Signs and Teaching

Teaching has been really fun. It's hard, but I am enjoying it. You never know what is going to happen, and every class surprises me and makes me laugh. After introducing myself last week, this week was my first at actually teaching.

Here's a little bit of the campus. I went exploring a few days ago. This is a view from the front of the gym. The bridge goes to the track.

There's a floor in the gym just for ping pong. I'm sorry, I mean "table tennis".

So my lesson plan was this: First we brainstorm as a class different types of jobs and people. Like old lady, pregnant woman, little girl, puppy. Then I tell them we are on a lifeboat and near us is a boat sinking and we have room for only 5 more. They have to list and present why they save certain people. 

My favorite answer was the group of boys who picked: 
1. model, because she will be light 
2. actress so she will entertain me 
3. singer so she will pass the time singing to me 
4. puppy so he will play with me 
5. lawyer so I can sue the boat people.

Keep in mind that cook, fisherman, sailor, doctor were all possibilities, too. :)

Most of the students speak enough English to form opinions and ideas, which is amazing to me. I studied Spanish for how many years, and if I had this assignment in Spanish it would take me awhile to put it all together. But these kids only took about 10 minutes, most of them less.

This week was also Teacher's Day, and some students gave me candy, and one class gave me some real gifts! I was floored. I wasn't expecting anything. 

My students are the best, which I know a lot of teachers feel, but mine is a fact :)

Now on to a nuisance of Chinese culture: Their complete disregard of spell checking/translating checking. I have come across numerous weird, translated signs. And I'm sure by the end of my time here I will have hundreds. Here are a few I have found.

One of the phrases they taught us in Shanghai during training was "TIC" or "This Is China". It's a catchall phrases meant to explain anything weird that happens. These signs are definitely a great example of TIC. And they won't be the last weird things I see...