Week
5
Monday
I accompanied Courtney to her internship. She teaches English at a kindergarten
across town so we had to bike to get there. The Central program owns two bikes
that the students can use as needed. It took about 30 minutes each way and it’s
pretty exciting considering the amount of people biking in China. There is a
bike lane wide enough for a Hummer to drive through and still it’s crowded with
motorbikes and bicycles alike. When you’re riding you have to be careful not to
run into anyone else’s bikes, any cars that might suddenly turn in front of
you, anyone who happens to walk through the bike lane etc etc. Every now and
then there will be a car parked to one side of the lane that everyone has to maneuver
around. That’s probably the most annoying part. If it’s a bike lane there
shouldn’t be any cars in it ever! Just the other day Maryanne and I saw a huge
crowd gathered around front of the apartment. Apparently someone was driving
their car through the bike lane and hit someone who was actually riding a bike.
The driver of the car got out and started yelling at the bike rider for not
getting out of the way. This caused a huge back up (thus the crowd formed)
since the parked car was blocking the entire lane. I think that it would be a
lot safer if the cars and trucks just stayed out of the bike lane, but
obviously that is not the case. My back tire was somewhat flat and we had no
way to pump it up, so I made due. I never realized how difficult it is to ride
a bike with flat tires. Needless to say, I was pretty tired and sweaty when we
finally arrived. The school serves the wealthier families. It is completely
fenced off and also has an electric fence around the border of the walls. There
are even guards at the gated entrance.
Every
Monday the regular teachers lead the students in their morning exercises. They
played music over the loudspeakers and everyone went out onto the ‘lawn.’ They
lined up by class with a teacher at the front and the back to keep the students
on task. It was nothing like the videos I’ve seen online. There was almost no
synchronization among the students. It was pretty amusing to watch especially
the kids who were not interested in participating but instead wanted to play
with their friends. The exercises themselves were more like dance moves than
actual exercises. Then they had a formal presentation by two student
representatives (one girl and one boy) each of them gave a speech they had
memorized to their classmates. Then the two of them raised the Chinese flag
together as the national anthem played over the loudspeakers.
Courtney
and I were scheduled to shadow Ms. Li – the assistant principal and language
teacher. The classes we went to were the younger children (probably around 4
and early 5 year-olds). In China the students stay together in their classrooms
while the teachers migrate between rooms. Each kid had their own little chair
to sit in and they sat together in a straight line in front of the teacher. The
kids were called by their ‘English’ names instead of their Chinese names much
like how I have my Chinese name for my Chinese class. Courtney and I sat in our
own tiny chairs off to the side. She was taking notes while I was simply
observing. Ms. Li taught three classes total that morning, and every lesson was
about the same. She increased or decreased the difficulty based on the
abilities of each class.
She
started each class greeting the students: “Good morning boys and girls!” To
which they responded: “Good morning Ms Li!” Then she played a song for them to
sing and dance to. The lyrics to this opening song went like this:
Hello! Hello! Hello,
how are you?
I’m fine! I’m fine! I hope that you are too!
I’m fine! I’m fine! I hope that you are too!
Then
she would ask if they wanted to sing the song faster or slower. The students
who spoke the most clearly and confidently got what they wanted. For the next
lesson she had a collection of flash cards with different pictures of toys on
them. They included the words: teddy bear, ship, puppets, ball, puzzle, doll,
and robot. She would hold up the card and the students would shout the name of
the toy. Then she would ask who liked that particular toy. When she did the
students would raise their hands and shout: “I DO! I DO!” She would choose a
different kid each time to come stand next to her and say the basic sentence:
“I like (name of toy).” Then she had a puzzle for each of the images (no more
than 4 pieces each) for the kids to do. She would ask: “Who wants to make the
puzzle of the (name of toy)?” The kids would respond by thrusting their hands
in the air and shouting: “Let me try!” Of course some kids were more outgoing
than others and some were shyer than others. They were all equally interested
in staring at us, though. The last activity of the class was a game of London
Bridge. Courtney and I made the bridge while Ms. Li led the class around and
under the bridge. The kids knew when the song was about to end and some of them
stopped short so they wouldn’t be caught in the bridge. One girl even started
crying because she didn’t want to be caught. It was either that or it was
because we were strangers.
We rode our bikes back to campus
just in time to go to lunch and get ready for our own classes.
---
Tuesday
Courtney and I went and observed a college level English class for our own ESL
class. This class was held at another Zhejiang Daxue campus which was on the
other side of the city. So, the two of us had to navigate the bus system to
find the one that would take us to Zijingang campus. Through the various day
trips Li Laoshi has taken us on, we only knew of one bus stop and
(coincidentally) we were able to get on bus 89. However, we ended up getting on
when it was heading in the opposite direction. We discovered this when the bus
started driving by various areas near Yuquan (the campus we live on). It was
confusing because we couldn’t read any of the stops listed on the bus – I
figured: ‘As long as we are on the right bus, we will get where we need to go
eventually.’ The key is to listen to the announcement when it comes on to
declare what stop is coming up. It’s sometimes hard to hear because there is a
TV on the bus as well and that audio sometimes plays louder than the
announcements. That’s not a problem for people who can read Chinese, but it can
be an issue for those of us who can’t. Lucky for us, it wasn’t long until the
bus turned around and started heading in the other direction.
Once
we arrived at Zijingang we were left trying to find the East Teaching Building
#6. Our instructions told us to just ask anyone for directions. It seemed easy
enough except there was no one on campus when we arrived. Everyone was in class
or at lunch and so the entire campus was void of life. It was creepy, like
walking onto a movie set. We managed to find where we needed to be – only getting
lost once. The class room we were directed to was full of computers stationed
at hexagon shaped tables (6 computers per table) so we weren’t sure if it was
the right place. But we were, in fact, at the right place. We were just early,
so Courtney and I sat on the ground outside the room and she quizzed me on my
Chinese vocabulary while we waited.
Jiang
Laoshi (our ESL professor) came and found us a little before class started. She
introduced us to her colleague (I forgot her name) who’s class we were going to
observe that day. The topic of that day’s class was ‘Social Problems.’ Prior to
class the students had to read the chapter in their text books that dealt with
social problems and familiarize themselves with the vocabulary. As a warm up
activity, the professor played a segment from an episode of the Big Bang
Theory. It’s a pretty popular show in China, and a lot of people like the
character Sheldon. I’ve never watched it before, but after seeing that clip I
may start. It was really funny and a good way to capture the student’s
attention. Since the room was set up the way it was, each student had his or
her own computer. The teacher had complete control over their monitors, so they
couldn’t get online and be off task. With this set up, each student had a clear
view of the teacher’s powerpoint – which she opened on every computer.
Before
she started her lesson, three students each gave a short presentation in
English. The first student discussed the earthquake in Japan, the second talked
about English tongue twisters, and the third told an original story. It was an
interesting way to get the students to go beyond the requirements of the class
and force them to use their English in a new and creative way. After they were
finished she introduced the topic of ‘Social Problems.’ She asked if Courtney
and I could talk to the class about a social problem in American culture. This
is the one and only time that Sociology class I took freshman year has come in
handy. Together we brainstormed a list that contained obesity, illegal
immigration, gay rights, and problems in the public education system. While we
worked the teacher asked the class to brainstorm in small groups different
social problems. The object was for each group to describe one social problem
to the class and then the class would have to guess which problem they were
describing. Some topics they discussed were migrant workers and overcrowding in
the cities. Whenever a student wanted to speak, whether it was to present a
problem or pose a possible answer, they stood up. I was told that this was a
cultural characteristic of the Chinese education system. This exercise lasted
about 45 minutes. Then she asked if Courtney and I could describe our social
problem for the class. Courtney was nervous and afraid that she would talk too
quickly for them to understand so she asked me to speak instead. I described
the problem of obesity in America, because I felt like it was a problem they
would be familiar with. After we were finished with this exercise the teacher
allowed the students to take a break.
During
the break she encouraged them to ask us questions. We were asked the standard
questions like: Why are we studying in China? Do we like living in China? But
we also got asked interesting questions like: This one girl wanted to know if
Harvard students really stay up till 4am studying. I told her that since I was not a student at Harvard, I couldn’t be
sure. It’s not a surprising accusation, though. When break was over the teacher
presented another fun exercise for the class. She let them listen to a song by
Phil Collins. On the powerpoint she had typed the song lyrics with blanks every
now and then. After the song was over, she led the class in filling in the
blanks. After that class was over for the day. It was very interesting and it
made me want to observe more classes at the college level. This is the level
that I want to teach, should I ever teach English as a Second Language.
----
At the beginning of the program I
was asked to participate in a recording program for the development of a new
ESL textbook. Basically I would be providing the voice for the audio recordings
that accompany the textbook. On top of that, I was going to be paid for my
time. Sweet deal, right?
Again, I had to travel to a different
campus of Zhejiang University. This time it was the Xixi campus, which is right
up the road from my campus. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going so I asked
Courtney to accompany me. We opted to take a bus. Lesson learned: Never take
the number 900 bus, because that means there are 900 people on that bus. Not
really but that’s what it felt like. I’ve never been in a more crowded
situation than that. I was literally being pressed against another woman and
there were so many people I couldn’t find anything to hold on to. I was afraid
that we would miss our stop because we were trapped in the crowd. I couldn’t
even hear the announcements because there were so many people talking at once.
Luckily, just as we were passing the front gate of the campus I recognized the
characters that said Zhejiang Daxue and we were able to escape the bus.
We met the student assistant, her English
name is Cherry, in front of the library – which I was able to recognize and
locate even though the sign was written in traditional characters.
Unfortunately my male counterpart was missing in action and they weren’t sure
if they wanted to proceed without him. I insisted that we could make it work so
she took us to the recording studio. The room that I was recording in was the
size of a closet. I was given ten chapters of the textbook draft to read. They
told me that if there was anything that was incorrect or unnatural, I could
rephrase it. It was written in British English so that happened on occasion.
Since I was by myself, they had me read the passages first. Some of the topics
included: decreasing the amount of TV children watch and the history of the
London Bridge - really random stuff. When I was finished reading all the
passages, they asked me to just read the female part of the dialogs. During the
entire recording session I was trying my best not to sound like a robot and to
talk naturally – but not too fast. It was a lot harder than I thought, but it
was really fun at the same time. I think I would enjoy doing more work like
this in the future. Maybe work with recording audio books?
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