September 12, 2013
Three days of teaching and, as usual, it feels as if we have
been doing this for weeks. In a good way.
The teaching structure here is complicated and some of the decisions made are a bit bizarre. But we are learning to accept things and work within the constraints. All first year students are in the Enlgish as a Foreign Language (or EFL) program. They were tested prior to entry. Those who not pass the test were supposed to attend another program at a college in the city of Qingdao on the coast further south. The week before school started this program was cancelled, the students transferred here and the two teachers who had been hired to teach there were given the option of going home or staving at JULC. (They stayed.)
So there are two groups of pre-level one students, doing the
level one book along with six “real” level one. There are also two groups of level
two. These levels do not correspond
to the leveled designations used in Ottawa elementary schools but are based on
a text and an exit test. Each group
takes 90 minutes of “Reading and Writing” with one teacher, 90 minutes of
“Speaking and Listening” with another and 90m minutes of grammar with a third
Chinese teacher. Their only goal
this year is to pass an exit test that will allow them to take Academic English
and college courses in English.
The exit test was changed last year three week before it was
due to be given which presented challenges for students and teachers
alike. This year the pass rate
must be higher. So we have the
pleasure of very small groups (in my case 14 and 10) and planned curriculum common
tests and rubrics. There are lots
of EFL teachers. Including five very bright young people, graduates of a
college in southern California.
They are energetic, polite and resourceful. They are also all musicians.
One man was a vocal music major and starts his classes each day with exciting
vocal warm ups.
My students are wonderful. Most are away from home for the
first time, some a very long way away.
Although they are 18-20 year old, they present in class more like very
polite grade 11’s. We teach for 45
minutes, then a ten-minute break then another 45 minute to each group. I chose
to do reading for the first period then writing. All those workshops and years of teaching reading and
writing strategies are really coming in handy. This week they have been working on using jot notes for
pre-writing, chronological paragraphs, prior knowledge, scanning and text to
self connections. (OK that part
was for my OCDSB buddies J)
I’ll write about their dorm life another time, but suffice
it to say that the electricity in the residences is tuned off at 10:30, the
communal showers are 300 meters across a sport field and they have to wash
their own clothes by hand and hang them on rails in the halls.
I was nervous, having been out of the classroom for two
years. But, it came back. There
are times when 14 faces are looking at me as if I am speaking in Martian, and
then it is time for plan B or C or D.
But that’s part of the game and I love it.
Tomorrow’s classes were cancelled this morning. The freshmen
are going to a big ceremony at the main Jilin University campus about one km
away. I asked permission to go but
was told that foreign teachers are not permitted to attend by either our
college or the university. That’s just how it is here.
The students in my classes, those who were in classes I
observed since arriving and those in David's classes are very friendly, saying
hello on campus, it the dining hall, on the street or in the gym.
Yesterday I had lunch with David then went to the local gym
for a weight workout. After returning took a cup of coffee and sat by the sport
field watching the soccer team practicing and many individuals and families
from the community out walking around the track. Two of my students, Angus (!!)
and Alex came over to chat. The combination of the sport induced endorphins,
the coffee, the warm evening, the music playing on speakers over the field
(there I some kind of student radio station here) and the friendliness made me
very happy. At home perhaps. That
was enhanced by an amazing dinner of fresh shrimp prepared by David in our
small but more than adequate kitchen.
Wise teachers here say that our emotions will be like a sine
curve. At the moment I am feeling definitely near the top of the curve (near
pi/2.) When things get bad, it will be possible to remember the feeling and
know that, like the graph, we will get back there eventually.
No comments:
Post a Comment