Well, it’s Tuesday, and as a coworker put it, it’s like vacation never happened. However, I’ve got two new classes this term, I’ve lost the horrible IELTS classes that I had no idea how to teach and constituted five extremely painful hours of my workweek, and I’ve got most of my afternoons off. I’m happy with it.
On Monday, we had a group of new students arrive from one of our feeder schools. My boss asked me to run up to say hi to them really quickly, so I obediently trotted up to the second floor into a room full of students and their parents. Some of the Chinese staff were speaking to them about rules and what-have-you (I’m guessing), and one of them turned to me and said, “Oh, Anne, you will make a speech now?” and gestured to the front of the front of the room. So, instead of spontaneously combusting on the spot, as I would have done a mere six months ago, by god, I went up there and made a freaking welcome speech on the fly.
If you want to learn how to roll with punches, teaching in China is like boot camp for that. Starting this term has been a nice little progress check for me. I went into my new class today with a very rigorous introductory lesson plan, and the students knew it all. So I was doing the educational tap dance of a teacher with no idea what to do next, and it was fine - I didn’t feel like I needed to cry in the shower afterwards or anything. Also, this class is something else. First of all, there are twenty-six of them, and I’m used to groups of fifteen or less, and their English is extremely good. I’m teaching out of a textbook that’s going to be almost entirely review for them. And oh thank you lord there are so many girls in there. As of the end of last term, I’d had a total of three female students, and one class that was entirely male. That was fine, but I’ve got to admit that I’m excited about having a stronger female presence in one of my classrooms.
Here’s a bizarre article from Radar Magazine we read in the Manila Airport about a guy who posed as a ten year old and sent letters to incarcerated serial killers (and Clarence Darrow, Larry Flynt, and a few others). It’s creepy and hypnotic.
That’s all I’ve got.
One Comment
Yeah, it’s amazing how quickly any fear of speaking in public (even on-the-fly) just goes out the window when you’ve been a teacher for a little bit. I remember at the last school I worked at, I ended up having to get up in front of 500+ students to give a huge presentation. Even then, I was so surprised by how calm I was about the whole ordeal.
It really sounds like this is all getting a lot easier for you. That will continue to happen the longer you’re here… I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not…
Post a Comment