classes and holidays

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One of my grade four classes is notable in that the children get exceedingly excited about everything. Something as simple as a game of hang man typically results in kids standing on the desks, yelling out letters with a level of zeal and conviction that would put your average revolutionary to shame. Today we were playing a game that involved a group of eight cards posted on the black board, with short phrases such as “do some homework”, “watch a film”, “buy Mars”, and “eat a robot”. The idea was that the children were supposed to use the phrases to make a few short sentences, using past and future tense. Example: “Yesterday I did some homework. It was very difficult. I am a good student. So, tonight I’m going to do some homework again.”

The first round of the game was fairly normal, and it proved to be a good way to work on a grammar point that the children find difficult. For the second round, the children were supposed to practice the exercise in small groups and then choose one member from each group to present.

They didn’t.


Completely on their own, without any prompting from myself or my co-teacher on the matter, the children wrote a series of short plays using the prompts. They involved everything from dancing to epic gun battles. Some of them had costumes; one group did a skit about playing football with a monster, and turned one boy into a monster by taping a bunch of rulers to his head. All of the planning for this was accomplished in less than ten minutes, and involved a great deal of improv. It was a good day to be their teacher.



So… daily life stuff.


Christmas is coming, and even Wuhan is showing signs of it. There’s a tree set up by the mall next to the school, and a few other scattered Christmas trees in odd places. It’s not anything like it is in the States, but it’s noticeable. The foreign teacher group is planning a big Christmas party, with Western style Christmas food and everything. We’re also doing a secret Santa (I really need to go find a gift for my partner).

At school, we’ve finished with all of the new material for the semester, and now we’re just reviewing for the midterm exams. These are a very big deal here. In fact, the entirety of the students’ grades are based on these exams. The students are given grades on the tests that we do at the end of each unit, but none of those tests actually count for anything. The foreign teachers are running oral English exams. Basically, we have a five minute conversation with each of our students, and grade them on their speaking ability. This is worth (I think) forty percent of their grade in English.

Once the orals are over, we’re all free to go on our vacations. I’m still not completely sure what I’m doing. I’m planning on doing an intensive Chinese course for two weeks, but I have five weeks of free time. I’m traveling on my own, which leaves me a lot of freedom to just go wherever I want, according to my own choice, but I wish I was going with another person.


I’ve had some success in Chinese recently. I’ve had three of my best conversations in Chinese over the course of the last two weeks. I hope that the Chinese course can help me improve further.

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Photos

The view
The view from the top of the tower

pavillion
The pavillion at Yellow Crane Tower

Comments

[Ngaire]

Christmas in a far foreign land.
Wow, that class sounds like a really exciting group of very inventive children! How wonderful to be teaching them. I hope the oral tests go well, sweetie, and that you do something exciting with your five weeks. Perhaps head southward for some sun, seaside, and relaxation, where enough people speak English that you can really unwind ? Hong Kong is good, if a bit expensive, but what about a quiet little place? Big hugs. Wish I could send you a huge box of American Christmas goodies to share!