Friday, September 13, 2013

China Adventure- September 12, 2013- Liz back in class


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.


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