Frustrating, but rewarding too...

OK, Tim, it’s Jennifer here (Tim requested that we tell you who is writing the blog entry because Sean and I are beginning to sound the same). We have been teaching for seven weeks now and the honeymoon is over for me.

Although we only have to plan one lesson for the whole week (and teach it eighteen times!), we are finding it hard to get these students to talk!

This is supposed to be Oral (Spoken) English class and yet I find myself talking to myself and looking out at a sea of oval, blank faces. The newness of us being Foreign Teachers is wearing off for our students and we are just another teacher for them now.

Students in China are accustomed to sitting in a chair for 16 hours a day and having teachers teach at them. They do not get to speak very much at all throughout the day.

So imagine it being your job to not only get them to speak, but to get them to speak in another language. Add that to the fact that they do not want to make a mistake because they will “lose face” in front of the other students and you have the recipe for a disaster; or at least a very, very long week of teaching...

True to my personality, I want to be the best teacher these children have ever had. So you can imagine my disappointment when I heard a student say to another student that my class was boring! My first instinct (in my head) was to be pissed and think “It is school, not fun time”. But after thinking about it, I headed straight to the computer to see what other Foreign Teachers are doing. To my surprise, my feelings and frustration are shared by many…especially those teaching in China.

After reading many stories from people teaching in China, I found that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. With my classes of 60+ students, I actually have it easier than some. I also have the luxury of teaching whatever I want to teach. I read what other teachers do in their classes and found some good ideas but not enough to hold me over for 44 more weeks!

Every teacher wrote about how difficult it was to get their students to talk. Some had even given up and were just bringing in movies to have the kids watch! Others found themselves having to put on a show each class and amuse the kids… like a clown, Sean may be good at this but I am taking this a bit more seriously...:)

Yes, I am a goofball and can be pretty funny at times, but it is hard to put on the same comedy routine eighteen times a week. It is tough to keep the material fresh and new, plus I need to keep in mind my audience. These kids are innocent so I must keep it not at a PG rating but more like a G rating.

And I have to think before every word I say to make sure that they will understand what I am saying. Sean and I have even found ourselves talking to each other in the same manner - slow, with perfect pro-nun-ci-a-tion. We have to remind each other that we are not in school! We are having to work on talking normal when we are together.

I have succumbed to the fact that I must go around and pick students to talk - they simply will not volunteer and they also have no understanding of raising their hand to speak. It surprises me that when I do pick them to speak, some of them just go on and on in English. It makes me wonder why someone with such great skills would not volunteer, but they do not. It is almost like they do not want to separate themselves from the class by speaking English well just like the person that does not want to talk because their skills are poor.

The Chinese are very tight as a group. No one wants to be different…whether being different means they are the best or the worst. It is better to stay right in the middle! This is so different than the West where everyone wants to be Number ONE. There is an old saying here that the tallest nail gets hit the hardest.

I am having a great time teaching though! I think that I am doing great for someone who has never taught a class nor ever thought about teaching. It is very rewarding to see the little light bulbs go off over their heads and they are such sweet kids. As I walk through the halls, the children’s faces light up when they see me. Who wouldn’t want that great feeling? It is also bringing Sean and me much closer. It is fun to talk about our classes and to plan together. I think that we make an excellent team.

I will write again soon. I have been ill with the same cold for weeks. It zapped the energy right out of me, but now I am back to normal. I think it was Sean mentioning that if I did not get better by a certain day; he was going to take me to the hospital. That really shook me up. I can not even imagine going to a hospital in China. I think that the air is very dirty here and there are germs that my body is just not used to handling. I am better now though!

Off to class. Zie Jian!

A pictorial guide to China...

As we head towards a new week of teaching we have been laughing about how unusual and perhaps, er, dangerous this place can be if you are not careful. We are contemplating getting a rope ladder since we live on the fifth floor of our apartment building, for example. I looked around the web, especially a really cool site called sinosplice.com, and found some ideas for describing what it's like over here - sort of like a pictorial guide to life in China.

Everybody knows how much we love it here, you can read what we are teaching this week here, so of course these are meant to be funny and satirical. The graphics (except for the last one) were grabbed from the ready.gov terrorism preparation homepage.

First off, I'd like to mention that being in China for any amount of time messes with your body. Especially when you first get here, actually, for about two months now we have been on again, off again. Systems most notably affected include the digestive system and respiratory system. We're talking serious diarrhea here, and dirty air which means frequent and colorful mucous. Get that? Glad we brought Imodium, and Sudafed, and tissues. Lots of tissues.




There are some seriously rank odors out there on the street. You've seen the hanging fish, meats, raw ducks, and chickens. Add rotting organic matter, urine, feces, stinky tofu.... But don't worry, soon you'll be gleefully playing "name that odor" with your Chinese friends!






About that food thing again...you will have some difficulty. This isn't "Panda Express," folks. Inconveniences include little rocks in your rice, tons of tiny, tiny little bones in the fish, pieces of chopped up bone inside meat. Then there's also the food that's just plain not good (like chicken feet, live eels, maybe?), or hazardous to your intestinal tract. But be adventurous anyway! You'll learn soon enough what not to eat. (Diarrhea, and the occasional food poisoning, are harsh but effective teachers!)



Sometimes the pollution is pretty bad. It might even make your eyes water some days, especially if you come from some wussy place with really clean air, like Florida for example. Dust is everywhere. Chinese people don't sit on the floor or ground or non-designated sitting places because everything is dirty. You'll get dirty. We get dirty just going to our classrooms everyday.





So you might find yourself washing a lot (at first). That's OK, though. Soon you'll learn -- filth is fun. It gives you "China stories" to call home about!








If you're coming to China, I hope you're not too tall. That can be inconvenient sometimes since the only really tall Chinese person is playing basketball for the Houston Rockets. It's also difficult if not impossible to find any size bigger than a medium here. Forget about large sizes like 10's or anything in a L or XL, so don't count on buying any thing fun like socks, or shoes, or pants.





It also helps if you're pretty healthy to begin with, and you've had your shots. Lots of shots. Sure, they have "modern" medical facilities here, but the standards may not quite be up to what you have come to expect in the West. And then there are the toilets; metal troughs built into the floor. Can't fight 5,000 years of progress so just accept that they are difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate most of the time. Solution? Pray for a handrail, always have toilet paper and hand sanitizer with you at all times, don't get sick, and don't get hurt!



Don't get too attached to elevators. In schools and apartment buildings with 7 stories or less, there are no elevators. According to Chinese building codes, elevators are only required in buildings taller than 7 stories. Hey, it's cool. Elevators are for capitalist wusses! And think of the health benefits of all the walking you'll do. We walk up 5 flights (80 steps) everyday when we leave, come home for lunch, have a break, in the evening...who needs an elevator anyway?




You might be impressed by the amount of computers in use in China. Internet cafes are everywhere. You won't be impressed for too long, though, because building code standards are so low that buildings everywhere are already falling apart scant years after they're completed.






One weird thing about China is that even though Mandarin is the official language of the entire country, there are tons of dialects which are incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Especially in the south where we are located, every town has a separate dialect!






The good news is that stuff in China is really cheap! Sure, the quality might not be quite up to the standards you're used to, but you'll get over that. When stuff is this cheap, you can just keep re-buying it every time it falls apart! Neat!







There's lots more surprises waiting for you in China, so come on over! Before long you'll be familiar with the slew of inconveniences inherent to life here. Then you won't be annoyed -- rather, you'll accept them with a smile and chime in with us - "That's China!"