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Monday, May 6, 2013

Week 5 Hangzhou, China 2011


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!
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.

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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.

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            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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