Re-using the Rice

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If The Boss was a restaurant manager, he'd would re-use the uneaten rice from customers and pick up meat off the floor because it was "still good". Cutting down on handouts at my rate isn't enough. Now I have to use B5 paper when printing two handouts together so that I just use one piece of paper. Of course, disregard the ridiculous surplus of A4 paper while pressing me to use a type of paper you have less of. Ugh. For a guy so intent on saving money, you'd think he would understand basic economic concepts such as supply and demand.

I'm starting to feel out who my SSESs* are. The others are smart, but are afraid to speak up for fear of being wrong or making a grammar mistake. Hard to set up an environment that's the complete opposite after they've been stuck in the normal Chinese/English classes (correct every tiny mistake) since kindergarten. Even with positive reinforcement, they just don't come out no matter how hard you push them. I guess I'll have to break them in a bit. After all, they've only seen me twice. The reading classes are already opening up to me a whole lot. Perhaps my tutor student is beginning to influence a few of them. Pretty much gotta do that with the other classes.

Hopefully, I'll knock out some lesson plans before going to sleep. I have an early class tomorrow. Should be easy since it's an intro class. As for reading, I'll come up with something.

*SSES = Super Smart English Student

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Comments

[kevin]

chinese are pretty bad at learning English, just like japanese. A lot of chinese started learning English from Kindergarden, but even after they graduate from college, they still cannot speak basic English other than Hello or thank you. but they do remember a lot of english words, so they can read, but can't speak. they learn English because they have to pass the exam.

[megan b]

china was the best vacation I ever took
I visited Shanghai last summer, and I loved it. While we were there, we set off fireworks in the middle of the Financial District, it was soooo much fun! The vid is on YouTube, I'll link it here so you can see it. It's amazing what you can do over there that you wouldn't get away with anywhere else in the world! We had a great time :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xvGyhGZ_w8

[The Circumnavigator]

They aren't that bad
While my students are not perfect, they can say much more than just "Hello" and "Thank you". My students are much better speakers than they think; it's just that they are afraid to make mistakes in front of the class. You have to not only teach them, but build their confidence to speak out in class. As teachers, we have to remove the fear of being wrong from their minds and that's very difficult to do. According to one of my students, a lot of Chinese-English teachers really break their ass on every little mistake they make. It's counter-productive to teach English in such a way because they begin to fear speaking in class because of that negative reinforcement. It's quite hard to take years of negative reinforcement and create a positive teaching environment by pointing out what they did right.