"It is in Men that we must place our hope"

This post is a little disjointed. I've actually been working on it for a couple days now, but I get tired or distracted so it's been sitting open and ignored on my computer for a while. If it doesn't make sense, I apologize. I'm not very good at writing in a journal at regular intervals. ^___^


So what are my classes, you ask? Well. I teach two subjects (two very similar subjects XD). College English and English Listening. I have one textbook for English Listening, which I'm told I need in order to teach my section of 1st year English Majors. The class itself is about 70 students large, but for the most part, the kids are quite bright and eager to learn. I do have a lot of fun in that class as the textbook gives me a bit of freedom to add other things to my lesson plans. Games, for example, like tongue twister contests (they LOVE this) or races to see who can draw the best maps from someone else's directions (This practices communication skills). The games are always class vs. teacher, and my english majors really get a kick out of me losing the map game. And I always lose the stupid map game. I suppose I just have to learn my way around the university a little bit better ^___^. I have 4 other classes during the week. Each class is 3 hours long. Whew. These are all my 1st year non-English Majors, and I teach them all College English using two textbooks: One for reading and writing, one for listening and speaking. As I mentioned before in my previous post, I'm required to finish both of these books within this semester. That's a tough order, let me tell you, when each class is 70 students large and only half of them understand what's coming out of my mouth. Let's just say the comprehension levels of the students are extremely varied within each class.

The List:

On Tuesdays, I teach English Majors in the morning (my only "English Listening" class) and my Stomatology Majors (those kids who want to be dentists when they grow up)
Wednesday = Nursing Majors
Thursday = Chinese Medicine Majors
Friday = Business Majors


On a the average, my stomatology class is the worst behaved (and the class with the lowest levels in english comprehension), while my Nursing class is the best behaved. My english majors are fantastic.

I share some of these students with the other foreign teachers (mainly Harold). In fact, our english majors started a study group that Harold visits sometimes. I think I'll start visiting too if I can.

~

Did I mention that I'm a coach for the English Speaking team here? Yes a team. This weekend (tomorrow-through Sunday) is the regional CCTV9 English Speaking competition where our team of three girls will compete against the other universities in the region. If they win, they'll go to Nationals in Beijing. There are three coaches: Pat, Beth and myself. Pat and Beth work on the impromptu and question portions of the match as well as general tips for competing. My main job is editing, revising the speeches as well as coaching on pronunciation and performance. I love coaching this team. The girls are quite talented, and I've always loved working with speeches and performances on stage. I absolutely adore public speaking and am thrilled to be able to help coach our team this year. ^___^

So, I leave tomorrow morning at 6:20am for Chenzhou where the competition will be. We're taking a train! I love trains. (Flash back to Final Fantasy VIII, and if you don't understand the reference all the more power to you.)

Beware! Below there be emotion and sappyness！

As I was writing this post, I started having flashbacks of my favorite English teacher at LSU, and I realized that I miss her very much. I didn't get a chance to talk to her over the summer after graduation, what with work and all the hurricane issues that complicated my departure from the states, but...she's a really amazing person. A lot of my teaching strategies stem from my experience as her student, and I wanted her to know (if she reads this journal) that I give her most of the credit for whatever success I may happen to achieve in the classroom.

I'm a relatively new addition to the teaching game. The idea of working through cultural and communication barriers is intimidating and sometimes terrifying in my opinion. Most of us, as native-english speakers, take our language for granted. I know I sure have. And so, if we become teachers ourselves, we make take the written courses to show us what techniques work best (of course I did this), but...I think I really didn't understand what being a "teacher" meant until I met Nolde. She thought she was simply the one editing my grammar and cutting my commas and run on sentences, but she did a lot more. I think she may be the reason I warmed up to the idea of being a language instructor in the first place.

So, sometimes...when I'm working with my students, and I get bogged down by stupid details of "Is it Tomato or Toma(h)to????", I think of the lady who was once my teacher and is now my friend, and I feel better. I feel more relaxed, I suppose. More confident. And I know that, even though I'm the baby of the group...and even though I still have so much to learn, I can definitely do this crazy thing called "teaching".

I wonder what it would be like to teach anthropology in China...?

Ponderings for the future, I suppose. ^__^