Finally, I began my first week of my full teaching load. I still maintain that I have the greatest job in China, although others will disagree with me. 🙂 I have Sunday and Monday off, which is a great blessing because I am able to be refreshed in HIS word and enjoy the day with fellow FOCers. I teach at Qinghua from 8:30 – 12:00 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Sinopec from 1:30 – 5:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and at the FOC school from 8:30 – 12:00 and 1:30 – 5:00 on Saturdays. I use my Sunday/Monday free time to prepare for my classes for the upcoming week.
I have a total of eight preps for the week. I teach two hour and a half classes at Qinghua University清华大学. Ideally, these two classes would be on the same lesson and at the same level. The first class (Class A) is at a much higher level than Class B. This makes planning for them challenging. It really is teaching two completely different classes. I immediately fell in love with my students! They are very hard working. They come to the classroom 30 minutes early just to study their lessons. All of my students are post-graduate students who work for China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) 中国铁道建筑总公司. It is currently China’s largest construction contractor and the world’s sixth.
Tuesday was my first day with the Qinghua group. I met Ms. Fan at the subway station in the morning so that she could show me where to go. We went to her office first so that I could make the copies for my class. She asked me if I drink coffee, to which I responded, “Yes! I like coffee!” Little did I know that this response would lead to multitudes of cups and free coffee (instant) in my classroom. She also told me that if I have any handouts for the class that I could email them to her or another person and they would make my copies for me and have them ready for me in my classroom. 🙂 How great is that?!?
My students are great! One man in my class asked if I was married and when I said no, proceeded to tell me that he was also single. “We can be friends!” was his response to this. I shook his hand. He came to both of my classes on Tuesday and both of my classes on Wednesday even though he is only required to go to one of them. I may have to watch out for this one. He said to me, “you are not as old as I am.” So I responded by saying, “How old are you?” He said, “24.” I said, “I am older.” 🙂
After the introductions on Tuesday, one of my students asked me to tell them a little about myself. So, I drew a map (drew is really a relative term here…) on the whiteboard to show them where I was born, where I went to college, and where I had been teaching for the past four years. They were very interested in anything I had to tell them. Ms. Fan wants me to teach them English songs. I think that I will have a hard time teaching silly songs to people who have degrees in business! Someday soon, I will bring in pictures of my hometown, my family and other pictures that I have from the states. They want to know as much as possible about Meiguo 美国!
Wednesday’s class was also very fun. I am really going to enjoy teaching my Qinghua students. After class on Wednesday, I decided to explore the Qinghua campus on my bike for a while. It is very beautiful! I took a few pictures of the “lake” and the waterfall. There was a large open lawn near the auditorium on the campus. Around this place there were hardly any people, which is so un-China-like! Maybe I will come back to this place to do some reading or writing. It was very peaceful!
My lessons are coming along more quickly than when I started because I know what to expect. I kind of feel like a competent Oral English teacher now! I know for sure that I will learn a great deal about Business English and am excited to do so.
Other happenings of the week: Kevin (from the train to Taishan) invited me to attend a violin recital of one of his friends at his school (Central Conservatory of Music 中央音乐学院). He met me at the subway and then showed me around the campus. This school is very small population-wise. He said that there are only about 2000 students! The campus isn’t anything spectacular. It’s pretty small and most of the buildings are ‘normal.’ We went into the auditorium/concert hall quite a bit early because the tour of the campus did not take as long as he thought it would. He told me he would go get me a program. So I stayed in the auditorium to listen to the violinist warm up. Awesome! It was taking Kevin a really long time to get a program. When he finally came back, I realized why it had taken him so long. He was having someone translate the whole thing into English for me! It was all hand written next to the Chinese! The recital was fantastic! After it was over, Kevin introduced me to the performer. I told him that his playing was excellent and he said, ‘thank you,’ and that was the extent of our English conversation. After the performance, Kevin and I and another one of his friends went to get some food. It is interesting/frustrating talking to him because I don’t speak Chinese and he speaks only basic English. There won’t be any intellectual conversations between the two of us any time soon. He is going to be coming to a concert this weekend with me and a bunch of the other Meiguoren 美国人. When I told him that there would be about eight other Americans with me, he made this gesture that signified confusion (waved his hands by his head)! I assured him that there were a few who could speak Chinese much better than I can. He just smiled!
My love of China continues to grow day by day! There are so many little things that make me smile when I take the time to think about them…the ‘Chinese chalupa’ lady who knows exactly what I want when I come to order from her and her assistant who does all his cooking with chopsticks!, the copy man at Sinopec who doesn’t speak English but has had multiple ‘conversations’ with me about copies/flash drives/pdf files/etc., the pink-haired stylist (male) who works on our street who says ‘hello’ every time we bike past and even took our picture with his phone one time, old Chinese friends who come to evening studies and share the same love of HIM, new Chinese friends who are learning of HIM and HIS SON for the first time. There are so many more things that I could mention. It’s difficult to put into words all of these ‘little’ experiences that are part of my day to day life! (Including being hit by a car on my bike!) If only you could come and experience this as well….. 🙂
The lake on the campus
Close up of the waterfall
Jeffersonian Architecture on the campus
