Hi all. Well another day in sunny Wuxi. Actually, today was pretty sunny and smog free! Today we had our first classes at the Junior Campus, and we were so glad to get them out of the way. I have spent the last couple of days in pure panic mode, mostly at the unknown factor of teaching 12 year olds.
As it turns out, the students were a mixed bag - aged between 12 & 15. Their English ability was also a mixed bag, but for the most part they were more advanced than we had been led to believe. We even managed to get our hands on a couple of textbooks that are used in their classes which gave us a bit of an idea as to what they actually know. Sadly it seems that for the most part they do a lot of "fill in the blanks", which can't be too exciting. I was also quite amazed at the limited English some of the English teachers had. I thought it was quite surprising considering they are teaching really important grammar points and pronunciation at that age level.
Anyhoo, the kids turned out to be a delight, they were just adorable, and unlike the older kids were hanging off our every word (understood or otherwise!) And as an added bonus, they weren't too cool to ask questions, so the classes went quite quickly.
In all of my classes so far, at some point I have mentioned the Olympics. The reason I do this is that I think the Chinese people are obsessed with the fact that the Olympics are going to be in their country - everywhere you go there are posters and stickers, and dotted around the school are Olympic symbols, every second ad on TV seems to be about them in someway. Yet, whenever I mention it to the kids, silence follows. Literally, silence. Not a peep! It is so bizarre, as they just couldn't seem to care less...yet mention ping pong and you nearly have a riot on your hands! (Which reminds me, I have a date with about 35 kids to play ping pong next Monday)
However, on the TV, the Olympics seems to be a fall back of any TV guest. Whilst China has 29 TV channels, there is only one that is in English. Which we shouldn't complain about, as clearly there are no Chinese channels in Australia. But this TV channel, is so horrible, you have no idea. We get home tonight and I am zonked, literally brain dead. So I figure I'll put on the telly and zone out for a while....oh the crapola! Every show is basically a discussion/current affairs type show. The great part though is the guests they have on. Invariably there will be a Chinese person and a foreigner, giving their expert opinion on all manner of things. So the Chinese person will always..I stress always, answer any question with a previously rehearsed answer to a question they WANTED to be asked. They don't ever answer the actual question. Then they flick to the foreigner, who makes some polite comments about China and unity and growth and blah blah....and then if they seem to be struggling, what do they whip out? That's right, the Olympics! Anything to say how great a nation China is! Needless to say, the TV for the most part is not even plugged in.
On a funnier note, we have been focusing on a lot of introductions this week in our classes, and we have had the joy of meeting people with some absolutely wacky "English" names. For example...
We are at the Junior Campus today, and are leaving the teacher's office, when one of the teachers arrives. We introduce ourselves, she introduces herself then says "Oh but you can call me by my English name...Topsy."
TOPSY?!?!!? What with Mr Pan and now Topsy, Sarah nailed it on the head when she said we have fallen into the Faraway Tree!
In one of Marcus' classes today, he met a Macarthur and an O'Grady. Fantastic! Turns out O'Grady is the surname of some basketballer - all the boys are utterly obsessed with basketball.
However, one of my girls can top even all of that. In amongst the Jenny's and Kelly's and Jimmy's and Robert's, one little girl introduced herself to me today....
"You can call me Good Morning".
What the?!?! Good Morning!! I think I might have to do more work around greetings with this class....
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