I apologize for not writing more as of late, I have been without internet and my computer for a little while now...Technical problems happen over here as well. I am guessing that everyone that is reading this has also received an email from me recently, but if not, welcome to my life in China. I cannot believe that I have less than a month left here. The time has flown by. The pending departure has caused me to frantically finish as much as I can in my time here, each weekend crossing off items from a list of things still to do in Beijing. I must say, that the crush of time to go has meant that my weekends have been far more productive than when I felt that I still had unlimited amounts of time to spend here in China. Each weekend I visit three or four restaurants that I have heard about, do two or more cultural or tourist events and have pretty much made sure to make the most out of my time here.
This task of getting things done has been made much easier by the presence of a new place to live. I have added a second apartment in my life. For the last few weeks I have been spending the weekends at my new apartment in downtown (kind of) Beijing. My apartment is in the Students district and is really cheap. I will say that the quality of my living is a bit lower than any place that I would ever consider to live in the U.S., but for some reason I have no problem with the place in China. I love the added convenience that living in the city gives. Knowing that I do not need to go all the way back to Huijia has allowed me to see Soccer games, go the Symphony, go Salsa Dancing, spend a lot more money at Restaurants, do more shopping, sleep in later on the days of my Chinese lessons and pretty much just get more out of life.
Speaking of Chinese lessons, it finally feels like Chinese is kind of starting to click. While there is still so much more that I do not get than I do, I am beginning to understand random bits of overheard conversations. This, along with a pretty firm grasp of ordering and directional language has more or less allowed me to actually listen to what is coming out of people’s mouths rather than just assuming that I do not understand what is being said. I can string a few sentences together now and can give some basics when meeting people for the first time. This is the first time that I have felt this way with a foreign language and the sense of accomplishment, at least when not drowned out by the feeling of utter stupidity because of lack of Mandarin knowledge, is pretty awesome. I still have a very long way to go, but I am starting to feel that progress is being made.
In addition to the Mandarin breakthrough’s I have also begun tutoring a student in conversational English. My Chinese tutor had a friend that was looking to improve her spoken English and thought of me. I think that her English is pretty fluent, but she wants more help. I hope that I can help her out, but if nothing else it is teaching me a lot about the culture and life of a normal Chinese person.
These experiences have combined to reassuring me that I need to be back here. I am in the process of figuring out what to do when I look to return in the winter. I am planning on being back in December, hopefully at my same school. Time will tell, but what I do know is that I am still having the time of my life over here. I hope everyone is well. I cannot wait to see you soon.
Showing posts with label Teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teaching. Show all posts
6.18.2007
4.23.2007
Stream of Consciousness
This will be at times a somewhat random post but there are a ton of things that I want to share that are pretty much totally unrelated.
1.) People in China wear long underwear during the winter. This in itself is not an odd statement, however, they sometimes wear two pairs here in Beijing because it gets so cold here during the winter plus building are not usually well insulated nor even heated in some instances. This too makes perfect sense...what I cannot figure out though is why some people follow rules about the long underwear so closely. Once they put it on, they do not take it off until May 1st, regardless of what the weather is doing. Take a closer look at that. Outside of bathing, they do not take their long underwear off for the duration of the winter. This means that in most cases, the long underwear does not get washed from October 1st to May 1st. Plus, it has been over 80 on more than one occasion here already. The long underwear has stayed on throughout these higher temperatures. I just cannot understand the need to do this. Once it gets warm, you should make yourself more comfortable.
2.) The Summer Palace here in Beijing is gorgeous. I spent the day wandering the grounds of the Summer Palace enjoying the Spring Flowers, sunshine and warm day. I had not been to the Summer Palace the first time I was here which added to the enjoyment yesterday. Pictures will soon follow.
3.) Chinese teachers are treated very unfairly here. As a foreign teacher I am well paid and enjoy almost total freedom. The Chinese teachers on the other hand, are poorly paid and enjoy no freedom. Things that we foreign teachers get for free, accommodation, meals, access to laundry, the ability to use the dorm kitchen are either charged to the Chinese teachers or barred altogether (laundry, kitchen among others). This week I had the assistance of a Chinese teacher who served as my translator while I was in town getting some things done. We left at 4:30 to run these errands. To leave the campus she had to have a not from the dean saying that it was ok for her to leave campus before 5:30. I, on the other hand, frequently leave more than once during the day to run errands etc. I find this very unfair though typical of the Chinese mindset in terms of administration here. They seem to see nothing wrong with this double standard.
4.) Diapers are not really used by most babies here. Pants have a slit through the crotch which allows the babies to be held over the grass when infants and to just squat when toddlers. This would seem to be very un-hygenic and make for potentially dangerous walking through the streets, but these problems do not seem to exist. Now that it is warmer out I see more and more babies with their butts hanging out of their pants.
5.) Street food is really, really good. I have written about it before and will write a top-10 foods from China list soon, but I already can tell that I will miss street food when I get back to America.
6.) Mandarin Chinese seems to be a very difficult language to get started in, but it builds on itself so as I go along it should get easier...or at least that is what I am telling myself. If anyone in the Grand Rapids area that reads this knows of a potential Mandarin tutor can you see if they would be interested in meeting a few days a week this fall when I am back in town. I really want to keep working at the language and will need some help when I am back in the States.
7.) Vacation is fast approaching. In less than a week I will be off to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors as well as other sights. I am getting excited. Mid-term exams are this week so we will see how those go.
8.) I love China... which leads me to #'s 9 and 10
9.) I miss home also but...
10.) I really love China :)
Zai Jian, all the best.
Gao Tian
1.) People in China wear long underwear during the winter. This in itself is not an odd statement, however, they sometimes wear two pairs here in Beijing because it gets so cold here during the winter plus building are not usually well insulated nor even heated in some instances. This too makes perfect sense...what I cannot figure out though is why some people follow rules about the long underwear so closely. Once they put it on, they do not take it off until May 1st, regardless of what the weather is doing. Take a closer look at that. Outside of bathing, they do not take their long underwear off for the duration of the winter. This means that in most cases, the long underwear does not get washed from October 1st to May 1st. Plus, it has been over 80 on more than one occasion here already. The long underwear has stayed on throughout these higher temperatures. I just cannot understand the need to do this. Once it gets warm, you should make yourself more comfortable.
2.) The Summer Palace here in Beijing is gorgeous. I spent the day wandering the grounds of the Summer Palace enjoying the Spring Flowers, sunshine and warm day. I had not been to the Summer Palace the first time I was here which added to the enjoyment yesterday. Pictures will soon follow.
3.) Chinese teachers are treated very unfairly here. As a foreign teacher I am well paid and enjoy almost total freedom. The Chinese teachers on the other hand, are poorly paid and enjoy no freedom. Things that we foreign teachers get for free, accommodation, meals, access to laundry, the ability to use the dorm kitchen are either charged to the Chinese teachers or barred altogether (laundry, kitchen among others). This week I had the assistance of a Chinese teacher who served as my translator while I was in town getting some things done. We left at 4:30 to run these errands. To leave the campus she had to have a not from the dean saying that it was ok for her to leave campus before 5:30. I, on the other hand, frequently leave more than once during the day to run errands etc. I find this very unfair though typical of the Chinese mindset in terms of administration here. They seem to see nothing wrong with this double standard.
4.) Diapers are not really used by most babies here. Pants have a slit through the crotch which allows the babies to be held over the grass when infants and to just squat when toddlers. This would seem to be very un-hygenic and make for potentially dangerous walking through the streets, but these problems do not seem to exist. Now that it is warmer out I see more and more babies with their butts hanging out of their pants.
5.) Street food is really, really good. I have written about it before and will write a top-10 foods from China list soon, but I already can tell that I will miss street food when I get back to America.
6.) Mandarin Chinese seems to be a very difficult language to get started in, but it builds on itself so as I go along it should get easier...or at least that is what I am telling myself. If anyone in the Grand Rapids area that reads this knows of a potential Mandarin tutor can you see if they would be interested in meeting a few days a week this fall when I am back in town. I really want to keep working at the language and will need some help when I am back in the States.
7.) Vacation is fast approaching. In less than a week I will be off to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Warriors as well as other sights. I am getting excited. Mid-term exams are this week so we will see how those go.
8.) I love China... which leads me to #'s 9 and 10
9.) I miss home also but...
10.) I really love China :)
Zai Jian, all the best.
Gao Tian
3.23.2007
Tales from the Chinese Classroom
Sorry that there have not been many updates this week. It has been a busy week of pretty much nothing, which happens every once and a while, even here in China. Also, this week this blog service has been blocked in China. I am able to add posts but I cannot check the blog myself. Needless to say, the ever changing state of Freedom of Speech in China is somewhat frustrating.
Teaching continues to go very well. I have been getting good reviews from the other teachers though I do take these with a grain of salt at times. They claim that the kids enjoy my lectures which is nice to hear, regardless of the absolute validity of it. Last week I did have my first run-in with one of my students...a lovely young lad named King. He is very talkative in class and I asked him to please sit in his seat quietly while I am lecturing. He proceeded to continue to talk for most of the rest of the class. The next class I had him in he again began to talk and I singled him out in front of the whole class -- sidenote...this is a pretty major deal here in China since "face" is so important. This is the idea that you never allow another person to lose face in public, that you make sure that you do not point out flaws and mistakes in front of peers. This especially applies to business interactions, but it does also extend into personal interactions... which of course I was aware of when I made the conscious decision to point out his behavior. I told him that his behavior was unacceptable and that he was disrespectful to me last week and I do not expect it to happen again this year. This made him quiet down, but it also led him to take out his cell phone and begin to text people with it. I went over to him and asked him for his phone which he refused to give to me until the homeroom teacher came over and yelled at him (in Chinese so I am not sure what was said). This did the trick and the phone was mine for that class. King, however, was not done with his behavior issues. He then began to not sleep, but just snore loudly in class. I tried to ignore this for a minute or two but soon had to kick him out of class which the homeroom teacher supported and even suggested if he would not stop. This put an end to the poor behavior and the remainder of class proceeded well. At the end of the class King came and apologized, claiming that his lack of English was one of the reasons that he does not pay attention. I am happy to report that on Wednesday, when I had him again, he behaved much better...not really paying attention, but not at all disruptive...he even kept eye contact with me some of the time.
This is so far the only incident that I have had with a student. All in all the students have been behaved very well. I was warned time and time again about how disrespectful the kids are, how little they care and how they are just generally bad. This has not been my experience at all. The kids are average middle school students. Some are very interested, some are totally bored, some sleep, some talk but nothing bad, just normal teenage behavior. These kids are in boarding school, most for not the first time. They have been placed in more or less the middle of nowhere and required to go to school from 7:50 in the morning to 9:00 at night. they have 2 hours for lunch and another 2 hours for dinner, but outside of this, they are in the classroom all day. In middle school under these conditions, I would have struggled to pay attention as well. I think that I may still be in a honeymoon phase aided by my height and the fact I am a male, but I also think that some of the other teachers may have unrealistic expectations of what Middle and High School kids are like. Given the repeated warnings, I have been very impressed with the behavior I have experienced.
Other than this I have been doing very well. This weekend I am very excited to start meeting with a tutor for Mandarin Lessons. I have already picked up a lot through necessity and the help of friends and colleagues but working with a tutor will hopefully focus my study on a good progression of knowledge. I feel that my current focus of study is mostly on tourist language, things like directions, place names and how to order food. All useful things, but in terms of overall language ability pretty minor. The other exciting piece of news this week is I have received a new name, a Chinese name. My English Club students named me last night Gao Tian. Gao is the Chinese word for Tall and Tian means sky so together this means either endless sky, tall sky or large ambitions. Other possibilities that they considered using Gao as my surname included (English translations) tall chocolate, Colgate and a few other products, all of which they found to be very humorous possibilities. I am working on remembering how to write it in Chines characters as well.
Signing off from Huijia,
高天
Teaching continues to go very well. I have been getting good reviews from the other teachers though I do take these with a grain of salt at times. They claim that the kids enjoy my lectures which is nice to hear, regardless of the absolute validity of it. Last week I did have my first run-in with one of my students...a lovely young lad named King. He is very talkative in class and I asked him to please sit in his seat quietly while I am lecturing. He proceeded to continue to talk for most of the rest of the class. The next class I had him in he again began to talk and I singled him out in front of the whole class -- sidenote...this is a pretty major deal here in China since "face" is so important. This is the idea that you never allow another person to lose face in public, that you make sure that you do not point out flaws and mistakes in front of peers. This especially applies to business interactions, but it does also extend into personal interactions... which of course I was aware of when I made the conscious decision to point out his behavior. I told him that his behavior was unacceptable and that he was disrespectful to me last week and I do not expect it to happen again this year. This made him quiet down, but it also led him to take out his cell phone and begin to text people with it. I went over to him and asked him for his phone which he refused to give to me until the homeroom teacher came over and yelled at him (in Chinese so I am not sure what was said). This did the trick and the phone was mine for that class. King, however, was not done with his behavior issues. He then began to not sleep, but just snore loudly in class. I tried to ignore this for a minute or two but soon had to kick him out of class which the homeroom teacher supported and even suggested if he would not stop. This put an end to the poor behavior and the remainder of class proceeded well. At the end of the class King came and apologized, claiming that his lack of English was one of the reasons that he does not pay attention. I am happy to report that on Wednesday, when I had him again, he behaved much better...not really paying attention, but not at all disruptive...he even kept eye contact with me some of the time.
This is so far the only incident that I have had with a student. All in all the students have been behaved very well. I was warned time and time again about how disrespectful the kids are, how little they care and how they are just generally bad. This has not been my experience at all. The kids are average middle school students. Some are very interested, some are totally bored, some sleep, some talk but nothing bad, just normal teenage behavior. These kids are in boarding school, most for not the first time. They have been placed in more or less the middle of nowhere and required to go to school from 7:50 in the morning to 9:00 at night. they have 2 hours for lunch and another 2 hours for dinner, but outside of this, they are in the classroom all day. In middle school under these conditions, I would have struggled to pay attention as well. I think that I may still be in a honeymoon phase aided by my height and the fact I am a male, but I also think that some of the other teachers may have unrealistic expectations of what Middle and High School kids are like. Given the repeated warnings, I have been very impressed with the behavior I have experienced.
Other than this I have been doing very well. This weekend I am very excited to start meeting with a tutor for Mandarin Lessons. I have already picked up a lot through necessity and the help of friends and colleagues but working with a tutor will hopefully focus my study on a good progression of knowledge. I feel that my current focus of study is mostly on tourist language, things like directions, place names and how to order food. All useful things, but in terms of overall language ability pretty minor. The other exciting piece of news this week is I have received a new name, a Chinese name. My English Club students named me last night Gao Tian. Gao is the Chinese word for Tall and Tian means sky so together this means either endless sky, tall sky or large ambitions. Other possibilities that they considered using Gao as my surname included (English translations) tall chocolate, Colgate and a few other products, all of which they found to be very humorous possibilities. I am working on remembering how to write it in Chines characters as well.
Signing off from Huijia,
高天
3.18.2007
One Month Update
I cannot believe that it has already been a month since I left the United States. It has been a great month, filled with new experiences, challenges and at times even frustrations. The most common question that I am getting from people back home is have you found a home, a place to feel comfortable in Beijing and the answer is a resounding yes. I love it here. I wish I was a lot closer into the city than I am. It makes it very difficult to go into Beijing knowing it takes two hours each way, but I suppose it does help me save money.
I have come to appreciate Beijing for what it is. It is not the cosmopolitan city that Shanghai, New York and London are, instead it is the head of government, the place where decisions are made which I feel lends itself to helping preserve the foreign aspects of a city (for outsiders). Said another way, because this city is the face of China to the world, it goes out of its way to minimize the impact that foreigners have had on it, preserving the local flavor and culture. That is not to say that there are not numerous examples of Western influence, it is just not as in your face as it is in Shanghai. Every time I make my way into Beijing I experience another slice of authentic Chinese culture while at the same time finding out where to go for the Western, back home experience. I have come to love the balance between these two very different faces of the city.
In the process of falling in love with Beijing an interesting gastronomic development has occurred. I now find myself craving certain Chinese dishes far more than I crave anything in particular from back home. That is not to say that I do not miss the food from home, it is just that I have a generic Western food craving, anything could satiate the Western food desire but I tend to crave specific Chinese dishes. The major things in China that I have come to love are Jiaozi (Chinese steamed dumpling), grilled mutton skewers from Xinjiang (the Muslim province in China), Bolou Fan (fried pineapple rice) and Dai food in general (Chinese Minority group from Yunnan province, similar to Thai food). I could eat pretty much unlimited quantities of all of these items and often do. In addition to being tasty, they are also very cheap, especially compared to Western food. I have to admit that I did not see this coming. I still do not enjoy the food in the cafeteria, but when I get to go out to Chinese restaurants, especially holes-in-the-wall and street vendors, I have found myself in culinary heaven.
Another development over the last month is that I have come to think of Beijing as home, or rather a home where I pretty much know no-one, do not speak the language and technically do not even have residence in, but my home nonetheless. I am at the point where I am getting a little cocky. I suppose I will have to be brought down a notch or two, but until that happens I will continue to walk around with a swagger whenever I see other Western people. I especially get out of hand near tourist sites (yes, even when I am visiting said tourist sites). I look down on other tourists and think to myself, GET OUT OF MY CITY! I then remind myself that I have absolutely no right to do this, that in many cases the people that I am thinking this about may even have been in China longer than I have and in many cases have just as much command of Mandarin as I do, if not more. This is something that I need to work on, but in the meantime, it feels good to be at home here. As a side note to this, I feel that my Mandarin is coming along nicely. I have started to pick up basic phrases and with practice can tell a cab where to go, order in a restaurant, bargain (I know all of my numbers now) and generally do tourist things. These are all accomplished with very bad pronunciation, but my point seems to get across. I have found that the Chinese people are very accommodating and forgiving when it comes to their language. They are quick to complement any attempts at Mandarin and will assist with pronunciation and do their best to understand my meaning. It is refreshing compared to my other experience with using my minimal knowledge of French in Paris where they will not even pretend to understand even when the speak English.
I have come to appreciate Beijing for what it is. It is not the cosmopolitan city that Shanghai, New York and London are, instead it is the head of government, the place where decisions are made which I feel lends itself to helping preserve the foreign aspects of a city (for outsiders). Said another way, because this city is the face of China to the world, it goes out of its way to minimize the impact that foreigners have had on it, preserving the local flavor and culture. That is not to say that there are not numerous examples of Western influence, it is just not as in your face as it is in Shanghai. Every time I make my way into Beijing I experience another slice of authentic Chinese culture while at the same time finding out where to go for the Western, back home experience. I have come to love the balance between these two very different faces of the city.
In the process of falling in love with Beijing an interesting gastronomic development has occurred. I now find myself craving certain Chinese dishes far more than I crave anything in particular from back home. That is not to say that I do not miss the food from home, it is just that I have a generic Western food craving, anything could satiate the Western food desire but I tend to crave specific Chinese dishes. The major things in China that I have come to love are Jiaozi (Chinese steamed dumpling), grilled mutton skewers from Xinjiang (the Muslim province in China), Bolou Fan (fried pineapple rice) and Dai food in general (Chinese Minority group from Yunnan province, similar to Thai food). I could eat pretty much unlimited quantities of all of these items and often do. In addition to being tasty, they are also very cheap, especially compared to Western food. I have to admit that I did not see this coming. I still do not enjoy the food in the cafeteria, but when I get to go out to Chinese restaurants, especially holes-in-the-wall and street vendors, I have found myself in culinary heaven.
Another development over the last month is that I have come to think of Beijing as home, or rather a home where I pretty much know no-one, do not speak the language and technically do not even have residence in, but my home nonetheless. I am at the point where I am getting a little cocky. I suppose I will have to be brought down a notch or two, but until that happens I will continue to walk around with a swagger whenever I see other Western people. I especially get out of hand near tourist sites (yes, even when I am visiting said tourist sites). I look down on other tourists and think to myself, GET OUT OF MY CITY! I then remind myself that I have absolutely no right to do this, that in many cases the people that I am thinking this about may even have been in China longer than I have and in many cases have just as much command of Mandarin as I do, if not more. This is something that I need to work on, but in the meantime, it feels good to be at home here. As a side note to this, I feel that my Mandarin is coming along nicely. I have started to pick up basic phrases and with practice can tell a cab where to go, order in a restaurant, bargain (I know all of my numbers now) and generally do tourist things. These are all accomplished with very bad pronunciation, but my point seems to get across. I have found that the Chinese people are very accommodating and forgiving when it comes to their language. They are quick to complement any attempts at Mandarin and will assist with pronunciation and do their best to understand my meaning. It is refreshing compared to my other experience with using my minimal knowledge of French in Paris where they will not even pretend to understand even when the speak English.
3.08.2007
Trial by Fire...The First Days of Teaching
So, I have obviously already begun my job here. I am teaching in a classroom for the first time in my life and so far I must say that it is going pretty well. The first week, however, was pretty rough. I have the world's best schedule...for now. I am not sure how I continue to get lucky with my jobs and class schedules, but I currently have the perfect schedule. I have 12 periods of class (with only 5 distinct lessons) every week with no classes on Monday's or Friday's. This may change however, as another teacher in the Middle School just resigned leaving a hole in the Social Studies department. I expect to hear soon if I will be adding some of her classes to my schedule. Either way, I think that I will still have at least one day free during the week to give myself more time to explore the city of Beijing.
I came here with the expectation of being primarily and ESL teacher with a chance that I would be teaching some history classes in addition to the ESL classes. When I got here I was thrilled to find out that I would be teaching primarily history with only three ESL classes. This is a great situation for me because I find it much easier to become engaged in the history material. Lesson planning is more straight forward (most of the learning in China is conducted in lecture format) and I am much more interested in History than I am in grammer. Here at Huijia (Hway-ja) there is a primary school, the bilingual middle school, an International Baccalaureate High School and the Man's College (the only all male high school in China).
I am teaching history to 7th and 8th graders. Ancient World History to the 7th graders who I only see one time per week and Modern (post 1500) World History to the 8th Graders who I see two times per week. In addition I am the first foreign teacher in Huijia's history to assist with teaching Chinese History to 7th graders (Once every two weeks). Chinese History has always been taught in Chinese, never before in English. I am excited to be able to bring a new perspective, a western perspective to Chinese History. My co-teacher (Mae) seems appreciative that I am willing to teach Chinese History and has encourage me to share my own perspective on issues, encouraging to teach a slightly different history than the book teaches. Mae sits in on almost all of my classes to (at times) translate for me. In the 7th grade classroom we split the teaching time 65%-35% with me teaching in English most of the time, interrupted by periods of clarification of technical historical terms in Chinese for the students. It is a great system and for the most part the kids seem into the lessons so far.
These classes have been going very well and I absolutely love to teach history. It is a great lesson for me to prepare lessons on topics that I am familiar with (and was in many ways before I was formally taught these subjects) to kids that have no idea what I am talking about. Topics that are so far removed from their worldview that they few of them have come across before this time. With my 7th graders I got to teach them about Reincarnation in relation to the Caste System in India and the idea of a soul, not to mention re-birth was completely foreign to them. By the end of the lesson it was clear that they did grasp the concept through their questions. In 8th grade this week I taught about the Slave Trade to the America's. In the United States we are taught about slavery (or at least I was) from a very young age and throughout our time in school we begin to grasp the realities of this embarrassing chapter in our nations history. Imagine getting all the gruesome, heart wrenching details of this period without any prior knowledge of the subject. That is what I was able to share with the kids this week, teaching them the reality of this horrible period in my nation's history, revealing to them that there are times in every nation's past that when looked back upon, does not make sense. This willingness to evaluate and critique past mistakes is something that is still pretty uncommon in Chinese culture. The status quo through propaganda is still alive and well here.
In addition to my History classes I am also teaching English in the Man's College. This is a small school (about 80 kids) that has a somewhat militiristic curriculum. I am the only foreign teacher that has been in the school this year. I teach three classes and I was given very basic instructions by the Dean of the school on how I should teach...he said "it is more important that the student's like you than it is for them to learn grammer" (through a translator so the translation may be just a bit off). I can handle those sorts of instructions. I only see these classes one time per week and so far we have had very casual conversations about a variety of topics. It is very informal and I question if I am doing enough with them. It is my hope that through these casual conversations I am able to expand their vocabularies and increase their comfort with the English language.
Life here is pretty good. I am waiting for the weather to warm up a bit, but all in all I am loving it here. There will be more updates soon. Everyone try to stay safe.
I came here with the expectation of being primarily and ESL teacher with a chance that I would be teaching some history classes in addition to the ESL classes. When I got here I was thrilled to find out that I would be teaching primarily history with only three ESL classes. This is a great situation for me because I find it much easier to become engaged in the history material. Lesson planning is more straight forward (most of the learning in China is conducted in lecture format) and I am much more interested in History than I am in grammer. Here at Huijia (Hway-ja) there is a primary school, the bilingual middle school, an International Baccalaureate High School and the Man's College (the only all male high school in China).
I am teaching history to 7th and 8th graders. Ancient World History to the 7th graders who I only see one time per week and Modern (post 1500) World History to the 8th Graders who I see two times per week. In addition I am the first foreign teacher in Huijia's history to assist with teaching Chinese History to 7th graders (Once every two weeks). Chinese History has always been taught in Chinese, never before in English. I am excited to be able to bring a new perspective, a western perspective to Chinese History. My co-teacher (Mae) seems appreciative that I am willing to teach Chinese History and has encourage me to share my own perspective on issues, encouraging to teach a slightly different history than the book teaches. Mae sits in on almost all of my classes to (at times) translate for me. In the 7th grade classroom we split the teaching time 65%-35% with me teaching in English most of the time, interrupted by periods of clarification of technical historical terms in Chinese for the students. It is a great system and for the most part the kids seem into the lessons so far.
These classes have been going very well and I absolutely love to teach history. It is a great lesson for me to prepare lessons on topics that I am familiar with (and was in many ways before I was formally taught these subjects) to kids that have no idea what I am talking about. Topics that are so far removed from their worldview that they few of them have come across before this time. With my 7th graders I got to teach them about Reincarnation in relation to the Caste System in India and the idea of a soul, not to mention re-birth was completely foreign to them. By the end of the lesson it was clear that they did grasp the concept through their questions. In 8th grade this week I taught about the Slave Trade to the America's. In the United States we are taught about slavery (or at least I was) from a very young age and throughout our time in school we begin to grasp the realities of this embarrassing chapter in our nations history. Imagine getting all the gruesome, heart wrenching details of this period without any prior knowledge of the subject. That is what I was able to share with the kids this week, teaching them the reality of this horrible period in my nation's history, revealing to them that there are times in every nation's past that when looked back upon, does not make sense. This willingness to evaluate and critique past mistakes is something that is still pretty uncommon in Chinese culture. The status quo through propaganda is still alive and well here.
In addition to my History classes I am also teaching English in the Man's College. This is a small school (about 80 kids) that has a somewhat militiristic curriculum. I am the only foreign teacher that has been in the school this year. I teach three classes and I was given very basic instructions by the Dean of the school on how I should teach...he said "it is more important that the student's like you than it is for them to learn grammer" (through a translator so the translation may be just a bit off). I can handle those sorts of instructions. I only see these classes one time per week and so far we have had very casual conversations about a variety of topics. It is very informal and I question if I am doing enough with them. It is my hope that through these casual conversations I am able to expand their vocabularies and increase their comfort with the English language.
Life here is pretty good. I am waiting for the weather to warm up a bit, but all in all I am loving it here. There will be more updates soon. Everyone try to stay safe.
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