Aprils Fool's Day (愚人节)

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We just booked our return flights to the US and so the "Official" countdown has begun......

Days until we depart for Bali, Indonesia

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Days until we depart China for the USA

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We had to work on Sunday, April 1st in order to "make up" the few days off for Qing Ming Festival. Pete and Elyse being the pranksters that they are, knew they needed to pull a prank on their students since this holiday isn't widely celebrated in China. Being the cultural ambassadors that we are, we needed to educate them and what better way than first hand experience of a prank.

When we both walked into our seperate classrooms we advised the students that it was that time of year that we have our 1st Oral English Exam....BIG, BROWN eyes all popped out of their heads and the nervousness and anxiety set in. WHAT????? Can we have the questions? What will you ask us? No!!!! Their responses made Pete and Elyse feel like the prank was going to be classic.

We then proceeded to send all the students to the hallway and had each student entered the classroom one by one, for 3 short questions asked by their respective teacher. The students went in order of their student ID# and we knew we couldn't send them back into the hallway where the awaiting students would ask them the questions in order to cheat. After each student completed the "exam" we sent them to the back of the classroom to sit quietly while the next "victim" entered the room.

Elyse's questions:


• What is your English name?
• What holiday is today?
• What is my English name?


Pete's questions:


• What is my name?
• How old am I?
• Who is the President of the United States?


*The questions were rotated in order to confuse the students in case a student inside the room was sending text messages to the awaiting students.

After all the students were finished we then announced "April Fool's"!! Most of the students started laughing, some you could see the relief in their expressions and others were thoroughly confused by what just happened. Their facial expressions thoroughout the prank were PRICELESS!!!!

Are you wondering how the students actually did on the pop quiz?

Majority of Elyse's students got 3 out of 3 or 2.5 out of 3 if they knew the Chinese name for the holiday. One girl out of Elyse's combined 40 students didn't know Elyse's name! Her response, I know your husband's name is Peter. Elyse had to give her a hard time as her prior foreign teacher was Mark, never Peter. Only 1 of Pete's 20 students knew who the President was of the US (Pete didn't ask every student this question). This proves how test anxiety can take over a person when under pressure of speaking one on one with their Foreign Teacher.

Listening & Speaking are the hardest parts of the English language for the students as the education system in China focuses on reading and writing.

Leave Elyse & Pete a comment on what some of your April Fool's Day pranks were.

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Comments

[Mom]

April Fools
Their blood pressure was probably 220/130!!! Scared the devil out of them!