Playing with money

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Bargain

Video and picture 1: MONEY DAY!! I spent about four hours creating enough fake money for about 150 students to play with in class. I wanted them to practice making change, so I had every monetary value from 20$ down to the penny. Good thing they loved the activity. Otherwise I might havae thrown myself down an oil hole, it took so long. They went CRAZY. I had never seen any of them so animated. In addition to money, I created wares for them to sell. (basically drew a bunch of random stuff on notecards.) They really got into, especially the bartering. Check out the video, it's a great one of my student Amy trying to make a buck.
Picture 2: This was my best class of fall semester, 5-3 sophomores. They are on a class outing to a lake a few hours away.
Picture 3 and 4: Halloween! I went all out for the classes. I carved a jack-o-lantern, covered my podium with fake spider's web (Thank you fabulous four, Tamar, Alexis, Luke and Ben!) put on spooky background music, turned out the lights, hid behind the podium, put a skull mask on, and jumped out, yelled "happy Halloween!" and started attendance in my very freaky voice. (side note. I often like to do attendance in a different accent each day, just to work their ears a bit. I think they liked french the best. Irish went WAY over their heads. Maybe I just have a bad Irish accent.) After a halloween story and some vocab, the students took turns putting on the mask and taking pictures. It never got old for me, who know why. The funny thing was, the Univesity was being evaluated that week, and "experts" were dropping in on random classes to evaluate all week. Luckily, no one showed up to any of my classes. Not sure if that class would make it or break it for the school.
Picture 1: English Corner. Ah, English Corner. A happy unheated room in the "English Village" where about 100 people meet every Friday night from 7-9 to practice English. All English teachers are required to attend three English Corners every semester, but are swindled into many more by the students. For us, English corner means a two hour interview with questions ranging from "what do you think of the Backstreet Boys" to "why do American universities provide free contraception to all of the students?" There is one guy who comes every week and asks the same questions: "What can you tell me about area 52 in New Mexico, and do you believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life?" Then he'll say something slick that he just learned, like "you're looking very SHARP today." Sometimes the questions get really annoying and repetative. Different students will ask me the same question about four times in one session because A: they were late and didn't hear it the first time; B: They weren't listening and didn't hear it the first time; or C: didn't understand and didn't hear it the first time. Then there are the really mundane general questions that I get asked ALL THE TIME. What is your impression of China? What places of interest have you seen in China? How do the Chinese people compare the the American people? Some of the questions can be really thoughtful though, and those I enjoy. They can be problematic though, because they turn into one on one conversations and can be boring for the 198 other people there.
Last picture: me at the chalkboard. Didn't know my student Cindy snapped this one until she emailed it to me. Kind of weird to see myself from their angle. Hmmmm, yep, I did have a pretty terrible Chinese haircut. And how on earth do they read anything I write on the board?? Yikes, I need to work on that.

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Photos

My sophomores
Here is one of my classes on a field trip. I wasn't invited. They were nice enough to send me a photo, though.

Halloween
They loved this mask. Thanks Greg.

English Corner
A place for a close and intimate conversation. NOT.

Comments

[Tamar]

Best teacher ever
Carrie, your students must love you! On the board, your writing goes up as you write- that's supposed to mean your optimistic. And it sort of looks like you're writing them an essay. Or maybe you're just describing how cool all of your American friends are- because that could take awhile!