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