Week 1: Done

And by "week 1" I mean the first week of classes.

Random bits of what that meant:

I taught the same lesson (introduction, class rules, that sort of jazz) eight times.  At least theoretically it was the same lesson, in practice it changes a bit between every class.  In the coming weeks, the most I should teach any one lesson is six times -- which is a good thing, because by the eighth time I could die of boredom.  Or teach it in my sleep. 

Speaking of sleep, I only saw one student asleep in class.  I can't say I blamed him, but I did wake him up.  Sleeping in an oral English class does not do wonders for your participation grade.

I had over 300 students.  Craziness.  No, I do not know all of their names yet.  I do know that I have students named Banana, Cherries, and Lemon; also Jack Black and Michael Scofield; also Fairy, Specter, and Vampire, and two girls named Belly.  There were two male students in the same class named Joy but one of them changed his name to Ross.  It may be a while before I have the names down. 

Here is how my schedule goes:  from 8-5, Monday through Thursday, I am in the office or teaching class.  Or eating lunch.  Or at a meeting.  Or taking class, because I get to take a Chinese class, which I am SUPER happy about.  Outside of those times, I am probably doing random things like stuff with my team, or cleaning my apartment (maybe someday I'll do a photo series to show how doing laundry works, because it's worth its own blog post), or hanging out with students (which is limited during September, because we're all getting used to teaching), or lesson planning, or reading a book.  Or sleeping.  Or a lot of other things.  Suffice it to say that I don't get bored, and there is plenty to do that comes along with living in China and learning how to teach and getting to know students.

My students call me Keeler.  Not Miss Keeler, which is how I have introduced myself and how it was written on the board, but just Keeler.  In class and out of class.  It cracks me up, and also cracked up my teammate Hilary when we were walking into our dorm and a student said, "Hello Keeler!"  ...that is probably something to work on.

I have one student who is convinced that I'm fluent in Mandarin, which is hilarious and very useful.  I'm not going to inform him of anything otherwise, so we'll see how long it lasts...  If you want the long version of how that came to be, it's at the bottom of the post.

But in the meantime, some apartment pictures.  :)

This is the bathroom (obviously) where my laundry is drying.  That grey thing is the laundry machine.  It also looks like there is a radiator in the shower, which I'm not really sure about... we'll see when the heat is turned on. What is not shown in this picture is my sweet shower curtain, which is white with bright orange circles.  ^_^

This is in my bedroom... my bed is a disaster because I was doing laundry.  That cool poster on the wall is from my birthday!

So, basically it is really awesome having tile walls in the kitchen.  It's like having an entire room begging to be written on with whiteboard markers.

And that is exactly what I did.  Saint Patrick's prayer, for one.

This is my thankfulness wall.  It's super colorful, which is one of the things that I'm thankful for.

 A real-life photo stream decorating my living room.  If you mail me more pictures, I'll hang them up too!

 More living room decoration.  I found black posterboard on the third floor of a random shop and it was very exciting.  :)

And a bonus picture of campus.  This is in payment for some awesome plumbing assistance over skype, actually.

 

The story of the student who thought that I knew what I was doing:
One of my students (in a class of 47, which is a different story all together…) was reading a book.  In class.  He was not being particularly sneaky about it, in fact, he wasn’t even at a desk, he was sitting in an aisle so I could see perfectly that he was reading it, not paying attention.  And he needed to pay attention.

I had told him nicely, when I was walking past, once or twice at various points that he should not be reading it during class.  Finally, I got fed up with it, so once everyone had started on their activity, I went to the back of the room where he was sitting with his buddies.

“Ni zai zuo shenme?” I asked him, irritated.  What are you doing?

It got an awesome reaction — his head snapped up and he began giving me a very long answer in Chinese.  I held out my hand for the book and took it with me.

…And he was sure that I could speak Chinese.

So he kept trying to talk to me in Chinese.

I (not having a clue what he was saying) said to him, “This is an English classroom.  You may only speak to me in English.”

“Do you speak Chinese?  Do you understand what I am saying?” he asked.

“In the English classroom, you must speak English,” I told him.  I sounded like a broken record.

But… it was pretty awesome.

And I don’t think he read any more in class.

~~part B of this story, from the next day ~~

I was in the hallway between classes and this student came up to me, again speaking Chinese.  Most of our conversation was an argument -- he wanted to speak Chinese and I was insisting that he speak English.  "I am your English teacher," I reminded him.

"I think in the class, you are my teacher, but outside of the class, you are my friend," he said.  "And my English is so terrible."

"Well, it gets better by practicing.  So I am your English teacher, and you should practice with me.  Then it will improve."

I'm shameless sometimes.