This past week in Beijing was pretty eventful.
Since my last post, my teaching workload has doubled! I began my teaching at Sinopec. I have a group of eight men, ages 30-45. They all have degrees in engineering or chemstry. None of them are from Beijing so they are all going to school away from their families. It is interesting to know that this happens all of the time. A husband and wife may not live in the same city if it is financially beneficial for the family. My Sinopec men are just a few examples of this. They are all in school for seven hours a day learning English. I am only a small portion of their education here.
My first class on Tuesday was interesting. It takes me 52 min. to get from the door of my apartment to my classroom. It may be different on other days depending on how long I have to wait for the subway. I arrived early because Mr. Wang wanted to meet with the teachers before our first class. There are eight of us teaching conversational/oral English to different groups of men. I was the only female teacher this week. My roommate will be joining us next week. I also think it is very interesting to see the different perspectives of English that these men will get. Of the eight teachers, six of us are from the states, one is from England, and one is from Australia.
After our meeting with Mr. Wang, we jumped right into teaching! I really had no idea what to expect. Their English level is fairly low. I had my lesson planned out for a group that would be willing to talk. This is not that group. They were really timid on Tuesday. I don’t know if it was because they were nervous or just uncomfortable with me. It was challenging to fill 3.5 hours of time with a group that doesn’t participate. During our first break, they all just chatted away in Chinese! Ha! I now know that they are not shy or timid. Mr. Wang came during break to see if things were going well. The men must have told him that they were having a hard time understanding me. He said, ‘they like your accent but you speak pretty fast. Maybe you could speak slower.’ Speaking slowly is definitely a learned skill. For those that know me well, this will be a challenge for me. I know that this is what they need in order to understand me and will strive to do it. However, it is hard for me to speak slowly (ridiculously slowly) to a group of men who are very smart. Understand the dilemma? For a good chunk of the class we talked about the United States and things about my family and me. They had many questions.
After class, I made my journey to the subway and met the previously mentioned Nebraskan man. We chatted the whole way to his stop. (one stop before mine) This made the ride much more bearable. I made it home and after eating some supper I crashed! I love taking unexpected naps when they are not right before bed. Hmmm… I woke up around 9:30 pm and had a hard time sleeping that night.
I had Wednesday off from teaching but it felt like the never ending planning day. I wanted to make sure to maximize my time with the engineers. Most of the day was spent with them in my thoughts. I’m hoping that planning gets easier and less time-consuming so that I can enjoy the days that I have off between teaching days. Other things that happened on Wednesday: visiting the market to pick up a bag that I had custom made (with help from another teacher), supper with friends at La Bamba, and our groups’ Wednesday gathering.
Thursday’s class went much better than Tuesday’s. I made a point to take my time in all of my speech and eliminate unnecessary speech. The group was also a little less timid today. They did roleplaying, they asked each other questions, they discussed. I think that maybe they are more comfortable with me. We even had lots of laughter during the class. I can’t wait until I get to see them again on Tuesday!
On Thursday night I visited my first song study. It was fun to see the different levels of English and how the Chinese help each other understand things during study. At the end of the song study, I received a call from Mr. Wang about my teaching schedule. Earlier in the week he told me that I would be teaching American and British Culture at the Forestry University. 🙂 What do I know about British culture? So, once again I was excited and a little nervous about this. But before I even had a few days to think about how I would teach it, Mr. Wang called and said that I would be teaching Business English at Qinghua University. (pronounced Tsinghua) Business English?!?! I keep trying to remind myself that this may change in the next few days. Who knows?!
Highlights of the week: my Saturday 7th graders, Sunday service, biking down 3rd Ring Road between buses and cars that are moving, biking across 4th Ring Road during a traffic standstill and weaving between vehicles, late-night chuar with friends!
