Work

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So it's been a while since I last posted.

I'm still living with my friend James, and have been working at Hampson English for 6 days now. The way things work there is that you have demos, which are 15-20 minute meetings with potential students to see if they like you or not. Each student has demos with 2-3 different teachers, and then they get to pick which one they like the most. If a student likes you, the Chinese staff arrange a time when both of you are available to have classes.
Classes can either be 50 minutes, or 100 at a time. Right now I'm up to 23 hours a week, which, I've been told, is the most any teacher at this branch has ever gotten on their first week, and I've still got a day to go. Lots of students prefer Americans because of the accent, so that helps, and then a lot also want a teacher who can speak Chinese, another advantage. Here's the interesting thing. My students range from a 2 year old to a 60-something year old, and range from complete beginners (not even talking about the 2 year old here, he's been taking private lessons since he was 6 months old...gotta love Chinese parents) to one guy who owns his own natural resource import/export company and has excellent English, and just wants to improve his accent and grasp of idioms and other difficult issues.
So far, there's really not been a dull moment.
Most of the students have a decent grasp of reading and writing, as that is what is really drilled into them in the schools, but outside of the cookie-cutter dialogue that they are taught in school, they really can't carry on much of a conversation, so I have spent a lot of time just talking about various subjects with them and explaining vocabulary, some grammar, and what has proved to be the trickiest thing so far, metaphors. Due to the rigid structure of the English education in schools, most of them have a hard time not taking everything literally.

As for other work, I still have yet to hear back from the computer game company, but who knows, it may still be a possibility, trying to keep my hopes up, but even if not, I at least have this job teaching English that can more than provide for all my financial needs here.

Anyways, got class in the morning, so off to bed.

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