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’ve been wanting to write about Taiwan, but traveling from a deliciously hot location back to a rainy, chilly, rather dreary one has left me utterly uninspired.
Suffice it to say that I LOVED Taiwan – the weather, the people, and the history. It’s had a rather strange trajectory, and it’s interesting to consider what would have happened if the other side had won. On the surface, it reminded me a lot of Seoul. Every block was crammed with private English schools, and traffic signals were respected by cars and pedestrians alike. I found myself telling the hubs that he should get a job at Taiwan University. “You can read traditional characters! We could live here!” (I could drink iced tea and nobody would think I was insane!) I would certainly have no trouble finding a job as an English teacher. Also, Taipei has a subway, so I got to be a subway nerd again.
If we lived there, I’d have to re-learn how to eat. Spicy doesn’t mean the same thing there, unfortunately, and I managed to eat some fries that had been breaded. The wedding banquet featured 10 gluten-free courses, 7 of which were seafood from the sea. Not carp. Heck yes I ate it. Other edibles included a egg-tapioca-shrimp pancake covered in pinkish sauce at the night market, a daily breakfast consisting of sticky rice wrapped around various fillings, and multiple servings of “egg pudding” (it was flan) purchased from 7-11. I passed on the stinky tofu. It was already stinking up my airspace, so why let it stink up my stomach?
I have pictures of tropical oddities and video to post, but that would require effort that I don’t have the energy for right now. Weather plus new (temporary) neighbors with a weird schedule have rendered this broad rather blah.
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 had to use that title since I was banned from making any Seoul Man jokes while we were there.
Oh, Korea. You and your respected traffic laws, delicious kimchi, active temples, and old and new friends. Why must you perplex me with your not-really-cheese-sticks, official lack of homosexuals, and actual lack of trashcans?
We’ve actually been back in China for a week now, but had 2 nights in Beijing (that made me think I might be able to really like Beijing), a day and a half on a train to Kunming, then the night train/bus combo that got me back to Shangri-la…where I immediately contracted yet another cold and lost my voice for about a day and a half.
One of the things that stood out about our trip is that I’m a total dork for subways. In Seoul, we used them to get to where our hosts wanted to take us, but in Beijing I purposely planned my free days around places near the subway lines. It was easy, cheap, and I got to zoom around in underground tunnels like a mole on speed. What could be better?
Our arrival in Seoul was on a Friday around lunchtime, when our friends were both at work. They had given us directions on how to get from the airport to Insidong so we could entertain ourselves easily. We found lunch (kimchi stew!) and wandered down the street to the old palace and nearby folk museum. It was easy to see that building wooden palaces made it too easy for the Japanese to burn them down; this was also the case at the old summer palace in Beijing. In a wide open space that used to be occupied by houses for concubines, we met a lot of magpies. They’re huge, funny birds that like to hop around, and I’ve heard that they are rather mischievous. It seemed fitting that they had taken the place of the concubines. The folk museum was our next stop, and I really wish we had had more time there. The displays were well kept-up, and the English on the signs was both correct and informative. In China you tend to see a lot of physical descriptions of an object on display, but no information on how said object was used or why it’s in the museum at all.
As we waited to meet up with an old HS friend of the hubs, I wandered into a little convenience store to check out some Korean snack food. I emerged triumphant with a little bottle of plum juice and what looked like a cheese stick. The hubs eyed it warily and thought it might actually be some sort of bizarre white sausage. After running back to the store to get it snipped open by the clerk, I walked back towards the hubs with a big grin, peeling the wrapper off the top. As I took a bite, he watched my face take on an expression of absolute horror and he laughed as I ran around looking for a trashcan. I had to settle for a large sack of trash sitting in a corner. It wasn’t cheese, it wasn’t sausage, and it shouldn’t have been called edible. I briefly recalled the clerk’s smirk as I was paying for it, and tucked away the rest of it so I could ask our friends about it. I pulled it out shortly after meeting them, and before I could even ask, their expressions simultaneously turned to panic and they shouted “Don’t eat that!”
In all, the trip was great. It was great to meet an old friend of the hubs’ (G) and his fiancée (M), and absorb teaching tips from them. I got to visit a very large yarn market, and was finally able to pick up buttons for the coat I’m making. It was also interesting to discover how much I had in common (including internet friends) with M, and we enjoyed taunting the men about how they were essentially partnered with the same person. She even brushed up on her glutenny vocab to help me figure out what was safe to eat and found a bottle of safe soy sauce for me to bring back. Lastly, their apartment had one of the most amazing features I’ve ever encountered in a house—sub-floor heating. It eliminates the nasty problem of walking around with cold feet, and radiates up to warm the whole place. The only downside was that we were sleeping on a guest mattress on this floor, so it actually got TOO hot at night.
In the middle of all this, I got to have 2 lunches and visit a temple with a Korean friend from my TESOL course. As she took us around, she kept mentioning how she had never been to certain places even though she was from Seoul. We were tour guides for her in her own city! The temple was really interesting too. I’m so used to temples in other Asian countries being tourist attractions. The one we went to in Seoul obviously had a large congregation, as they had a few thousand lanterns hung for the Buddha’s birthday celebration, and were doing some sort of ceremony for children when we were there. The place was packed.
As mentioned above, we left Korea and spent 2 nights in Beijing. Since the hubs was meeting with folks, I had the city to myself. I spent my first day wandering around the old summer palace, which has extensive grounds and both smashed and burned ruins. On day 2, I ventured out to find a store called Jenny Lou’s. It’s a well-known store stocking all sorts of imported goods from around the world, and I read online that gluten-free products were available there. The location I chose to try was in the section of town that held all the embassies, so I got to walk past a lot of well-guarded, identical buildings. I paused to squint in front of each one just to see whose it was, and noticed after a while that the guard in front of each one was picking up his radio when I stopped. I imagine there was something said about a nosy girl with a green bag, and I decided that taking pictures was out of the question. I never saw the US embassy, but did eventually find Jenny Lou’s. My purchases there were limited to tortilla chips, a grody avocado dip from Australia, fake nutella, and two of those Happy Cow 8-piece cheese wheels. Out of the 16 pieces, only 2 made it back to Shangri-la with me.
Me and cheese. We are friends. Unless you’re Korean “cheese”. We are not friends.
I have a strange feeling that my husband is a lot like my uncle Tom. My mom jokes that everywhere he goes, he runs into someone he knows.
Last night, we took the overnight train from Kunming to Lijiang to avoid the overnight bus. While buying our bus tickets to travel from Lijiang to Shangri-la, two excited people cried out and greeted the hubs. I know we weren’t far from where we expected to run into a lot of people anyway, but it was still funny. We ate breakfast with them there, boarded the bus, then joined them for lunch after we arrived.
My first impression of Shangri-la as we approached in the bus was not positive. The majority of the town is much like any other rapidly sprawling Chinese town, except that all signs are in Tibetan, Chinese, and a peculiar variety of English. It’s been said that the Tibetan isn’t terribly accurate either. The Old Town, which is newly built for the tourists, is quaint and lovely. All the streets are paved with big, uneven hunks of rock and the buildings are constructed in the traditional style. My only complaint is that I have to leave Old Town for things like toilet paper.
Getting Settled
Our room was not quite ready for us when we arrived at the Tangka Center, but the lack of mattress was remedied before dinner. I didn’t realize that the room he offered us is brand new. All wood, huge windows…I promise pictures soon. We still lack a few things like a trashcan, wardrobe, and bedding that fits, but I trust that it will all fall into place. Dakpa, our host, was excited to see us and took us for a rapid tour where we met the master painter (I get free painting lessons if I choose), the master Buddhist guy (I get free training in Tibetan Buddhism and language), and a number of the students. Tomorrow I meet with people in the primary school to see about teaching a little bit there. I have no doubt that I’ll be busy.
Another Climate Adjustment
Adjusting to Kunming was not difficult. I love warm weather. Here, we’re back on par with folks in Wisconsin and Michigan, though considerably higher up. Unfortunately, we sent most of our luggage with a shipping company and won’t be able to get our coats until morning. I’m a little nervous since all of my EFL books that I brought from home are in that luggage. I’ll happily replace all of my clothes, but losing the books would make things very difficult indeed. For now, I’m just grateful I packed my hat in the bag I carried with me. I’ll probably sleep in it.
I start teaching on Friday. Yikes!
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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