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Published: October 2nd 2009
Night Balcony
looking out at the city with my 50 cent light up Chinese flagHello Aliens, Sik jaw faan may?
Where is that large automobile.... Anyway I am in the midst of another holiday. I have about two weeks free for Mid Autumn festival and National Day. The communists just finished tossing themselves a big party because it was their 60th birthday on October 1st. Currently there are firecrackers exploding in the street outside my window and small puffs of smoke floating by my balcony. These are not your typical American firecrackers. They are heart attack inducing, earth shaking bombs. You know those super loud fireworks they use only at professional displays in the States. Well they string like 100 of them together and light them off in the streets. Not the best wake up call, I promise you.
There are large flower displays and Chinese flags flying all over the city. There are also a higher number of soldiers patrolling the streets with their machine guns. No one is going to rain on their parade. They are seriously uptight about having a good party. Look online for some clips of the parade in Tienamen, notice all the soliders marching have nearly identical height/build/skincolor/faces this was NOT by accident, the Chinese aren't that
My desk
This is where I sit! similiar. Everything has to be "perfect".
The other part of this holiday is Mid-Autumn Festival. People display tradional laterns and eat "mooncake". Mid-autumn day is supposed to be when the Moon is largest in the night sky. There is some old folk tale about some ancient couple lost in the moon but I can't remember. Everyone visits relatives and eats hundreds of these sweet little circle cakes about the size of your fist. They are made of and filled with a variety of crazy stuff. Most of them have been pretty good.
Next week, the second part of my holiday, I will be going to Tokyo Japan. I figured why not? But untill then I want to share some background information about my life. A little insider view of how I live.
A few people want to know.. well.. how did I get here? Do I have any training? Do I have any business whatsoever teaching children english? (of course not) What do I
actually do that anyone would be foolish enough to pay me for?
Well story begins my senior year of college. I decided I wanted to travel and live abroad after I finished
Bathroom
The big white thing above the toliet is the water heater for the shower. my undergraduate work. One of my friends, Jon, told me about the JET program. The JET program is basically what I am doing now but only in Japan. After thinking more seriously I decided if I was going to run around abroad for an extended time I should try to learn another langauge. Mandarin. Speaking English and Mandarin allows you to speak to over half of all people on the planet, it just made sense. Plus China is already this HUGE economic player and will most likey have even more influence in the future.
After deciding I wanted to move to China I had to find out a way to do it. I knew I could teach abroad so figured I would get a "Teaching English as a Foriegn Language" certificate. A TEFL Certificate. You can teach overseas without a teaching certificate but having one basically lets you get to pick what job you want.
Well Madison Wisconsin has a great English training school called WELSI... and my sister lives in Madison. So I moved to Madison. I worked and paid for my teacher training ending up staying for most of year. I really love that place. After
"helmet"
isn't that pathetic, they seriously wear these like it would actually help finishing in Madison I lined up a job, via the internet, to work in tropical southern China for a year. After all that Wisconsin cold I really wanted somewhere nice and warm.
Now I am working and living and Zhongshan China, and if you can't tell, really enjoying it! When I got here the school provided a quick 3 days of crash course training, but it was all review for me.
All of the students in China must take English class in public school. I am in a private school. I am not introducing students to English for the first time. English is everywhere, even outside of school, thankfully. The students focus intensely on reading and writing at public school. Coming to TPR (me) gives them a chance to actually speak. We do reading and writing too but the focus is on speaking. Many of the students are decent or good at reading and writing but are very poor at verbal communication. They rarely, if ever, get a chance to hear a native speaker and practice their english.
I can see students improving but it can be slow coming. Sometimes getting the students to speak english is
business card
my card, thats my chinese name, Gao Na Sen like pulling teeth. They are not used to it and can be very shy. With little children the progress is obvious and fast. Everything is pretty new and they pick it up really fast. As the langauge becomes more complex and they get older the progess is much slower. We play a lot of games trying to get words to come out of their mouths. Dialogs, open ended conversations and other things. I try to have the class be very dialog/coversation oriented. I want them to speak english, speak english, and speak more english. Coming from personal experience the only words you learn are the words you use.
I do assign homework but there is only one test. The test is a final that comes at the end of the term. The test is created and provided to me by TPR. TPR also provides me with all the school books the students use. The nicest thing they do is give me a "teaching progress plan" which outlines roughly how many pages should be covered by what day. As far as how I actually want to teach the material is completely up to me. I have the book and it
My bed
My bed and door to the balcony. I'm the 8th floor. often has suggestions but they are only suggestions. I typically sit down and spend something like 10 minutes to half and hour planning a lesson. I know a lot of games and activities off the top of my head, but I also use the internet for ideas.
We do have other teachers and staff ocassionaly sit in during class. They will observe and make reccomendations after the class. There is a shared teachers office. I never use it. I keep all my books at my apartment and plan there.
Thats about it, I think.. right? In the pictures I have included shots of my school, apartment, and other day to day things that occupy my life... Anywhos Im SUPER excited about visiting Tokyo. I will report back with tons of pictures next week. Your questions are always welcomed and appreciated. Untill then go out and see something new - Zai Jian!
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Grandma Koffel
non-member comment
Great message
Nate, I just printed your latest epistle. What an exciting adventure!. I love reading the news from China. Keep those e-mails coming. Love, Grandma