9:17 am
I was in a car heading to Downsview station, and I had to wonder how I was going to get back to China in time for work... so I opened my eyes to reassure myself that I was in bed, in Dalian. Which sounds more like the dream scenario, sitting in a car travelling to a subway station that I've visited many times before, or living in a place where I'm unable to read what's around me, or speak to the people I find? The latter sounds much more ridiculously impossible.
On the other hand, meeting Adam Pally doing a character that is dressed as an 80 year old Scottish doctor covered head-to-toe in blue paint- yes, that's a dream. If that ever happened on Grey's Anatomy, let me know, because then I'd watch for sure.
Yesterday was interesting because, despite what I'd written earlier, I saw that I was not, in fact, amazing at teaching. When I said that I was riding high off the euphoria that comes with being the fresh new thing. How quickly that wears off.
My chief difficulty came from, what else, today's English Corner. I decided to tell my most well polished story- that of my first university class and how I had so much trouble finding my tutorial. It's a story that gets laughs and has a good twist at the end. The telling of which took I think 26 minutes of my hour time slot. Then I talked about some other times when I embarrassed myself- except for when I talked about learning the trombone, that was just something I was proud of- again, I got some laughs, but otherwise it was painfully obvious that most of the class weren't interested in what I had to say. An awful lot of phone checking was going on.
I didn't need anyone to tell me, I can see it clearly- I've got a problem engaging these people. I wonder if I had this problem when I gave my talk about transit in Toronto, and was too up in my head to notice at the time. Probably.
Part of the problem is if I'M not talking for the full hour I feel like someone will pull me aside, tell me I'm not working hard enough, and that's it, I'm catching the next shipping crate back home.
Another part of the problem is that I don't feel like I can really test the people here. English Corner aside, the classes are pass/fail, and if you fail you have to re-take the class- and I'm told these classes are expensive! I know, I know, if they aren't getting what they need there's no use passing them either. When I ask a question and am faced with blank stares, well, it goes back to that "needing to talk for the full hour" thing. If there's no other way to phrase the question, no subtle way to hint at the answer, well, here's the answer.
Bradley approached me after my English Corner and suggested that I need to be more interactive- pictures from the projector, a youtube video, and, most importantly ask the students questions ("most importantly" is my emphasis). He pointed out that my topic about embarrassing situations was a good one, that I could have asked a student "what about you? Did you ever do anything embarrassing?"
As a quick aside, I realize that isn't really a great topic at all for eliciting class participation- even less so in China, where I've consistently heard from people that they didn't speak up in class because they were afraid of embarrassing themselves.
After I had finished up ("any questions for me? no questions?") Leo gave his lesson on ideas in criminal justice or something like that... I hope it was titled "Crime and Punishment"- it's weird, it sounds like he's giving a lesson about the social causes of crime, but it's ACTUALLY about vocabulary building. He had his slides up, and he asked them questions (as opposed to asking FOR questions) and after they answered he always followed up with "okay. Why?"
I know this isn't rocket science, that I'm stating the obvious. Well, I clearly haven't been doing this, I clearly need to examine how to improve. This is possibly more important than refining my chopstick skills. Possibly.
I'd like to say that "I know I have to put my ego to the side, and listen more, because my time here is really all about the students" but, though I can very much be an idealist, I can also be a realist (not everyone can lay claim to both titles). The reality is, I'm still unsure of my position here, and what the top brass are looking for- or even who the top brass ARE! It's a 3 month probation period, same with most jobs back in Ontario (wait, or is it 3 weeks probabtion back in Ontario?... whatever). The REALITY is, if I had to choose between being good at my job and losing it versus APPEARING to be good at my job and keeping it, then, right now, I choose the latter. I can't afford not to.
But hopefully that isn't the choice I'm forced to make.
In my last class for the day, a private class with two students, we were discussing comparatives, superlatives and conditionals- I kind of glaze over at those terms myself... we were discussing what items we'd bring with us stranded on an island, where we made sentences about what we could do with a particular item, what would happen without an item, and how one item is better than another, that sort of thing.
I kept making my example sentence include "mochi"- I was going to use marshmallows, but they didn't know what that was. "Without mochi I would lose weight." "Mochi is better than flint stones because without mochi I would immediately die." That sort of thing. It got a good reaction.
The guy is actually the same student that told me I should watch grammar videos, and he had a lot of trouble with plurals, and he always wanted to add "the", and at one point he just kind of skipped a verb he needed. I had a much easier time correcting him this time than before as I've gotten used to how he uses the language- and also because the girl in the class helped him out a bunch.
In her list of items to bring to the island, she included books and writing equipment so she could document her two years stay on the island. I asked her after the class if she was a writer, saying I was a writer myself. She said she'd like to be one, and suggested we could talk about writing some time when her English was better. I told her it wouldn't have to be that far away at all, and complimented her on the work she did in the class today.
Smiling, she replied "You make me feel content."
It was a very sweet reply, and made me feel good about myself. They could have been stuck with a worse person to teach them.
10:33 am
Wish me luck, have a good day
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