JISHOU, HUNAN — Hard to believe that the semester is nearly over, but it’s true. Time passes too quickly.
It also means that I have been in Jishou for three entire months. While it may be hard to believe, it’s become home for me. I still struggle with being absolutely illiterate in Chinese and being incapable of having even a simple conversation in Chinese, but I learn new bits of Chinese each day. So, I figure I’m making progress.
Chief on everyone’s mind now are finals, and for the seniors, postgraduate exams. Anxiety levels are high, and we all are busier than usual. Of course, the students are more anxious than the faculty.
This weekend, I need to write six exams to turn into the office. Each writing or reading class has to sit for a two-hour exam. Oral class students need to be tested individually, and I have 35 sophomores, so I’ll be occupied with them for the next several days.
Fortunately, I have had some experience writing exams, and I have been giving the students in-class assignments for a few weeks now to gauge how long they will need to complete the tasks. They naturally want the tests to be easy. We’ll see. We’ll see …
The seniors are the ones most stressed. China has national exams in several subjects for students to qualify for a bachelor’s degree, and thus postgraduate (graduate school, in US-talk) studies. They all have to pass the national English test. Those planning postgrad work overseas also have to score acceptably well on the IELTS or TOEFL English tests.
In my opinion, requiring seniors to take finals and the national exams at nearly the same is a little excessive, but at least the students can ask to be excused from classes to prep for the postgraduate exms.
I will not see my 30-odd seniors in class after finals. They will spend the spring semester looking for jobs and/or preparing for postgraduate study, while researching and writing their senior thesis. The English majors have to write an 8,000-word thesis in English; the business English have a shorter paper, and only need write an English abstract for a Chinese thesis.
None of them have had to write anything longer than 800 words, either individually or as a class, so this huge thesis project is a bit scary. With that in mind, I’ve been spending these last few sessions with them working on choosing topics, writing thesis statements, conducting research and so on. At this late date, reviewing punctuation and grammar seems pretty pointless. Either they know it all, or not.
Two of my senior English students have been offered places at universities in the UK, so they are positively aglow with excitement. Other students may receive offers soon, too. (As it turns out, several unis in the UK actively recruit Chinese students, so they won’t feel too isolated from home there.)
On the non-academic side of life, I have been able to visit several nearby towns and scenic spots since the National Holiday in October. I’ve been to Zhangjiajie, Fenghuang, Dehang and Qian Zhou, and taken two hikes up mountains near the campus. Meanwhile, students have collectively shown me places in Jishou to shop and eat.
Four freshmen came to my apartment Thanksgiving weekend, and we made dumplings from scratch and gleefully ate them for lunch. Another freshman helped me shop that afternoon, and taught me how to cook Hunan style before she had to run off to a dance practice. Other students have also offered to cook for me, and invitations to come hiking keep coming, too.
At English Corner, I have befriended several students outside the College of International Exchange, including some from the old campus close to downtown and some postgrads. Now that there’s another foreign teacher here, the Corner is not so overwhelming an experience for me. With the growing chill in the air though, these al fresco sessions on the green will soon need to be moved indoors.
A rather shy 14-year-old came to last Sunday English Corner, on the insistence of her mother, a uni professor. She came with a senior, and delivered an obviously rehearsed monologue about The Lion King to me. Once I tried to converse with her, she got rather tongue-tied. I encouraged her to come again this weekend, if only to listen.
English instruction here starts in middle school, if not before. The stress is on reading and recitation, not conversation. That her soliloquy was nearly flawless grammatically, but her conversational skills non-existent betrays the obsession with book-work here. Even my sophomores feel as if they have to have a script in hand when they deliver their exercises in class.
Nearly every person here is terribly self-effacing when it comes to conversation. “My English is so poor,” “I am so sorry,” “I am embarrassed to speak,” are some of the opening statements I hear. Paradoxically, it’s the folks who speak English passably well who apologize so profusely for their poor skills.
In her diary for class, one of my seniors — an aspiring teacher — told me why so many Chinese are petrified to converse in English. Many middle school teachers follow the old-line method of ridiculing the student who gives incorrect responses in class, calling such a student a fool. (This method is not only a Chinese problem; I have heard of some middle school teachers in the USA who have the same teaching style.) It’s a great way to demoralize students, but that’s about all you can say for it.
Still, it’s not all dismal. Some students transcend their innate reluctance to speak to me. One set of middle school students struck up a rather halting, giggly conversation with me on the way back from the supermarket one afternoon. A few of my freshmen and sophomores can talk my ear off once they are out of the classroom, even if they are reticent in class.
Then there’s the universal communication medium, instant messaging. While a handful of students have MSN and Yahoo accounts, the all-time favorite here is QQ, a Chinese adaptation of ICQ. QQ, like AOL in the States, offers a slew of Internet services. I had read about QQ before I even arrived in Jishou, so I came to campus already equipped with a QQ account number.
I have shared it fairly liberally with students and new acquaintances, so my QQ list now includes 56 buddies (though two are my youngest children, who have graciously offered to chat with my students on QQ, and add them as Facebook friends). Instant messaging is a great way to practice informal English communication, without the barrier of embarrassment and poor enunciation getting in the way. The English from their end might be a tad fractured, but at least they are using English naturally.
(As I write this, in fact, I am chatting with a freshman about the college’s Christmas party.)
Well, I started talking about non-academic matters, then veered right back into shop-talk. Jeez, what a nerd!
haha Daddio, funny stuff. I think I’ve already rambled about how nervous I was in French class a long time ago, so I’ll leave that for now. I haven’t gotten the chance to talk very much to any of your students recently since I’ve been tied up with family stuff here (their grandma died) and then have been working here at the CEPE. Maybe once I’m back in the USA I’ll be able to talk to them more often! It’s nice to talk to them, even if difficult to understand their English sometimes. Rewording it helps sometimes.
Oh, you know, a Russian lady here in Angouleme found my Livejournal and has asked me to teach her a little English. Well, I’m actually not sure yet how much she expects of me. I need to reply to her again. Anyway, what worries me is that she hasn’t really spoken English in 10 years! If it’s kept casual maybe I’ll end up improving her vocab a little, at least. French will be our medium language, fo’ sho.
Oh yeah, and also, your students haven’t had to write more than 800 words in English? Or in Chinese? Or both? Do they not focus much on papers there, and more so on reading and exercises and stuff? Of course, they’re also not a liberal arts college, either. What majors do they have?
Christopher suggested yesterday that I should offer some kind of language tutoring during Winter Holiday if I plan to stay in town. He reckons middle-school (that includes high school, too, here) students — especially parents — would appreciate the opportunity. The idea is sort of appealing, but might put a crimp on my freedom to travel hither and yon. If I did work another job like that, I would probably need to get permission from the university first.
We were talking about the girl who came to English Corner. That’s how the subject came up.
Your Russian lady may recall her English once she starts using it again. It depends how long she studied it. My dad studied Latin in high school in the early ’30s. When I graduated in ’78, one of the speeches traditionally is delivered in Latin. Dad told me he could still understand most of what the speaker said. So, maybe your Russian woman will have the same experience.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian girls here know very little English, and even less Chinese, so communication with them is limited. They seem unmotivated to learn either English or Chinese, so I have no idea how good their experience here will be.
The English majors have each written 800-word essays — once. The business English guys collaborated on one 800-word essay. So, no, papers are not stressed here. While English majors do have to read novels, their essays are fairly short (< 1000 words). That may be reflection of the willingness of the professors to read longer papers.