I haven’t begun teaching yet, and haven’t been able to pick up any temporary gigs here in Kunming. I generally spend my time split between reading and crocheting, and while this is nice sometimes, I need something else to mix it up a bit.
Upon our return from Jiangxi, I started putting out feelers for places to learn the dialect of Tibetan I’ll be learning once I get up to Shangri-la. My third feeler turned out to be a hit. I was directed toward a restaurant about 20 minutes from my apartment on foot and told that they aren’t very busy during the day. We ventured out there on Sunday for lunch.
It’s a beautiful restaurant on the 2nd floor of a building that includes (in addition to the main dining room with a stage) 3 banquet rooms. One is decorated in a Tibetan royal style, one more middle class, and one is an actual old-town Shangri-la kitchen that was taken apart and moved there. We spoke (er, the hubs spoke…I smiled and nodded) to a woman named Lamu who grew up near Shangri-la and indicated that she was willing to teach me. After negotiations were made (no pay, but a vague hint that some English in return might be appreciated by some in the restaurant) we had a fabulous and expensive lunch. We noticed her teaching Mandarin to a musician while we ate.
So today was my first day, and I went alone. This surprised and rather exasperated her since she expected to have a translator. After a quick phone call between her and my hubs, we began with some basics.
Lamu still relied on a bit of Mandarin throughout the lesson. I apparently have greater knowledge of that than she has of English, so we managed. I wrote down some greetings and common small talk, family words, numbers, days, months, and some colors. When she looked a bit stuck, I got to practice some of my teaching by miming things like “good morning” and “good night”, drawing a stick-figure family (that got a laugh), etc. It really made me see the value of pictures, and I think I’ll pick up a magazine or two before I return on Thursday.
Occasionally, she had to do some actual work, and the other women there started to get curious and wander over. Two had studied a little English, and one may even be high enough to be called a beginner! Since they didn’t seem to interested in teaching me (or maybe they spoke a different dialect) I started working with them.
Using the calendar I had drawn to label in Tibetan and some hopefully useful gestures, I started using sentences like “Today is Tuesday. Tomorrow is Wednesday.” Later while setting up my next meeting with Lamu, one of the women wandered up and exclaimed “Today is Tuesday!” They all giggled when I praised her a bit.
Brief Reflections
The calendar is something I’d like to use when I have a classroom. It should be familiar to the people I’ll be teaching, and it seems like a good way to begin a day. I recall my mother incorporating weather into her morning calendar lessons, so that’s something I can expand into later as well.
Since the women there (besides my teacher) seemed like they wanted to learn a few things, I’ll come prepared with a little bit next time. I’m still wavering over whether I should try and give them a little homework. Since Chinese students often have greater reading and writing skills, I’d like to fish around to see if that’s the case here.
So now I know a little bit about what it feels like to be an absolute beginner. There’s a lot of initial confusion, but things do start to click little by little. I went quickly from thinking she was asking me if I wanted to order food or have more tea to realizing that she was teaching me the word for eating. As I progress here, I hope to get more ideas for my own classroom.
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