[Cross-posted at The Daily Kos.]

JISHOU, HUNAN — The fall term is coming to a close here. I gave my exams this week, and will spend the next two weeks reading and marking them, so I can return home to see my offspring with a clear conscience.

Before exams, I decided to give my students — and me — a break, and show them a movie. Of course, it had to have some educational value.

Believe it or not, Christmas, at least among our students, is a big thing here in China. They learn about the holiday as part of their English lessons in middle school, but still have only a hazy idea of what it is all about. Chinese textbook authors condense Christmas traditions from the USA, Europe and the UK into a mishmosh of ideas that serve only to confuse, not inform.

Students ask me about how we celebrate Christmas in the USA, and I give them a pretty generic description, based on my own memories of 50-odd previous Christmases. But descriptions, particularly for ESL students, do not really convey the spirit of the holiday. So, I chose A Christmas Carol as the movie I would show all my classes.

Though I did not tell my students, reading or watching A Christmas Carol is one of my own personal Christmas traditions. Frankly, I am a sap for this story. No matter how many times I read the novella or see a movie version, I never tire of it.

January 2nd, 2010 | Tags: China, Christmas, Dickens, ESL, Teaching, travel | Category: China, Teaching English | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — Yesterday was unusually busy for me, so I want this chance to take to chronicle it.

Every Sunday, I teach spoken English (and some reading) to five 9-year-olds for two hours. These kids are the children of police officers — friends of my friend Smile, whose husband is an officer, too. One of my student friends helps me in this project, since I need someone to translate English to Chinese. Though the kids are rambunctious, they are also very bright, so the job is not as awful as it sounds (unless the reader happens to be a primary school teacher, who would know what I mean).

At 11, Nora and I left the police residential compound (警公安局 jing gong an ju) and headed for lunch at the university dining hall. There we were joined by four of my students (roommates), our friend from the PE college and a senior in the chemistry college who wanted just to talk with me. Afterward, three of us went for a walk and a sit in the sunshine, which has been in short supply these last four weeks, and the rest went off to their own things.

December 21st, 2009 | Tags: China, chronicle, examinations, students, Teaching | Category: China, Teaching English | Leave a comment

[Cross-posted at The Daily Kos, and rescued from diary oblivion. That's 3 for 3!]

JISHOU, HUNAN, CHINA — Friday, my sophomores in oral English were more animated than I’ve seen them in ages. It was a set of posters that livened them up.

To preface this diary, I need to explain that our classrooms here are barebones dull: white painted walls, beige tile floors, fluorescent tube lighting, wooden desks and chairs bolted to the floor, and a single double-wide chalkboard. We at least have ample natural lighting from the windows along the exterior wall.

And no heat, but that’s for another diary. [It was at least warmer today than yesterday's high of 6° C (about 43° F).]

In September I decided that staring at the mostly bare walls was getting boring, so I decided to spend a little money and order some posters from the USA off the Internet. (I won’t link to the site here, but the site’s name is no exaggeration. They have ALL kinds of POSTERS.) I ordered four at first, one for each class of sophomores, as the freshmen had not started classes yet.

Three were decently sized, but I failed to read the description of one carefully and ended up with a tiny little poster of Mount Rainier. Very pretty, but not exactly awe inspiring. Since class Z1 of sophomore Oral English meets on Fridays, they were the unlucky recipients of the miniature Mount Rainier. The other classes had claimed the larger posters.

November 14th, 2009 | Tags: China, ESL, posters, Teaching | Category: China, Teaching English | Leave a comment

JISHOU, HUNAN — Today, while I was working on the computer in the office, my deans asked me if I would like to get a flu shot.

That’s the way they phrased it, anyway. The real meaning, however, was, “We really expect you to get a flu shot. Today. With the rest of the staff.”

But such directness is very un-Chinese. As it was phrased, it took a while for the true meaning of the “request” — or “mandatory option,” as my high school chorus teacher put it — to sink into my thick skull. They caught me while I was in the middle of entering students’ names into the Epals.com website, a task which Epals does not make especially easy by limiting you to 25 names at a time.

Distracted as I was, and still without a morning cup of Joe, I stalled and said I would think about it. My British cohort, David, was also likewise pecking away at another computer. He basically said, no. If it wasn’t a requirement, he would rather not. “I try to avoid taking medicines,” he added.

Soon after, David left to teach his classes, leaving me alone with two deans, the staff assistant and one of the head teachers. They chatted away in local dialect (It’s bad enough I can’t understand putonghua, they have to speak Jishou language!), so I could catch a few words, including the Chinese for “flu” and “teachers,”, and our names, David and John. The dean told me she had had her shot earlier in the morning, so I asked her how she felt. (FYI, she’s about my age.) She said her arm was sore and she had a slight headache. No biggie.

November 6th, 2009 | Tags: China, flu, H1N1, pandemic, Teaching, vaccination | Category: China, Commentary, Science, Teaching English | Comments (1)

JISHOU, HUNAN — I haven’t written much lately, because I’ve been a little busy. Classes have started, and I only have half my schedule in place still. The freshmen start classes next month.

In addition to my university classes, I have also become a private tutor to three students (ages 8 to 25), a teacher of two small groups of primary students, and a guest “lecturer” for a friend’s middle-school weekend enrichment school. Since the uni is sending two students to the provincial English-speaking contest, I will also coach their pronunciation and intonation skills for the next four weeks or so.

Here’s my schedule right now:



All the classes labeled 2009 (China uses year of entry, not graduation, to denote classes) will not meet until after the National Holiday ends Oct. 8. This weekend, 4,000 freshmen arrived, and will have 10 days of orientation and military training until the holiday begins Oct. 1. I can’t comment on those classes yet, but I anticipate being very busy reading and marking 70 freshman compositions and 70 sophomore compositions each week or so.

September 21st, 2009 | Tags: China, schedule, Teaching | Category: China, Teaching, Teaching English | Leave a comment

I am now a writer for the Teachers’ Lounge at The Daily Kos. My first Teachers’ Lounge diary went up yesterday, and was even rescued overnight! In DKos-atopia, that’s a singular honor. So, go read it.

September 13th, 2009 | Tags: China, daily kos, education, ESL, teachers lounge, Teaching | Category: China, General stuff, Teaching, Teaching English | Leave a comment