Never fear, the backpacks showed up -- a lucky thing since it's been getting nice and crispy cool at night and in the mornings. Plus we were starting to get smelly.
The next big challenge is hanging things in the apartment. It's made of concrete and my attempts to drive in nails just create large holes in the plaster layer, making minimal progress into the walls itself. Bah humbug. I went to a huge market yesterday and bought a whole lot of little odds and ends I needed (like pans, and a shoe rack) as well as pictures which will really make it all feel a little less bare. Eventually. But no, it's definitely already getting to the point where when I unlock the door I have that "oh good, I'm back home!" feeling. Not bad. And there's this one noodle and shaokao place right down on the street in front of my place which I can tell will become my "regular" place... they already know without my even asking to please take it light on the peppers they dump on top of my noodles. There's a 10ish year old son who works there too -- he's in charge of keeping the tea cups filled and he takes his job VERY seriously. Really sweet kid.
On Monday I don't teach, so I went into the department that morning to try and get a better fix on my actual schedule (still a little elusive) and to see the language lab in which I'll be teaching my listening class. It's very high-tech. So high-tech in fact, that it doesn't have a tape-player, although the only resources I've been issued to accompany the must-get-through-or-students-will-not-pass-very-important-certification-exam-! book are tapes. We also couldn't get the control computer to turn on. Okay. We wander around rounding up various English teachers and staff who are in the department in hopes of getting an impromptu lesson on the multi-media resources. They do manage to get the computer turned on. After which we all stand around in mutual confusion for about 20 minutes while they come to the conclusion that no one really knows just what we should do. Solution? They will lend us a tape recorder to play the tapes manually. Pshaw to all that high-falutin' technology. We don't really have access to the tapedeck outside of class though, so I don't really have any way to preview the tapes... I think I may just bypass the problem altogether an assign the kids to do the formal listening outside of class and just do all supplementary things in class. The kids would probably appreciate that too, though now I've just go to figure out a way to get my hands on these kinds of materials: newsclips, videoclips, songs, etc. ...and then figure out how to play them through the department-baffling multi-media console. For tomorrow at least, it'll just be me up there.
Today I taught the first section of my Senior English majors. It was aaaawesome. I was done with introductory activities after just half of the three hour class, but didn't feel right about letting them go so early, so I improvised an activity based on resumes/job interviews & professional presentations which went really well. It's a practical skills class and their English is extremely high-level so my overarching goals for the class are 1) to provide students with practical oral skills for after graduation, specifically in the workplace and 2) to equip students with the ability to have meaningful conversations with native English speakers (they are so shy to use their spoken English!!). Anyway, I'm a totally lucky duck because there are only 16 kids in the class I taught today! That gives a ton of time for each student to get a lot of time speaking, with eachother, in front of the class, and with me. Even my larger Sophmore class which is supposed to have just 35 students may actually be only around 30 kids. Some of the other volunteers are caught in the predicament of trying to teach oral English skills to classes of 50 or 60 students.
The afternoon was less fun as I was stuck in the apartment with a bad cold waiting for the repairman to show up. He never did show up in fact, so I still have a smashed open bedroom window, broken peep-hole in the door, and ripped apart cable cord. BUT I have internet and hot water and peanut butter and a comfy bed so I'm holding the fort down just fine. I also got a cute phonecall from the English Dept. secretary. As far as I can tell, the 10 minute phonecall was just to see if I was "settling in"... the odd part being that I'd just met with her on Monday about my class schedule and her intro questions on the phone went along the lines of "so you just arrived this weekend? and are you settling in? do you know where the department is? and how are you settling in? do you know your way around campus? and how are you settling in?" I was slightly perplexed, but touched, when we hung up.
The department registrar also called me and I understood all the info he gave me in Chinese, though we switched to English at the end of the conversation. Score!
The next big challenge is hanging things in the apartment. It's made of concrete and my attempts to drive in nails just create large holes in the plaster layer, making minimal progress into the walls itself. Bah humbug. I went to a huge market yesterday and bought a whole lot of little odds and ends I needed (like pans, and a shoe rack) as well as pictures which will really make it all feel a little less bare. Eventually. But no, it's definitely already getting to the point where when I unlock the door I have that "oh good, I'm back home!" feeling. Not bad. And there's this one noodle and shaokao place right down on the street in front of my place which I can tell will become my "regular" place... they already know without my even asking to please take it light on the peppers they dump on top of my noodles. There's a 10ish year old son who works there too -- he's in charge of keeping the tea cups filled and he takes his job VERY seriously. Really sweet kid.
On Monday I don't teach, so I went into the department that morning to try and get a better fix on my actual schedule (still a little elusive) and to see the language lab in which I'll be teaching my listening class. It's very high-tech. So high-tech in fact, that it doesn't have a tape-player, although the only resources I've been issued to accompany the must-get-through-or-students-will-not-pass-very-important-certification-exam-! book are tapes. We also couldn't get the control computer to turn on. Okay. We wander around rounding up various English teachers and staff who are in the department in hopes of getting an impromptu lesson on the multi-media resources. They do manage to get the computer turned on. After which we all stand around in mutual confusion for about 20 minutes while they come to the conclusion that no one really knows just what we should do. Solution? They will lend us a tape recorder to play the tapes manually. Pshaw to all that high-falutin' technology. We don't really have access to the tapedeck outside of class though, so I don't really have any way to preview the tapes... I think I may just bypass the problem altogether an assign the kids to do the formal listening outside of class and just do all supplementary things in class. The kids would probably appreciate that too, though now I've just go to figure out a way to get my hands on these kinds of materials: newsclips, videoclips, songs, etc. ...and then figure out how to play them through the department-baffling multi-media console. For tomorrow at least, it'll just be me up there.
Today I taught the first section of my Senior English majors. It was aaaawesome. I was done with introductory activities after just half of the three hour class, but didn't feel right about letting them go so early, so I improvised an activity based on resumes/job interviews & professional presentations which went really well. It's a practical skills class and their English is extremely high-level so my overarching goals for the class are 1) to provide students with practical oral skills for after graduation, specifically in the workplace and 2) to equip students with the ability to have meaningful conversations with native English speakers (they are so shy to use their spoken English!!). Anyway, I'm a totally lucky duck because there are only 16 kids in the class I taught today! That gives a ton of time for each student to get a lot of time speaking, with eachother, in front of the class, and with me. Even my larger Sophmore class which is supposed to have just 35 students may actually be only around 30 kids. Some of the other volunteers are caught in the predicament of trying to teach oral English skills to classes of 50 or 60 students.
The afternoon was less fun as I was stuck in the apartment with a bad cold waiting for the repairman to show up. He never did show up in fact, so I still have a smashed open bedroom window, broken peep-hole in the door, and ripped apart cable cord. BUT I have internet and hot water and peanut butter and a comfy bed so I'm holding the fort down just fine. I also got a cute phonecall from the English Dept. secretary. As far as I can tell, the 10 minute phonecall was just to see if I was "settling in"... the odd part being that I'd just met with her on Monday about my class schedule and her intro questions on the phone went along the lines of "so you just arrived this weekend? and are you settling in? do you know where the department is? and how are you settling in? do you know your way around campus? and how are you settling in?" I was slightly perplexed, but touched, when we hung up.
The department registrar also called me and I understood all the info he gave me in Chinese, though we switched to English at the end of the conversation. Score!
posted by Kristen at
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
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