“Oh, by the way, there’s no textbook for this class.”

Surprise! I get to create my own curriculum that will entertain huge classes full of hyperactive 7^th graders for 40 minutes. The foreign language department basically said something to the effect of "You're teaching Spoken English. Go."  It is assumed that because I speak English I will figure it out.

Potential Problems with this situation:

1.    I don't know the level of English of my students or what they have covered in previous oral English courses (or if they have even had previous oral English courses). I'm under the impression that they are all at significantly different levels.

2.    Super large class size eliminates a lot of games.

3.    7^th Graders are easily bored.

4.    I don't really know what I'm doing!?!?!? Ahhhhhh!!!

But no worries. I'll figure it out. I think I'm going to do the human body next week. I will be singing 'Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes' a cappella. It's going to be a beautiful moment. I was also considering doing the Hokey Pokey.

I could really use some help though!! Lesson plan ideas and games to play with 50 kids would be appreciated.

Is This Real Life?

I'm sitting in Starbucks in Haimen China. Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer is playing in the background (It's March). I just signed 'autographs' for 50 Chinese children. This feels like some kind of bizarre dream.

 

I had my first classes this week. I have 18 classes each week that last for 40 minutes. Each class has about 50 students aged 13-16, all at varying levels of English. I have each class once per week. For those of you who are bad at math, that means that I have around 900 students.

 

Class has been very entertaining so far. For my first week of classes, I introduced myself, asked the kids to introduce themselves, and then let the kids ask me questions.

 

A typical introduction was:

 

"Hello. My name is Xia Lu Ren. My English Name is Benny. I am 14 years old. I like playing computer games best. I am very happy to meet you."

 

"Hello. Thank you for coming to China. My English name is Evian. I like purple best. I like Justin Bieber. I hope we can be good friends."

 

Favorite so far. "Hello. My English name is Bruce Lee. I am fat because I like to eat food but I don't like running."

 

You can totally tell who the trouble-makers are, because whenever they stand up to speak, the whole class laughs… In general though, the kids are pretty shy and speak very quietly. For a lot of my students, this is the first interaction that they have ever had with a foreigner, so the kids had lots of questions for me too.

 

Just about all of them wanted to know if I had a boyfriend, if I like KFC, if I like Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga, and if "all Americans are as beautiful as I am." (Loved that one… Thanks for the ego boost kids!)

 

I have a feeling my classes are going to be very amusing.

(The pictures are of my time table of classes, the school buildings, and one of my classes.)

Cribs: China

Here's a little about where I am living. Basically, I'm living in a dorm. I'm on the 6^th floor of a building at the school. There is no elevator (I'm gonna be in great shape by the end of the year!!!) I have my own room with a bed, desk, armoire, television, and private bathroom. There is a shared room for all the foreign teachers that has a washing machine and small kitchen area. Currently there are three other teachers living here—two American guys and one Irish guy, and there are rumors of another 60 year old lady from the USA coming to join us soon.

My room is clean and has heat and air-conditioning (yay!), but the rest of the school doesn't. My TV gets two fuzzy Chinese channels. The bathroom is small and… interesting.

Fun facts about bathrooms in China:

-  Even if the toilet is Western style, you can't flush toilet paper.

-  There's no water pressure on the 6^th floor, so the water drips verrrrrryyyy slooooowwwllllllllyyy out of the showerhead. I have to fill up a plastic cup with water to rinse all the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair.

-  Shower stalls are unheard of… I have a drain in the middle of the floor, and I bought a mop/squeegee to clean up the floor after I shower.

-  Heat lamps help to keep you warm while you shower (in theory)

 

When I first moved in shower in my bathroom wasn't working. For the first three days I had to improvise showers using a plastic bowl thingy and water that I heated in my electric kettle.  Now that it's fixed, it's not much better.

I think I'm going to have to get creative in terms of personal hygiene this year.

This is Legit China.

Pulling into Haimen, China, was a little overwhelming. Shanghai is full of westerners (with over 1 million expats), English menus, and huge skyscrapers.

Haimen is nothing like Shanghai. Although this is a city of 1 million, it feels quite a bit smaller and much more isolated. There is an obvious disparity between rich and poor. The streets are lined with a mixture of new high rises, older mid rise buildings, and small brick 'houses'. And there are no westerners.

As I was wandering around town, people were staring at me like I was a freaking celebrity. At least 100 Chinese people have a picture of me on their phones, and I've only been here 2 days. Seriously.

I did some shopping for necessities in Auchon, basically a Chinese version of Target, and people would come up to me and look into my shopping cart to see what I was buying. Then they'd walk away and whisper to their shopping partners.

I can imagine the fascinating conversation:

"Look! A white person!"

"What's she doing here?"

"No idea, but she's buying toilet paper, a hairdryer, and a pink blanket."

"Cool. Get a picture."

 

I admit I was wondering what I got myself into when I was wandering around. I'm definitely experiencing culture shock to a degree that I've never experienced. I'm basically alone in a small town in China, I don't speak Chinese, and it's freaking freezing here.

I was almost about to panic, but then I found the Starbucks, and I knew I'd be fine.

The Not-so-Great Wall

I knew before I got to China that I was going to have trouble accessing a significant part of the Internet. According to Wikipedia, there are about 2600 blocked URLs in China, ironically, including most of Wikipedia.

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, uncensored news sources, and websites dealing with human rights, Tibet, Taiwan, Amnesty International, the Nobel Peace Prize, and Falun Gong are blocked.

I don't have access to this blog.

Luckily, I found a way to e-mail posts, but I have no way to know if it is working, what the posts look like, or if the pictures are showing up. So if the blog looks funny or there are random errors or something, I have no way of fixing it. Sorry.

China also doesn't seem to like anything to do with Google so access my e-mail is a little sketchy. Skype seems to work most of the time. Feel free to Skype me @ jjohnson4249.

I thought I was being clever by purchasing a VPN before I left, which in theory re-routes the IP address of my computer in China to an IP address in another country, thus allowing me to bypass the firewall. Apparently, China is catching on to this, and my VPN doesn't work. Bummer.

Bottom line: One of the things that we take for granted in the USA is the ability to access information. I didn't realize how dependent I was on Facebook and YouTube until I didn't have access to them.

Shanghai Pictures

 

Here are the photos that were supposed to accompany the Shanghai Blog.

Ni hao from Shanghai!

Shanghai is absolutely beautiful—although, I'm not really sure I can be objective at this point … after a 15-hour flight in coach, any landmass would be freaking beautiful.

                                

The flight actually wasn't that bad. I got lucky and the back of the plane was pretty empty so I had an entire row to myself. I arrived safely, cleared customs, and successfully lugged my 1,000 pounds of luggage to the hotel. I spent four days in Shanghai for orientation, which consisted of CIEE (The Council for International Exchange, the program I found the job through) trying to teach me enough Mandarin, Chinese etiquette, and teaching skills to survive for the next year. I also got to spend some time doing the tourist thing, seeing the city.

Some of the highlights:

-       Bian lian "Mask Changing" show in which performers wear crazy costumes and dance to dramatic music all while changing the vividly colored masks which they change within a fraction of a second. Check it out on you tube. It was pretty awesome and the picture doesn't quite do it justice.

                                       

-       The Bund, a waterfront area along the Huangpu River in central Shanghai. Home to some pretty spectacular architecture.

                                      

-       Wandering through the art district. Check out this gem of a purse that I found. Even the Chinese think that Obama's a Communist.

                        

-       Delicious food. Tried lots of great new things (and some not so great). The best thing, and my new favorite food, was ba si ping guo. It's a highly addictive plate of extremely hot, possibly fried, apples drizzled with caramelized sugar, that you must eat while it's hot otherwise it glues itself to the plate and gets pretty tough to eat. Once it is served, you take the apple pieces and dip them into ice water; the outside gets really crunchy, but the inside stays super hot and delicious.