Lectures

I walked into my classroom this morning to hear Mr. Zhong aka "Small Boy", an office worker in the Foreign Languages Department, yelling at the students. As soon as he saw me come in, he lowered his voice and continued on with his lecture. The students didn't seem too worried though, most of the them either were either reading their textbooks or looking at their cell phones as he talked. After he had finished and walked out of the classroom, the students immediately erupted into lively chatter. It turns out that the students had a homework assignment over the winter break to make food, take pictures of it, and send the pictures to him. Instead of actually making food, most of the students had simply found pictures of food on the internet and sent them to Small Boy. Now they were being reprimanded for having cheated on their assignment.

I don't know how that assignment related to their English-language studies but there may have been more to it than what they told me.


Gabriel and Saul are two teachers from Britain who teach at the Number Four Middle School across the street. A couple weeks ago, Gabriel and I went over to the library at his school to attend a talk given by Li Yang, a Chinese man famous for his English speaking skills and his "Crazy English" teaching method. I had heard of him a lot from some of my students who use the Crazy English method. The ones who have studied Crazy English are, indeed the least bashful when it comes to speaking English. Many of them speak with a voice suitable for being a radio host, and some of them practice every morning by standing outside our department building reading speeches or textbook dialogues aloud.

It was interesting to actually see Li Yang face to face. His pronunciation (in an American accent, not British) was very good, probably the best I've heard from any Chinese person. Although most of his lecture was in Chinese, he did hand out his book "The Secret of Success" and an informational pamphlet titled "Totally Conquer English". I didn't understand a lot of what he was saying at the talk so I'll give you some quotes from the written material. Many of these are to be recited by students of Crazy English:

"Let's conquer English to make China stronger!"
"A nation's future is determined not on the battlefield but in the classroom!"
"Struggle is the only correct way for human beings!"
"I enjoy losing face! I enjoy making mistakes! I enjoy speaking English!"
"If you want something you've never had, then you've got to do something you've never done."
"Everybody has responsibility for the fall and rise of the nation."
"Totally mastering English is the most effective way to love your country!"

If anyone's interested, here are a couple articles about Li Yang:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Yang_%28Crazy_English%29

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/04/28/080428fa_fact_osnos

An assignment

Today I had my class get into groups and think about what they would want to do for a school graduation party if they were in charge and had a bunch of money. After they had spent some time planning, each group presented their idea to the class. Here are two ideas I liked quite a bit:

1) Rent a plane, bail out of it mid-flight, and parachute into KTV (Karaoke Television). If you're going to have a party, you're going to go to KTV one way or another.
2) Have a party by the sea and "go crazy". But before they really let loose, everyone gets uniforms. The group didn't go into detail about what the uniforms would look like but I'm assuming they had something crazy in mind.

A few more names to add to the list

Only
Pie
Pole
Funny
And one of my favorites so far: Barack

First week of class is over. I've got 7 classes this semester. Each one meets once a week for an hour and a half. Things went well enough. Of course, I've got some interesting names. Here are a few:

Baby
Find
Fancy
Swallow
Epary (reminds me of apiary, don't know if that was the intention)
Angle (not the first Angle I've had in class)
Money
Silence (also not the first)
Seven (same)
Pigeon
Woodoo (Chinese students have difficulty with the v, I think that might explain this one)
Kingberry (should be a real fruit if it isn't)
Ever
Snake
Cash
Cone

I used to suggest choosing a different name in cases like these. Not any more though. They knew what these names meant when they chose them and they don't really care to change them now, and maybe I'll remember them better since they are, at least, distinctive.

Back in Xinyu

I wrote this one two days ago. I'm posting it now because I just got my internet back late this afternoon. Here it is:

Today was my first day back in Xinyu after having returned to the US for winter break. I took a train yesterday from Shanghai that arrived in Xinyu last night. Things appear to be about the same as they were when I left. I’ve seen several of my former students who are now English teachers in the area near my apartment. There are at least two public schools and several private schools called “training centers” so lots of teachers come here for work.

I went out this afternoon to buy groceries and as I was walking back I was approached by a Chinese man named Chen Zhang Xin who opened a training center last year just down the road from where I live. After I took my groceries back to my apartment I went back out to meet with him and Cortland, an American English teacher who is thinking about teaching in Mr. Chen’s school this spring.

We met in the small waiting room just inside the front door of the training center, which is a rented space with a bank on one side and a small shop selling I’m not sure what on the other. As the three of us introduced ourselves, Mr. Chen’s girlfriend, Angelina, and three middle school students sat on the other side of the room, watching and listening. Cortland told us about some of his past, including a time when he was what he called a “park bum” camping out in the Yosemite National Park for two and a half years. We explained to Mr. Chen that Yosemite was a famous park in the western part of America, to which he replied “I only know Linkin Park”.

We talked for a while before Cortland had to leave for an appointment that he had. After he left, I asked Mr. Chen to show me around the rest of the school. A narrow hallway leads back from the waiting room to three classrooms with a blackboard and ten or fifteen desks in each one. The first one looked as though it had been used earlier that day for a math class. The second was much like the first although a little messier. But the third looked like nobody had been in it for a while, save for the construction crew. There were tools and empty boxes and trash lying all over the room. The desks were scattered about and there was a thin layer of sheetrock dust covering everything. Mr. Chen apologized for the mess and then stepped over to one of the front desks where a nearly empty bottle of orange soda was lying on its side. Mr. Chen took the bottle and placed it right side up next to an opened paint bucket. We took another look around the room, exchanged phone numbers, and I left.

The school actually was quite nice. I enjoyed talking to Mr. Chen and Angelina as well as Boss, one of the middle school students in the waiting room whom I spoke with briefly just before leaving. I did not commit to teaching at the school but I will be considering it as I begin my first week of lessons tomorrow at the college.