Just Past the Horizon

On Thursday morning I woke up with all the excitement of a zombie rising from the grave in a world without brains. It was time to teach my first two English classes, and while the first day is supposed to be easy, (Just introduce yourself right? Yeah. Right.)I was still feeling nervous.

Here were, in essence, my expectations when I arrived from the states: I will have a room filled with students who can understand and speak basic English. Furthermore, there will be a nice book that gives me a general outline for the course. It will give me a foundation to lay my own lesson plans upon. There will also be some nice Chinese teachers who can help me with planning my lessons and provide me with a curriculum to follow for the class.

I'm beginning to notice an alarming note of madness in my laughter these days. Who can say what's causing it?

The first thing that I found out was that the book is nearly useless as far as the class that I am teaching goes. There are some good topics inside, but most of the activities are all wrong for an ORAL English class. The idea of the class is to get the students to talk aloud and practice their English word use and pronunciation. The book on the other hand is half filled with listening and grammar activities.

The second thing I found out is that the advice I received for the class usually went something along the lines of "get them talking." Wow, thanks. The co-teachers, meanwhile, handed us the books for the class and told us to have at it. This was about as far as they went in helping us plan a curriculum.

I beat my head against the wall during the days before trying to figure out something I could teach my students if my introduction and syllabus speech ran out. (which they inevitably would, I didn't want to waist my student's time blabbing for two hours)

Now back to Thursday.

I walked across campus in the poring rain to my classroom. I had no umbrella. I was wrapped in my shower curtain which isn't exactly water proof. There are dolphins printed on it in bright colors.

I arrived early to an empty classroom. I plugged in my external hard drive, pulled up my power point, and waited for the bell to ring. Slowly my students filed into the room. I shuffled to the front in my waterlogged shoes.

"Hello," I said to them.

"Hello," they replied.

This was the bright point of the class.

From there on I proceeded to introduce myself. I received glazed looks from the class. Then I had the class do its first activity. I walked around to several students and tried to get them to introduce themselves to me. Four out of the first five students I spoke to couldn't understand a word that I said. They got a neighboring student to help them say "my name is" when I wouldn't leave them alone. This of course destroyed every lesson plan that I had prepared for the day.

I managed to stumble through two forty five minute class periods with these guys. I poked and prodded, trying to get them to speak English in as many ways as I, a completely untrained English teacher, could invent. I had wisely bought along my ESL book and in it were a series of simple English words that we could practice.

Add to the lack of English ability, Chinese culture. There is a term in Chinese that I can't recall at the moment, but it can be translated as "face". The concept of face can be related to that of reputation. Chinese culture practically worships face, especially the earning and maintaining of it. You know what a great way to lose face is? Give the wrong answer to the teacher while in class! This insured that I met with stony silence any time I asked them a question to which I hoped they would respond.

By the time it was over, I was feeling pretty depressed, and as I mentioned in the last post, overwhelmed. One of the veteran English teachers tried to encourage me afterwards, telling me that he had a similar experience when he first started.

"Everyone has to go through the initial trial by fire," he told me.

I thought it might be better to compare it to skinny dipping in lava, but you know, whatever. Apples, oranges.

Fortunately, I thrive under stress. Failing the first day only caused me to redouble my efforts for the next. And I did learn some extremely useful lessons. (all told I taught four separate classes)

The first thing that I learned is that you must break the ice between yourself and the students. The easiest way to do this is to allow yourself to be vulnerable. Be willing to make a fool of yourself. The easiest way to do that is to try and say Chinese words. The students find this hilarious.

The second thing is to build up to desired outcomes slowly. My personality isn't one to do things by degrees naturally. I wanted the students to speak to each other and to me, and I wanted them to do it right away. I've spent some time helping them build confidence in this area this week, and the results have been phenomenal. I will spend even more time doing it in the future. I'm hoping that by the last two weeks we might have some full blown class discussions.

The rest of it is technical enough to be boring, even to me, so I won't tell you about it. Suffice it to say that when week two came, I was back with a vengeance. English class didn't know what hit it. I actually got my students laughing and having a good time, which is more important than you would think.

I think the best way to sum up the last two weeks, teaching wise, is this. Teaching was much like a toaster. It left me feeling like a piece of toast that got left in just a little too long, and now is a black around the edges. But don't worry. I'm still edible. Things are settling down. Overall, I feel optimistic having met with some success, and I'm beginning to shift gears from thinking about teaching all the time to thinking about other things like writing and leisure activities. I'm also trying to figure out where I want to go for Chinese new year so I can start putting money away.

Before I go I've got to give some shout outs.

First, Chris Mckeever gets a shout out for setting me up with the Harbrace Handbook. That thing has been my constant friend and companion, reminding me about lots of important grammar stuff. Thanks Chris.

Second is Mark Wagner. I just like that guy.

Don't y'all be strangers now. See ya later.

Derek