I keep getting new students. At first, the guy who funds this place would walk in with some friends of his and ask if I could include their teenage child who is on break from school. Sure. Great. No Problem. I got 3 of those, I think, and they all disappeared after a few classes.
Two days ago, I was approached by an employee here and informed that a new student would be joining my class that evening. I made an extra copy of the current materials, and welcomed him. Yesterday, 3 young men showed up to join my class. Assuming they were sent by someone affiliated with the center, I let them in. Between classes, I ran into the owner and asked who they were. He was surprised, and suggested that I was getting famous and he should call the newspaper to come interview me.
Today, a young woman showed up and said she had heard about a foreigner who teaches English, and wanted to join. It’s not like I’m the only game in town. There are other long-term volunteers teaching free classes out at ETTI. So I’m apparently getting popular. It makes me wish I had been able to pick some of these folks up as private students. PAYING private students.
At one point, I was down to 2 students in my Beginners Who Can Read a Little class, and this week I’ve been between 6 and 10 with a possibility of 3 more. It is now a Middle Beginner to High Intermediate class, with material suited for the lower students.
I’m deviating from the book more, and this week we’ve had some lessons on comparative and superlative adjectives. It’s not the most fun in the world, but sure as hell beats another day of “turn to page 12 in your workbook”. About a half an hour before the first class today, I decided to google “superlative song” to see if anything good popped up. On a forum somewhere, someone recommended “My Love” by Petula Clark. Doesn’t ring a bell? I’ll give you a hint:
My love is deeper than the deepest ocean, softer than a sigh.
JACKPOT!
I downloaded it and transferred it to my mp3 player and played it at the end of class. I asked the students to raise their right hand when they hear a comparative adjective, and their left hand when they hear a superlative. It’s a really fast song, so I did it with them and let them copy me.
This evening for the second class, I’ll have a lyric printout for them so they can read through and circle the words first. We’ll listen a few times and hopefully I can get them to sing along 
I’ve been planning to show Finding Nemo in my class all week. I watched it ahead of time, taught necessary vocab and cultural references beforehand, and typed up a short list of questions for them to answer during the movie.
I’ve used a bunch of projectors for various presentations throughout college and grad school, so I thought I was giving myself about 12 minutes too many when I started to set up 15 minutes before class. Unfortunately, the sound system here isn’t set up to hook into a computer, so we had picture but no sound. One of the students said he had seen the movie at the Handicraft Center, so I sent him over to borrow the DVD.
They didn’t have it. So we’re watching The Jungle Book instead. Fifteen minutes into the movie, and I’m not happy. Half the characters speak with British accents, the narrators use vocab the students don’t know, and Baloo told Mogli he was “gonna learn him” how to do something. Shoot me now. On top of all that, it’s old Disney, which means it doesn’t have any adult appeal built into the script. I have one 14-year-old student who is laughing a lot, but it’s really too childish for everyone else. It’s a nice break from the textbook though, so we’ll see if they want to finish it during the evening class.
I got very little sleep Wednesday and Thursday nights, though Thursday I got myself to sleep with a few drops of Rescue Remedy. The anticipation of my first class on Friday led to some pretty typical (for me) anxiety that was pointless in the end.
I teamed up with the teacher who has been working with a few of them for an hour in the evening, which helped to make sure they understood my directions. She can speak Mandarin and is happy to team teach with me for the 2 weeks she has left here. It will be a nice transition. The students are eager to do whatever we ask, which is pretty awesome given that the typical Chinese classroom involves a room full of silent students staring up at a jabbering teacher. The last half of the first class involved my students standing up and pairing up to practice introductory small talk, with an emphasis on various responses to “How are you?”. Two students were a bit lower than the others, so I coached them a little bit at the start. After 3 or 4 minutes, the whole glass was grinning, mingling, and exchanging vigorous handshakes. It WAS a bit ridiculous since they’ve all known one another for months at least, but they got a kick out of it. I loved it too, and it really helped me relax since, of course, the “technology” was acting up.
For the second class, I didn’t use the large whiteboard on the wall much, since it involves standing on a raised platform behind a large desk while the students sit on the floor. Instead, the other teacher and I pulled out cushions for ourselves and sat in front of them with a smaller whiteboard between us on the floor. I’m not sure what the students thought of it, but it was WAY less weird for me. At my height, I’m not meant to tower over anyone.
So Monday I resume teaching them, and Tuesday I start helping out at the local primary school where the English teacher doesn’t speak English. It should be interesting, and I hope I can convince the teacher or her school to pay me for private tutoring. Eight months of seeing me once a week might be a little helpful for the kids, but improving the teacher’s English will hopefully have a more lasting impression.
I’m considering using some American television shows to help my students practice listening and learning casual spoken English. I initially thought of using Star Trek, but I feel like the amount of specialized, not really English vocabulary (dilithium crystals, anyone?) and bad acting would make it a poor choice if I want to showcase how people actually talk to one another. If my students started speaking like Spock or having McCoy-esque outbursts, I think they’d have trouble communicating.
Friends is apparently used quite often here for that purpose, and you can even buy a big Friends-themed Teach Yourself English! kit at the bookstore. I’m hoping for something a little different…a little less white-people-at-a-coffeeshop. Is there a decent sitcom that doesn’t feature an affluent family in a huge home?
One of the great resources at WESLI/MTTP was a huge file drawer full of pictures for our use. They had obviously been collected over many years, and had been sorted into many very specific categories. I used a bunch for my lesson on weather, and they come in handy for inspiring creative writing. Each trainee was encouraged to build their own file of pictures and other “realia” to prepare for teaching.
Fast forward to China
I have no picture file, didn’t bring (and can’t think of) any appropriate realia, and am not teaching yet. As I continue with my Tibetan lessons, I often think, “If only I had a picture to show her what I mean!” So I’ve started buying magazines.
- Movie magazines are full of solo shots of actors (which I’m using for emotions and hair color) and even better, stills from the films. I’ve already chopped one up, and might get another today.
- National Geographic is good for just about anything, but I’m reluctant to cut it up. For a little under $5, I can get it in English, so it’s a nice supplement to my Kindle. Anyway, I took the January issue to my lesson the other day, and was able to ask about the words for various animals and landscape features. When sitting in a restaurant, it’s otherwise pretty difficult to ask about grass, rocks, and tigers.
- What else? Magazines in China are wrapped in plastic, so it’s hard to see how many pictures are inside. Suggestions are welcome.
Organization
In the Philippines back in 2000 I had this great plastic accordion file that I used to sort my schoolwork and other papers. It didn’t work to keep me organized, but I still thought it was great. I wish I had thought to bring it since it closed with elastic.
After a bit of hunting, I managed to find one here that closes with velcro (boo) and started to fill it with snips of Pierce Brosnan (calm) and Jackie Chan (happy). I’m resisting the urge to use a picture of Roman Polanski to teach words such as “rapist” and “coward”, and instead using it for grey hair. As soon as I get another grey hair pic…he’s gone.
Durability
I brought 2 rolls of contact paper, but I think those might be better saved for games. Pictures (hopefully) won’t get beat up as much. I think a glue stick and some cardstock will suffice.
PLEASE let me know if you have any suggestions for building and preserving my picture file. Pretty soon I’ll have to start using it!
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.
I recently posted on a popular forum for ESL/EFL teachers asking about things they wish they had or hadn’t brought with them. I also offered to bring some things with me for them.
Some folks posted helpful advice -
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