Andrew Aigner-MuehlerChapter 9...The second semester
February 27th 2009 13:18
Okay! It is about that time for the second semester, but firstly, before I go any further. I must say, when you are over here teaching conversational English, do not expect anything will go according to plan.
On my return to Chengde, thinking I only had the weekend to relax before starting the second semester, I was told, they prolonged the winter vacation by one week, so they were prolonging the start of the new semester by one week, otherwise being a 50 day break between our last lesson taught, which is a long break. It would have just been nice, if this was also communicated to us, but again, do not expect any communication between the school and yourself. Sometimes you start to think, why are we here? do they need us here? do they know we are here?
Anyway the same day, I arrived back in Chengde, I was met at the gates by the head English teacher who had to bring my key to the gate for the apartment, that I was living in. She mentioned the above in regards to the starting date, and it is a good time to have a rest before I start again. She also mentioned that we will have a meeting on the Friday to discuss the new semester. That meeting did not take place, we received a text in the evening saying that we will receive the new timetable for the new semester on Monday morning. This is also the day, we are starting the new semester.
On the Monday morning. I awoke early, and I went over to the head English teachers office to pick up my timetable for the semester. I thought, I get up early and get ready, just in case, that i have a early lesson. It turned out. I had Monday off. My timetable was a Tuesday to Friday week. Still with 13 lessons. Thirteen grade one lessons. No grade two lessons. Almost half of my lessons on the Friday with 5 back to back lessons. A marathon.
This semester, all the classes had shifted around, according to what students were studying. It may be the case, and was the case, I will be teaching the same students again in this semester. Six of the thirteen classes I am teaching are students whose English is very good, the other seven classes, their English is not so good. Those seven classes will be my test and my challenge.
This week, I just used it as a chance for the students that I had last semester to get used to me again, get used to the way I talk and get used to my accent. Knowing that, it was 50 days since I had taught. Also, I used the lesson for the new students to start to understand me and my accent, and also to introduce myself. It does take around three or four weeks for the students to start to understand you. After a couple months, with the classes whose English is good, you can start to speak normally.
Anyway, this lesson. I firstly, asked them about their spring festival and winter holidays. Surprise! surprise! all that they did was study, sleep, eat, watch television and play basketball or computer games. All of the students said, their holidays were boring or it was not long enough. This is where I left that. I moved on to telling them about my break and about my return home for holiday. I mentioned about the hot weather I had to indue while back home, which led to about the natural disasters in Australia ie the floods and the bushfires. I brought back to Chengde, a couple local newspapers of Adelaide (The Advertiser), to show the students which assisted me in talking about the worst ever natural disaster to hit Australia. It is always so good, to have photos or pictures when trying to explain something like this. It helped me a lot. I also showed the students, that what a paper in Australia basically looks like. Just a tip, when showing papers, when you come to a page where it shows someone ie a footballer with out their guernsey (top) on or a valentines day advertisement where two people are kissing. Expect the worst. It may also offend some students. I did not realise until the moment. I now know.
If you do return to your country, or just leaving your country to come to China, it is also good to bring calenders that has a different picture for each month which shows what your country looks like. The students take a lot of interest in this. I did this, they all go "ohhhhh!" or "wowwww!".
Towards the end of the lesson, I jsut played a quick gane that I played with my students one lesson last semester, and that was the multiple of four game. This is just a game where, the students wake up, they get excited and they are ready for the next lesson with the next teacher. It is good game, just incase some students feel sleepy in the class, and when it comes to the next class, they are not sleepy at the start. It does not come back on you, looking like your class was boring. Just a tip.
Anyway, by the time I knew it, the week was over. I think the week does go quicker when your lessons are grouped together and not separated during the day.
The start of this semester was much better to the start of last semester, but that is not unusual.
I now look forward to the semester ahead.
On my return to Chengde, thinking I only had the weekend to relax before starting the second semester, I was told, they prolonged the winter vacation by one week, so they were prolonging the start of the new semester by one week, otherwise being a 50 day break between our last lesson taught, which is a long break. It would have just been nice, if this was also communicated to us, but again, do not expect any communication between the school and yourself. Sometimes you start to think, why are we here? do they need us here? do they know we are here?
On the Monday morning. I awoke early, and I went over to the head English teachers office to pick up my timetable for the semester. I thought, I get up early and get ready, just in case, that i have a early lesson. It turned out. I had Monday off. My timetable was a Tuesday to Friday week. Still with 13 lessons. Thirteen grade one lessons. No grade two lessons. Almost half of my lessons on the Friday with 5 back to back lessons. A marathon.
This week, I just used it as a chance for the students that I had last semester to get used to me again, get used to the way I talk and get used to my accent. Knowing that, it was 50 days since I had taught. Also, I used the lesson for the new students to start to understand me and my accent, and also to introduce myself. It does take around three or four weeks for the students to start to understand you. After a couple months, with the classes whose English is good, you can start to speak normally.
Anyway, this lesson. I firstly, asked them about their spring festival and winter holidays. Surprise! surprise! all that they did was study, sleep, eat, watch television and play basketball or computer games. All of the students said, their holidays were boring or it was not long enough. This is where I left that. I moved on to telling them about my break and about my return home for holiday. I mentioned about the hot weather I had to indue while back home, which led to about the natural disasters in Australia ie the floods and the bushfires. I brought back to Chengde, a couple local newspapers of Adelaide (The Advertiser), to show the students which assisted me in talking about the worst ever natural disaster to hit Australia. It is always so good, to have photos or pictures when trying to explain something like this. It helped me a lot. I also showed the students, that what a paper in Australia basically looks like. Just a tip, when showing papers, when you come to a page where it shows someone ie a footballer with out their guernsey (top) on or a valentines day advertisement where two people are kissing. Expect the worst. It may also offend some students. I did not realise until the moment. I now know.
If you do return to your country, or just leaving your country to come to China, it is also good to bring calenders that has a different picture for each month which shows what your country looks like. The students take a lot of interest in this. I did this, they all go "ohhhhh!" or "wowwww!".
Towards the end of the lesson, I jsut played a quick gane that I played with my students one lesson last semester, and that was the multiple of four game. This is just a game where, the students wake up, they get excited and they are ready for the next lesson with the next teacher. It is good game, just incase some students feel sleepy in the class, and when it comes to the next class, they are not sleepy at the start. It does not come back on you, looking like your class was boring. Just a tip.
Anyway, by the time I knew it, the week was over. I think the week does go quicker when your lessons are grouped together and not separated during the day.
The start of this semester was much better to the start of last semester, but that is not unusual.
I now look forward to the semester ahead.
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