Postscript to Marcus' post (Courtney)

Everything Marcus said in his last post is so completely true. Every week is up and down and every class has it's good and bad moments. It makes it hard to decide whether you like this teaching caper or not! As a friend put it in an email during the week "It's 90% crowd control." Couldn't have put it better!



On the whole this was actually a really good week on the teaching front. Senior 1 are behaving themselves a whole lot more, our few ground rules that we lazily gave out a few weeks ago seem to be working quite well. Whilst the kids are still reluctant to talk, they are at least for the most part being quiet when they should be quiet! And I've even noticed a lot more "Good Afternoons" and "Lao shi haos" (basically hello teacher or teacher good) being said to me as I wander around the school. The "heelloooos" are definately decreasing. Most of the Junior kids will actually call me by name now as well.



We were concerned going into this week with Senior 1 as all of the classes have been mixed up. They have started new electives and the classes have been rearranged accordingly. However we have mostly retained our own students, with handfuls of new faces in each class. I was almost nervous going to my new Class 10 this afternoon. I normally teach Class 8 who I really like and the rest of my classes during the week hadn't been TOO mixed up so I was worried about how many new kids would be in Class 10. But for the most part it turned out to be my Class 8 minus a few faces, including "Sarah" unfortunately. Thankfully Harper (my latest naming addition) and his cool buddy are still there, along with Wei and his mate too. Wei is the kid who emails me in gangstar.



As Marcus was saying, the classes this week have been good and the lessons we delivered suited the classes and we not only had fun but managed to get quite a bit out of the kids. One thing is for sure though, you NEVER know what is going to happen in a class. You can never predict, and sometimes the results are hilarious. In one of my Thursday classes, as my Junior kids were diligently filling in their handout, I could hear a class going bananas. Of course I know that this must be Marcus' class. The rest of the building is silent and there is just an absolute roar of noise coming from upstairs. Sure enough I ask Marcus later and yup, it was his class playing a game!



With our "Plane Crash Survivor" game for the Seniors, we have had some really interesting comments and reasons from the kids. Number 1 reason for needing a gun was either to shoot yetis (yes, yetis!) or dinosaurs! The best though was this afternoon when I asked Wei what his groups top 5 things were. Number 1 was a knife. Not to kill animals or cut down trees. His reason was "so when things get very bad we can cut ourselves and feel pain so that we remain awake and not go crazy." Right. What would second be Wei? "A gun, so if need be we could shoot each other." And dare I ask number 3? "Newspapers." And what would you use the newspapers for (mind you, every other kid has said to read or to make a fire). He says "for when we need to go to the bathroom!" Great stuff.



Then I had Class 2, which is one of my best classes of the week. These kids are switched on, and you can almost have a class discussion with them. During the week I had run into their Chinese English teacher who said to me they like my classes more than hers. Woo hoo! So perhaps I went in with a big head today, but I ran a tight ship and at the end of the class I received a round of applause. Oh the adulation!