First Classes

After a week of training, preparing, marketing, promotional stuff and more preparing, I had my first weekend of classes. Since most Chinese students attend public schools where they spend their weekdays, Aston (the English language school that I teach at) hosts the majority of its classes on weekends. Here I was, up at 7:30 on a Saturday. Ouch.

My first class was at 8:30 - a bunch of 10 and 11 year olds. They were crazy. I'd planned to do a bunch of stuff with them, but when I stepped in the room and started teaching English, the lesson just sort of developed by itself and I ended up not needing the plan at all. The kids asked questions about English words, and that developed into entirely new discussions and mini-lessons within the lesson. An hour seemed to flash by and then I was back in the staff office needing a nap.

After last night, the first class was a breeze. On Friday night Aston hosts an English Corner, a kind of open class where the teachers *try* to control a throng of students from a variety of levels. This past week we'd done a ton of promotional work at local primary schools and it seemed like everybody we invited came. And brought their friend. And their sister. And their brother. Between two English teachers we had about 80 kids. One of the Chinese English teachers had to take some of the kids and host an ad hoc class where they ended up playing darts. We just got two new dart boards, and the Chinese English teachers are obsessed with darts. They are magnetic, and thus safe. Relatively.

So, the class was insane. We tried to run a game about drawing body parts. Keeping it clean of course. After reviewing parts of the body I wanted the class to line up and draw a person on the board. I would say a body part, and they would draw it then pass the market to the next kid in line. It got out of control pretty fast. Some of the kids lost interest and went and sat down. The more outgoing ones stood at the front and yelled in Chinese what I was saying in English. Blatant cheating. The boys' drawing ended up looking like a superhero troll with spiked hair. The girls' drawing ended up looking like a buck-toothed bird. So much for that one.

Class adjourned fifteen minutes early and I heaved a huge sigh of relief. I tried to clean up while three of the little girl students begged me to give them piggy cards. Piggy cards are little 2x3 cards with pigs on them in different colors. The teachers give them out as rewards and the kids can claim prizes from a display case at the front of the school when they have enough. Collecting piggy cards is a students sole purpose at Aston. Learning English is a by product. That is a massive overstatement, but piggy cards do drive them wild.

These girls tried to pry them out of my hands, and when I put them in my pocket they tried to dig them out or take whatever was in my pockets and ransom the things back to me for piggy cards. I ran away to the staff office and locked myself in. It was a blast.

Ok, now I have 5 more classes today, and I'm damn hungry. I've got to fill up so I've the energy to take on hoards of little Chinamen.

'till next time...