A Smorgasbord of Business

Excuses, excuses

Well, I figured I better make a posting before my blog seemed officially inactive. I realize it's been a bit of time since I've posted. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth (or into the stagnant ponds on campus)...I've simply been busy with classes and a cluster of new developments.

Adult Oral English

So, my blog-absence began in early April when I started teaching a new oral English class for non-English department teachers. I teach the class on Thursday evenings from 7-9 p.m. The addition of that class makes for a busy day. I have my office hours on Thursday from 10-12 and then British culture class from 3:50-5:00 p.m. I thought that I would always be exhausted by the time I got to the evening class, but usually I'm relieved to have the previous things of the day out of the way and am energized to work with the teachers. When I initially started the class about 53 people signed up. However, that is obviously way too many for an oral English class. And both the Waiban and I were concerned about turning people away from the class. So I said I could teach two classes--one for lower and one for the higher level students. It's been great so far. The teachers are quite enthusiastic and seem to enjoy the things we do in class. Like in my student classes, I have to constantly encourage silence while others are talking, especially in my first adult class of older students. However, the second class is a lot more intent on listening to what others are saying. During the last class, students who weren't talking even got up and moved over to where the other students and I were talking (I had them each go around and tell me about their weekend to give everyone a chance at extended individual speech). After that, I taught them "Doe A Deer." It was a major hit. In the last class we went 25 minutes over the end of the class just to be able to learn the song (because the prior activity had filled up our hour). Even after that, several teachers wanted to stay after to perfect verses they were having trouble with. It's really interesting to get to know other teachers on campus who aren't in the English department, and now I have more friendly hellos as I walk around, too. This week we are doing an activity where the teachers will each bring a picture of something important to them. I'm going to have them work in small groups and describe their picture. Then I will have the groups stand up and different members will introduce the picture of another person and explain why it is important to the other person. If we have time we'll do a review of "Doe a Deer."

The Art of a Boring Speech

My second week of April (and the week preceding it) was consumed by my preparation for a campus-wide speech I was to give on April 14 about Earth Day. In a perfect world, I would like to have had ample time to prepare for the speech (since I have to make a Power Point Presentation slide show and do research for the speech). However, in reality, I was given just a week to prepare for the speech. But "meiwenti" as they say in Chinese ("no problem"); it just meant that the speech was a bit of a procrastination sensation project. I finished completing the slideshow after meeting my site mate and the Australian teacher for lunch. The biggest problem with the speech, however, wasn't that I was unprepared, but that the topic itself was boring (both to me and to Chinese students). I think that any explanation of global warming, the greenhouse effect, and the melting icecaps has the tendency to be non-riveting. So, I used the last slides to talk about cute endangered animals to perk the folks up. Although in the days preceding my speech no one seemed to know about the event, I was surprised to have almost a full room of students (all my oral English students came and many of my culture students). There were many follow-up questions (some that I didn't really know how to answer and some a bit politically sensitive), but it went well. I vowed from now on, I want to give speeches on topics that are popular and interesting...at least to me! Hehe. But all-in-all, I'm sure it was good to let the students know about Earth Day.

Speaking Chinese

Also in the past couple weeks I have been being a bit more social out of the university scene. Every night I go to the gym to workout and there are lots of people there who I share brief greetings with but hadn't ever had extended conversations with. One time when one of my students was working out with me, he said that there was a guy at the gym who was not a student but who had said he wanted to talk to me. My student introduced us. The guy, named Da Wei, said he could help teach me Chinese but that he didn't speak any English at all. After the introduction we hadn't talked. One day an old woman was trying to use the calf-machine and was using it totally wrong. I showed her how and then she started speaking to me rapidly in Sichuanhua (a dialect, a bit incomprehensible to me). I was catching tidbits and responding as best I could. Da Wei walked over and dismissively said to the woman, "Ta ting bu dong le." That means literally "she listens doesn't understand." As if! I was so understanding some things!!! Anyway, that day Da Wei asked me something. I thought he was asking about eating dinner but there were a couple words that I couldn't work out. So I just left it. The next day he asked the same thing and I figured out the word from context "yiqi" (together). So I said fine. I told him that I actually could "ting dong le," I just didn't understand lots and lots of Chinese. So he said okay. So we had dinner, and surprisingly we were able to communicate okay. So over the past week, I've had dinner with him several times, English-Chinese dictionary close at hand and have really made good improvement with my Chinese (combined with my progress with my Chinese tutor). Although Da Wei doesn't speak any English, if I don't understand a Chinese word, he can usually explain the context of the Chinese word to me enough with other words that I can figure it out. If I just can't get a word or concept we consult the dictionary. I've also taught him to count from 1-11. So that has been fun. It’s great to actually be able to have extended meaningful communication in Chinese. But then there are the days when someone will say something to me, and I don’t understand it at all—that puts me back in my place…hehe.

Cross-cultural communication

The most recent development in my schedule is that I will be teaching eight classes on cross-cultural communication to teachers in the English department. I got this news yesterday and was a bit overwhelmed by the thought of having four classes on such a vast subject to prepare on such short notice. But today I looked at a book on teaching cross-cultural communication, so I have a few ideas. I think it will be a good opportunity to get to know some the English department teachers better. And the classes will only last two weeks and then we all get a week off for Labor Week holiday (the first week in May). So that will be a much needed break—a little time to relax, but mostly time for me to do lesson planning for the remainder of the semester and to write the final exams. So, busy busy busy, but a brief reprieve within sight (hooray for May).

So, so long for now—more soon.

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