Much has changed since the last update! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you remember from my last update, I said I would be teaching at the Forestry University and the Mining University.\u00a0 Well, only part of that is true.\u00a0 The hours at the Mining University were mostly during the wrong times.\u00a0 So the Mining University is out.\u00a0 During my first day at the Forestry University (which includes an 8:00 – 9:50 class and a 3:40 – 5:30 class) I was taken out to lunch by Ms. Fan from Tsinghua University. (remember her? she was my Tsinghua boss last year.)\u00a0 While this lunch date was being planned, I jokingly said to another teacher, ‘she’s going to offer me a job without Mr. Wang being involved.’ \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Well, she did offer me a job for much more pay because we don’t have to go through the middle man (AKA Wang).\u00a0 I was definitely skeptical at first.\u00a0 Remember when I told you that Mr. Wang wanted me to teach 2nd grade?!\u00a0 This new job is at that school but it is with 3rd – 6th grade.\u00a0 In order for me to get this job I had to do a demonstration lesson….with 2nd grade! Yikes.\u00a0 I guess you could say that I’m a bit afraid of 2nd graders.\u00a0 They scare me.\u00a0 Really.\u00a0 Someone told me, ‘just sing songs with them.’\u00a0 That’s great advice.\u00a0 Do you know any songs that are easy and are about food\/weather\/appearance\/etc.?\u00a0\u00a0 It was definitely a moment that does not need to be repeated and also affirmed my fear of teaching anything lower than 6th grade.\u00a0 So, why the job?\u00a0 Well, my schedule is very open now because I teach less for the same amount of money.\u00a0 This gives me more time to spend in the WORD and with friends.\u00a0 I’m also going to spend more time on my\u00a0Chinese study.<\/p>\n
As I write, I’m in the middle of my\u00a0day at the Foresty University and I really like these students.\u00a0 I’m trying to learn a little about them as people and not just have shallow conversations revolving around comparative\/superlative\/count nouns\/non-count nouns\/etc.\u00a0 Since this is only their second week back in school, I decided to ask them about their class load.\u00a0 They have almost no freedom when choosing their classes and they are stuck with the same group of people the entire day.\u00a0 Sounds like grade school, eh? The only two classes that have different people are Chinese History and Basic Principles of Marxism. (both required classes)\u00a0 They did say that a perk to those classes is that there are 180 students in the class so it is very easy to take a nap and not be noticed! \ud83d\ude42 Ha!\u00a0 I’m happy I have only 30 at a time.\u00a0 I think a speaking class would be difficult with much more than that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last week, I taught my first primary class in China.\u00a0 I began my teaching at Tsinghua Primary School.\u00a0 I don’t love it but I think the benefits from teaching there far outweigh the negatives.\u00a0 The only difficult thing about teaching 6 identical classes during the day is remembering what you’ve taught them.\u00a0 ‘Did we go over that already? No. Ok, must have been last class.’\u00a0 Many of these students have pretty decent English.\u00a0 Some of them have lived abroad which makes it easy to recruit for the FOC school!\u00a0 At the primary school I’ll teach 4th grade, 3rd grade, and 5th grade one week, and 6th grade, 3rd grade, and 5th grade another week.\u00a0 Their are 6 classes of 3rd graders at the school and I only get one class of them per week.\u00a0 So, math people…that means that I get each 3rd grade class every 6 weeks! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 I don’t want to think about how much the aren’t going to remember.\u00a0 The day that I did my demo lesson was military training day for the 3rd-6th graders which is why I had to do a demonstration with 2nd grade.\u00a0 The craziness of China continues. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
B Studies have been going well so far.\u00a0 It will be fun to teach with new people this year!\u00a0 Making friends to bring to studies will be a little more difficult for me than last year because my students are not adults with free schedules.\u00a0 I might have to become creative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sorry for the quick, choppy, picture-less update.\u00a0 I have to go back to school.\u00a0 Someday I’ll get some pictures up! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
GB!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Much has changed since the last update! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 If you remember from my last update, I said I would be teaching at the Forestry University and the Mining University.\u00a0 Well, only part of that is true.\u00a0 The hours at the Mining University were mostly during the wrong times.\u00a0 So the Mining University is out.\u00a0 During […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":715,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}