"Teach Something"

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This term I decided to try a friend's suggestion for my final exams. Last term, I did them all in one week and asked my students to tell me about traveling to another country. This term, I spread them over two weeks and asked my students to teach me something. They could teach anything except paper folding ("fold it like this, and now like this, and like this...") and songs (because songs use someone else's words). Stretching exams over two weeks is quite common and allows the exams to feel less like a race and allows students to really show off what they can do.

Here are some of the things I was taught, with some additional notes for some:

Monday
How to cook tea eggs (Tea eggs are a traditional breakfast food and pretty good.)
Chicken wings
Finger massage (I would have happily volunteered for a demonstration.)
Earthquake protection
Rings on fingers and then table manners (These go together how?)
Importance of drinking water
Dressing for a job interview

Surviving a snakebite
Keeping healthy in summer
How to relax
"Cell phone + gas station = explosion?" (Yes, he wrote that on the board.)

A traditional Chinese love story
How to draw (It didn't work--I still can't draw.)
Math formulas (This student was surprised by my math savvy.)

Different uses for a refrigerator (Did you know you can keep a live fish in the vegetable crisper until you're ready to kill and eat it?)
Chinese chess
How to have a conversation with a stranger (This should have been called “How to pick up chicks.”)
How to avoid the summer heat (Going to Iceland was not suggested.)

Making dumplings (She brought in wrappers and I actually got to try folding them!)
Palm reading
Chinese Idioms
The Cha-Cha (Otherwise known as "How to make Kris flail about the room in front of her students.")

Folding a t-shirt (A really fast way--I'm guessing she's worked in retail.)
Magic
Making Kong Fu tea (A traditional tea in Guangdong province.)
Daily customs
Cantonese
Bodybuilding
Dumplings

Tuesday
Making a dragonfly out of a pop can
Making sushi
Coca cola chicken wings
Chinese dessert "Yangzhi Nectar"

How to lace a shoe (Apparently there's more than one way. But she did bring in a cardboard cutout of a shoe to demonstrate it.)
Marbles
Fold a boat out of paper
Paper cutting (This was the messiest presentation.)

Fried rice
Draw a pig
Chinese checkers
Sushi

Chinese card games
Coca Cola chicken wings (Again.)
Keeping healthy


Wednesday
Relaxing
Relaxing (I was ready to fall asleep at this point.)
Fried egg (Yes, really.)
Kung Fu
Break dancing (This was actually a lot of fun. My student is really good and his enthusiasm made me wish I could do flips, too.)
Raising goldfish
The history of a prominent homicide case

Basketball (minus the ball, thankfully)
Communicating
Dealing with relationships
Geography of China and how it affects climate and weather (He even hand-drew maps.)
Table tennis
Magic
Badminton

Dice game (This is a popular drinking game at Chinese bars. He was amazed when I said I already knew how to play. He then asked if we could go drinking sometime.)
Jazz dance
Drawing cartoons
More chicken
Chinese New Year
Mid Autumn Festival
Speaking Chinese…
Psychology of boys and girls
Japanese (My high school Japanese is pretty rusty, but still better than what she got off the internet that morning!)
Wearing a suit

Rollerblading (He actually brought in two pairs. I'm terrified of skating and hoped the pair he'd brought me would be too small. They fit. I discovered that even if my student has a death-grip on my arm and I hold onto a desk, my feet still move. This presentation could have been the loudest, based solely on my yelping and screeching.)
Cooking tofu (She even commented that as a vegetarian this was a recipe I could use! Bonus points for thoughtfulness!)
Draw a Tree. Then, we'll compare how each student drew them. Where they are on the paper, the size, etc, all mean something psychologically. (I determined her conclusions about me were wrong. What does that mean?)
Rubik’s cube (He could solve a Rubik's cube in one minute. We timed him. He taught us the math formulas to do it too.)
Making a Girlfriend/magic trick (Yes, the Chinglish for "getting a girlfriend" is "Making a girlfriend" and never fails to make me laugh.)

How to use makeup (I made sure the boys paid special attention to this.)
Coca cola chicken wings (Again.)
Taboos
Chinese customs

How to use chopsticks
Magic
Break dancing
Num chucks (This was the only thing I didn't try. And only because he didn't offer me the num chucks.)
Festivals in China
Confucian proverbs (He chose a few he thought were meaningful and we discussed his favorite.)
Improving memory (Uhhh, I forget what they said to do.)
Tic tak toe (He was genuinely shocked when I said I knew how to play this.)


Thursday
How to bargain
How to be a reporter and conduct an interview
Card magic
Using make up
Fitness skills
Orientation (on a map with compass)
How to debate
Uses for toothpaste
Sign language
Dragon Boat Festival
Magic
Stones/jacks
Chinese food
Making juice

How to chase a girl (Luckily, this student's girlfriend happened to be absent... and he asked me not to tell her what his topic was.)
Role-playing game Killers and Two Kingdoms
How to bring forth new ideas
Jelly milk
Here --> HK --> SF (This would have been excellent were it not for the multiple subway line changes in Guangzhou, walking half a mile to a train station, and the fact that I know there's a direct bus to the HK airport from Huadu.)
Makeup
Cars –which kind is best for you? (He even drew them on the board.)
World AIDS Day
Paper folding
Debating (I was disappointed there was no demonstration with this.)

Dragons
Kung Fu Tao Lu
Folding clothes
Magic
Drawing

Online shopping in China (It's not the same as in the US!)
Tie a tie (He said he keeps teaching people this because none of the other students know!)
Magic
Snacks (I wanted samples. Sadly, no.)

Eye makeup
The proper way to stand and sit politely
LOMO photography
Rice with chicken
Tae Kwon Do belts
Traveling
How to be a good boy friend (He's just been dumped by his girlfriend, so I suspect he was teaching us what he learned from her and the experience.)
How to knit a scarf
Social dancing

Magic
Chinese chess
Egg fried rice
What do to when there’s an earthquake (Panic was not one of the choices.)
Hand massage
Tomato and eggs (One of my favorite Chinese dishes!)
Dumplings
Using chopsticks and chopstick manners


How to learn a language
Fried rice with eggs
Cantonese
Guangdong province geography
Chinese Chess

How to improve English skills
PSP (Yes, how to play his handheld video game.)
Game on mobile phone
String game that didn’t work

Zongzi (A traditional Chinese food made with fruit or meat, glutinous rice, and then wrapped in a banana leaf.)
Chinese
Finger games
Craft batik
Local foods in the province
How to sew a bag
Family tree and the Chinese words for the titles


It's obvious from the list that some of my students put in a lot of effort when preparing their presentations. I was happy there was so much diversity and that their efforts often reflected their own, personal interests. (Well, except for the Coca Cola chicken wings.) These exams were the fun, perfect ending I'd hoped for this semester.

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Photos

Part of one of my Thurs classes
Each student also wanted and took a photo with me.

Comments

[Linda]

Fantastic ideas!
I loved this! I read this out loud to my 2 daughters and we had some great laughs. My husband, youngest daughter and I have lived in the Shangia area for the past 2 yrs and will be moving to Shenzhen in Sept. I had casual weekly English class/"English Corner" for my husbands co-workers and really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know them.