.  And I think when you see this paper, I have gotten home.  I beg your pardon

Every time, when I saw you, I'd like to speak with you.  But I was too nervous to say a word.  For example, the last time we met in Walking Street of LiCun.  I was about to tell you that there are a lot of stealer.  if you don't care of your sththings, it will be stolen.  But Since I was much nervous that I can't say a word.

In future days, I think we will became goodfriend, and you will become our best teacher.

My English and handwriting are poor, if there are somethings wrong please figer finger out.  And I'll change.

At the end, I wish you have a delight lessons with my classmates.

Yours student
Pine (Brandon)
12.9.2009.

Then there is this little illustration with the chinese chacters for "ha... ha..." written.

Cutest teaching moment to date.  I was also in charge of English corner today with another teacher, Craig.  I basically had to speak to a swarm of Chinese students eager to practice their English and we had some really interesting talks.  Hopefully I'll get around to posting that later.  I am exhausted right now.

Currently craving: Cheese or pizza

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.

Eating Diaries, Part 1

I take photos of food.  Is this weird?  I've only come to realize recently that no one else outside my family takes photos of food.  Well, here goes my food tour of the weekend in Beijing.

Lush Cafe

I've dreamed about their fresh foccacia bread for two years now and finally got to enjoy a grilled vegetable sandwich with mozarella, tomato, and basil.  It tasted even better since I hadn't had Western food since being in China!  Lush is one of my favorite cafes of all time.

Wangfujing Snack Street

I had two 串 (chuan-r: kebabs), one was freshly made fishballs, I think.  I'm a big fan of eating anything from the sea and this fishball was really delicious.  They poured the mixture on a giant waffle-iron thing with 1" indentations and the person swiveled the balls every few seconds while they cooked in order to make the sphere of the fish ball.

Then I ate a octopus tentacle chuanr.  Roasted tentacles ranks pretty high on my list of favorite seafoods and while this one could have been cooked just a little longer, it wasn't too bad.

Then there are the things I did not eat at Wangfujing snack street:  starfish

seahorses and scorpions (still moving!)

Ganges Indian Food

This place has some of the best Indian food I've ever had.  This is a statement considering that I grew up in Dallas which has a huge Indian population.  Anywho, I made a mistake ordering my own curry but I did get a really yummy Vegetable Pakora for an appetizer.

TianChu MiaoXiang Vegan Restaurant

This may have been the best vegan restaurant I've ever been to!  It was so yummy and here are my favorite dishes from the dinner:

This was fried mushrooms in a salt/pepper chili batter.  It was really good and was a vegan version of a dish that is often  made with octopus tentacles (shocking that I like it either way, ha!).  Definitely the winner of the meal!

Sizzling beef was definitely my second favorite dish and was a textured veggie protein cut like beef (really weirded us out) and served on a sizzling iron platter.  An impressive display since vegetarian dishes usually lack this flair!

Airline Snack

I flew back to Qingdao and got a little surprise snack on my 1 hour 10 minute flight.  Dried dates!  Definitely one of my least favorite chinese "snacks" but only outranked by those dried plum things that my dad eats.

And that was my food tour of the weekend.  I should actually blog about what my apartment and campus looks like soon.  Oh, and the kids.  Right.  They're singing "As long as you love me" by the Backstreet Boys this week in my classes because they LOVE them.  Chinese kids also love Westlife.  It's really odd.  I had them singing "Umbrella" by Rihanna this week and it didn't go over so well with some of them, because it's not the type of music they listen to, but it was really amusing to  me to see them get into the 'ella ella eh eh eh' part of the song.  Until the next post...

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!