I'm A Teacher!（我是一个老师）

Okay, I haven't posted as much because I was able to call my mother on Skype three days in a row last week and that satisfied my need for contact with the outside world. Now it's been another three days since my mother has answered her phone (Yes, I can take a hint) so I guess it's time to start posting again.

I've been teaching a lot these past few weeks. As previously stated, I teach English language classes to individuals of varying ages and varying degrees of language proficiency. The youngest student is 7 years old and speaks better English than I do Chinese. The oldest is a woman who has a 30-year-old son. The latter's vocabulary is extensive, to say the least. She uses terms like "geothermal" and "subterranean heat". However her pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired. If she could communicate in English by writing and never opening her mouth she would be nearly unstoppable.

For most of my classes there are books that are provided by the school and we are asked to follow the "scripts" so to speak with only minor deviations for short activities a.k.a games. In addition there is usually a Chinese speaking English teacher that accompanies me in the classroom to serve as a translator when necessary. The only real purpose I serve in those types of classes is to have an American accent for the students to imitate. In addition I'm here to clarify when there's a tricky word that the students and other teachers are having a problem pronouncing.

Things will be a little different for the next two weeks as I have been asked to teach what's called Winter Intensive Spoken English courses for both Higher Level and Lower Level students. This is the time when I'm able to actually use some of the techniques that I learned in the Canadian Institute of English's TESOL class. I love music so I'm concentrating a lot on using that element in my teaching and so far that's been a hit with the students. Today we played Musical Bingo and sang a song. I'm ashamed to say the song was taken from Disney's "The High School Musical". Oh well.

Linyi is not a materially poor city. Many people have a lot of money, drive nice fancy cars, and shop for expensive toys and gadgets. In fact, when speaking to some of my students and colleagues about the economic downturn in the States they said that they weren't seeing any of that here in Linyi. I don't see it either. What I do see though are people looking for happiness. I gathered this from what one of my students said in my Do It Yourself (DIY) Class.

The DIY class is self-explanatory. I have a class of 3-4 adult students whose English language skills are exceptional. There's no Chinese-speaking teacher, there's no script. I have to do everything myself. Basically they, the students, pay money to come and speak to a native English speaker for an hour a week about any topic of their or my choosing.

Earlier this week in the DIY class we watched a YouTube movie called "Validation". We talked about the benefits of optimism and positivity. One student commented on how hard it is to be optimistic and positive and that happiness has eluded her despite her success in life. Another student unexpectedly said that she wants to imitate the good people that I’m MOST familiar with and that she delights in conversation about these types of people. Dude, are you kidding me? :-) I was wondering before how to get topics for this class but now I know from where exactly I can take them.

I feel like my job is satisfying and I can help people as much as my Boss will allow me. In fact, I’m happy I have this job and am able to listen to my students. I'm learning so much. Isn't that what I came here for anyways? To teach and to learn. Lots of work to do and I’m loving it.

我有很多工作要做!