As far as teaching at my middle school, it's been a pretty short week. Although, playing 20 questions actually went pretty well despite the students not knowing the names of too many objects. I should have taught them more words for objects like rubik's cube, jump rope, candy, etc. But once they realized they had to guess what they're classmates were thinking of, not only did they become quieter as they listened to each other, I really felt like I'd done my job because it was my students communicating with each other instead of me talking (I always have independent activities and time for them to talk obviously but this one seemed to engage them more). Although the kid who chose the bow from "Green Arrow" stumped us all so I gave him 2 points.

My week was marked by foreigners in Zhuzhou events both on Monday and on Friday. I was looking forward to the ceramics expo in Liling, but we arrived on the morning of the last day. Still stuff out on the floor, but a lot of empty booths and shelves since a lot of people were packing up . And then we were a bit late to the museum so we had to rush through it and didn't see much. There were a few nice pieces, the biggest ceramic jars were all for alcohol, and we saw some ceramics done so finely that they were used for lightbulbs because they were so thin. I was looking for a gaiwan and saw some nice celadon sets that were cheaper than I expected, but nothing really caught my eye. I talked to one of the teachers I haven't seen much since getting separated into our sites and these events are always interesting for me because I get to meet people working in Zhuzhou who aren't necessarily teaching, though there are a number of teachers. I met a family with a Chinese wife and a German husband and their young daughter. The husband said he'd been here for 4 years and hadn't learned much Chinese. He said his daughter always calls him very lazy in Chinese. I met another man working with China Southern Railways too. I may have mentioned this before, but Zhuzhou is probably the biggest transportation point down south. Sometimes people have to come here from Changsha to get a train because we have so many connections that pass through here.

Speaking of trains and connections, during Friday's event for foreigners I had a great conversation recently with a man who's been here for 13 years. He mentioned that you only get a passing view of a city from the trains and don't always get to see everything going on in there. Maybe he meant that because of all the people that must pass by Zhuzhou when they ride the train but never get off on their way to Changsha, Guangzhou, Kunming, or other places more popular as destinations than as stopping points. I was really fascinated to hear everything he had to say because for the most part, I've noticed/encountered relatively young people who stay for 5-6 years and then seem to move on to other things (though there is a group of people who started a company in Changsha, a few of whom used to be in WorldTeach). To find someone clearly at a different stage in his life from many of the other younger people I run into both because of the opportunities available here in China for foreigners (teaching is the most common, it's usually a little harder to find work in other fields but not impossible and that while most seem to like it here and stay for longer than they planned, they seem to move on to other things) presented a unique opportunity. I asked him what brought him to China. He told me that many people from his home country (Morocco) generally go to the US or Europe for work or school, but he saw a growing China and came out of curiosity. He intended to stay for a year or two, then to go to grad school in Belgium. Now he's married and has an 8 year old daughter. I asked him about the biggest changes he's seen in his time here. And like with many things, the biggest changes are the smallest. The first thing he did was point out of the bus windows and talk about the cages for air-conditioning units and how the government had paid for metal bars and things on all the windows so that things wouldn't fall out on the street anymore. The next thing he talked about was jaywalking, "It's much more controlled now. We had guys standing on the street and they would ask jaywalkers for 20RMB. And then people would run away or stop jaywalking not because they didn't want to pay, but because..they felt very silly..." he put his hands against his face so I asked "Embarassed?" "Yes". He told me that the Xiang river used to be a total mess. Things stuck all over the banks, dead animals, junk, bikes and other things used to float through the river. He told me about the efforts to clean up the river around Zhuzhou to make the most impact. If they cleaned up further downstream then the dirty water from here would still come down to others. He told me about the factories that have since moved and how awful the northern part of the city was when it had a chemicals factory. He told me all the chimneys (except one) have since disappeared. Since we were riding on a bus back into the city and I saw the cars around us as we went on the bridge over the Xiang, I asked him if there were more cars. "Oh yes. Many more. And many more kinds of cars." He pointed out his school and the dorms, the opera house in construction, and I asked him about Yandi Square. He told me the statue went up the year he came to Zhuzhou, but there was no square. It was all fields and some graves. I find it hard to visualize. I actually found someone's site where they posted photos they took years ago and compared them to the photos they took on a recent trip, but I still struggle to think about what it must have been like. When I go to YanDi Square now, it's clearly been designed both as a place of leisure and a bit of a tourist spot but there are still things in construction such as the opera house and a concert/arts hall. Those fields have been turned into a lake. The whole set up is near a museum/development exhibition hall which I've only been to once. Listening to my new friend made for quite a story and a chance to get an understanding of this place that I really haven't had access to too much.


It was a long conversation that took course over dinner at Songxizi and the bus ride back into the city. And I guess I'll now have to work backwards to talk about that long but very satisfying Friday. So I and the other teacher here agreed to take part in a program with other foreign teachers to teach in a school that was still in Zhuzhou county but outside of Zhuzhou city. We were assigned to LuKou Town. I got nervous and started to overthink what I needed to do a little bit but then looking at my lesson plan and powerpoint realized that I'd done what I could to teach new words and play charades, but that at this point I was just going to have to deal with any problems when the problems came. I was a littler nervous because I was teaching 8th and 9th grade for a day. It was weird. I didn't have to write and show so many pictures. I just said "take out a piece of paper" and pulled a piece of paper from my notebook "write one verb" and wrote the word swim "now fold it", and showed them, "and put it in this bag". It went smoothly, but the same verbs (fly, play, make, do, swim, sing, dance, run, jump, fight, write, read, watch) came up over and over again so after 20 minutes, I let the last 25 minutes of class be about questions. The 8th graders seemed more willing and warmed up to me more than the 9th graders. I think the same 4 outgoing 9th graders asked me questions over and over again. The 8th graders were so ready to ask me anything some pulled out their textbooks and scoured for a topic. It was really fun. And lunch was awesome. I finally tried hongshao rou while another guy with my name started singing "If it's good enough for Mao, it's good enough for me." He was a character. I knew I'd like hongshao rou before I ate it because everytime I see a picture of Mao's favorite dish it's always cubes of braised pork that seem to be mostly fat. The texture, the flavor, and all of it was great but we all resisted eating the whole thing since our table was so crowded with other foods. Then we went back to organize a question and answer session with the students

I remembered how curious and active my students were when we first met, so I was looking forward to being the new face on campus again. What I didn't think about is how much bigger the school would be (it was a public school and I think it covered primary to middle, if not up to high school) and how we would be mobbed by students who wanted us to sign their notebooks, their jackets, their English books, and sometimes, themselves. It was crazy to leave lunch and get to where we needed to be. I'd already allowed my students to ask me questions in class but there were so many people still who had questions. Some of them surprised me actually, one very outgoing girl with very good English in my 9th grade class asked me what I thought of LGBT and not really knowing the views I would encounter (I've heard that because China doesn't have the same religious context, it's generally more open but I also know that there are people who don't know much or don't understand, and then there's the traditional idea of family too...) I just said "I know what it is, but I don't know very much about it". But I probably should have guessed from her question that she asked because she knew something. She told me after class that she was a "B" and I was pleasantly surprised to find someone so young and so open about who she was. But it may just be that I'm a foreigner and a number of students have told me they feel free when they speak English, so there's that to consider. The sense of freedom is part of why people say such strange things in English sometimes. We talked about South Park, if I like pandas, my favorite drink, where I'm from, what schools in America are famous, if I like Chinese food, if I like China, if I liked the school (they asked me this during my first class when I'd been there for a total of 20 minutes), if I liked la tiao ("What's la tiao?" "This! Try it!"), and if I could accept some gifts from the students. It's always a little weird to be such a huge celebrity for a day on account of nothing more than you being a native English speaker or from another country, but I'm now the proud owner of a handmade pair of earrings and two hair pins, a Chinese chess set from Zhuzhou's top chess player, and a drawing of a tired kitty. I let them have my QQ number too so now I have over 30 requests that I need to add to my contact list. It's always hard to juggle being available to students with your own need for time to yourself but these kids don't have a regular oral English teacher so I thought I'd let them at least write to me every now and again. And they were so welcoming and such characters, I'm not saying no to them.

So that's a very brief summary of my week. On Friday, I had to leave my apartment at 7:20AM and we got back to the city at around 7:30PM so that day alone was pretty packed with new sights and new faces. We had to get up early on Monday too but besides seeing the expo and the museum before they closed for the day, we didn't have a lot of commitments to meet. And we were done after lunch. But I do have some photos of those excursions so I guess I'll spare you all having to read more text when I could just show you people making soy milk.

So I'll be showing a movie to my classes this week ("Frost the Snowman") and will have to spend next week telling students what's on their final exam and letting them prepare in class. I wish I'd received more warning on when my grades were due, but that's how it works here. I still don't know when school starts again. It probably won't be too difficult, but with an average of 57 students a class I will need two class periods to ensure that everyone speaks. (Each period I teach is 40 minutes long, and I only see each class once a week.) But as I wrap up with my students and try to find a suitable, short oral exam (I'm thinking that since I asked them for their names on the first day, they can introduce a classmate and tell us a little about him/her, it'd be a way to come back to day one and include some of what they've done and learned in my class or their other class) I've begun reflecting on the ups and downs of this term.

• Pleasant surprises: Despite having read about how Chinese-Americans in China are met with "a mix of admiration and scorn" I've found that a good number of people seem open to me being an American of Chinese descent. It probably helps that I speak some Chinese and can say that I'm American and I studied some standard Chinese though.
• The students. Creative kids, really sweet, really smart.
• How open the other teachers have been. And the teachers at my school have surprised in wonderful ways as well. For the most part, Chinese teachers just read or lecture (from what I understand) but my colleagues have shown a real effort to help me get better and have surprised me with their variety of methods.
• Finding that my kids actually really love my class and are very happy to see me every week.
• Chinese food. The variety, the taste, the textures. There's no way I can cover everything available in Zhuzhou alone but going out around the train station at night when all the booths are set up with their goods is incredible.
• Despite the air quality on some days, I do like Zhuzhou. It's relatively clean, has a lot going on, is pretty well connected to other parts of China through its trains and does feel different from Changsha which at times was too much for me.

And now some of the tougher things:

So my field director finally made it out to observe both me and my site mate this past week. I've been trying to be tough and enforce my rules strongly so that I wouldn't have too many problems but that was all a crazy dream I guess...long story short, even if I am very good at breaking down difficult things, testing for comprehension, guiding students through practice exercises and finally bringing them to an independent activity where they can be creative, my classroom management is lousy. I need to be consistent with my rules and truly demand respect as I ask for in my class rules. I need to not only say "follow my rules" but provide a means of immediate feedback and show them that I am willing to follow through on what I say. Unfortunately, my red and yellow cards somehow went missing so I was unable to card students who were misbehaving later in the week. I guess that one class must still have them so I need to make new ones or something. It was awful. People are saying I shouldn't be so hard on myself, but I've found I need to stop listening to that. I was right before when I said I did not have the classroom I needed and now I've paid for it both in failing to keep an orderly and safe classroom and in embarrassing myself in front of my field director who proceeded to ask me questions about the noise level of all my classes (they are all noisy, but they are nothing like what I saw when he observed me) and I am all too aware that he could have really dug into me but I think his professionalism restrained him from doing so. Other teachers have assigned me assistants to do the points themselves because I'm terrible at rewarding students properly, being consistent, and working hard to keep students in line. It really really hurts but I got what I deserved for not being that authoritative figure (authoritative is not the same as authoritarian by the way, authoritative figures are demanding, but they give reasons for being demanding and are warm while authoritarian figures demand obedience without warmth). I NEED to be that teacher and right now I am not. This is an urgent thing that I must take care of and it surprises me that so many tell me to relax about it. But my field director was right: I need to be assertive and demand the respect that is mine and my students'. I am a teacher and should be treated as any other teacher here, and my students need to not only learn but have somewhere safe and orderly to learn, not the madness I witnessed on Wednesday and failed to properly address. There are no excuses for this. These are supposed to be the things that I am trained to address and I have not done so as I was trained to do.


While others think this is forgiveable for a new teacher, I do not find this forgiveable. When my students do not respect me and do not respect each other, I am not respecting their potential and their ability to do what they do for every other teacher. In the grand scheme of things, what I ask for is small and I refuse to spend anymore time listening to people who say I am too anxious and I need to just "chill out". If this is about my confidence issues, then starting now I will tell you that I've learned that I have clearer vision than I gave myself credit for and a much better understanding of where I should be than others have given me credit for. Call it intense and crazy, but I read once that lying about your strengths is still lying. I can see what I need to do and who I need to be, it's part of the job and self-awareness has always been one of my strengths. It's what allows me to see and admit that I have work to do here instead of feeling like it's "close enough". My job is to put as many things in place as I can to discourage disrespectful behavior though inevitably students will have bad days for all kinds of reasons. I am angry, but not at them and not at my field director. I am angry with myself but I also know that barb inside of me is what will push me to demand what they are capable of. They know I am kind and willing to share what I know already. Someone talked before about how my students love me, but though love and respect go hand in hand they are not the same thing and I can probably say some students have lost a lot of respect for me because I have not been the person I need to be. No more. I am laying it down clearly next class and asking for the same treatment they give their other teachers.

This past week has been hard for me. My students are feeling frustrated about not having their name cards and have instead asked me to keep track of points in the same way their other teachers do, except that I can't read Chinese and I'm not wholly sure how the different groups work in class. I also seem to be having problems asking students to write me a sentence using a preposition. It all seemed so clear when I was working on that lesson plan in Sichuan. I keep wondering what the other teachers must think of me and my loud classrooms, what they think of me writing 10 on the board at the beginning of every class and a chart for tracking team points. I keep thinking about what a terrible job I've done as a teacher this week, especially since I wound up playing hangman for 20 minutes everyday so far. And trying to model what I want them to do by writing a sentence has been tough. They just copy the sentence I have up there so I need to have a fill in the blanks thing instead.

I feel really incompetent and wonder if I'm actually doing my job. My students said it's OK because my class is usually really fun, but it's not their job to reassure me, it's my job to be ready to go everyday. I also found out that while I prepared this week's activity to go along with unit 4 in their textbook, they started unit 3 just yesterday. So I am too far ahead and out of sync with the other teachers. I plan on doing a better job of checking in with them by asking one of the English teachers for Chinese lessons. That way, I not only gain a little more independence by learning more Chinese but I'd have a set time when I was meeting with someone who teaches the same grade as I do. On the other hand, it's not like my prepositions lesson was without a purpose. I planned to have my students listen to the song, "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas (and possibly play the opening scene so that they could both listen and watch for fuller comprehension). The reason they're learning about monsters and prepositions now is so that I have enough time to go over other new words for their comprehension. Each class is only about 40 minutes long, I usually take 5 minutes to wrap up at the end with  class points and performance,a review of the day's lesson, and a preview of next week's lesson. That leaves me another 35 minutes but I usually start with 5 minutes to review class rules and expectations, review last week's lesson, and give a quick preview of that day's material. So then I have 30 minutes to teach and ask my students to complete a speaking activity in class. The song is already 3 minutes long, I will need time to go over things they might not know, to ask questions and do other pre-listening activities, give them something to do while listening, and then follow it up with comprehension questions afterwards. And I don't want to overload them with new words. And I'm not paying for copies of this song for every student in my classes since I have over 500 students. That's a lot of paper. I want to share these things with them badly, but I feel that I may be asking too much of them  if they're just starting the unit "Is this your pencil?". I'm also beginning to question my song and movie choice here.

I'm not so sure that I'm the teacher these kids deserve. I'll keep plugging away at my lesson plans to do all I can to be closer to that ideal, but I always feel so insecure especially when compared to the other teachers here. I realize this may just be a low point and that in many ways my position is very particular and faces a lot of challenges, one of which is that there are only two foreign teachers in charge of both the 7th and 8th grade oral English classes. I actually have it relatively easy teaching 13 classes and seeing them once a week. My site mate has to alternate schedules every week so she only sees them once every other week and she's taken on a total of 22 classes, she just doesn't see all of them in one week. I have a greater chance of building relationships with my students since I see them more frequently and can better pace their workload to more or less cover the same material in one week. So there's really nothing for me to cry about, I just feel really incompetent.

So my plan for working more closely with the 7th grade English teachers is as follows:

1. Chinese lessons with one of the English teachers who previously taught Chinese to foreigners. Additionally, said teacher is in many ways the teacher I aspire to be despite having taught for a total of 5 months. So I'd be working with both a role model and someone who probably understands my concerns as another new teacher.
   
2. Coming into the 7th grade English office more frequently with a monthly plan. Ever since coming here I've heard nothing but "What can we do to help you?" and I'm sure that asking for feedback on a monthly plan if not a term long plan would be a good way check my pacing and how appropriate my material is.
   

It's not much for now, but I think just these two things would help immensely. I already have been developing relations with my students by eating lunch with them and listening to music together after class. Though since we watched Spongebob in one of my classes last week they wanted to do it again. Sorry, kids. That was a fun day but I can't do that everyday. I want to be better because I really enjoy seeing my students grow and speak a little more each week, but in my enthusiasm I sometimes forget what level they're at...

For at least two Fridays in a row now, I've had this one boy come up to me after class and tell me he hopes to speak better English. I usually respond by saying I hope to be a better English teacher. He grins and tells me, "You will be". These kids have already stolen my heart but it's this one little exchange in particular that I think about after a day of feeling very tired. I'm happy to see my lively students but exhausted from being that articulate, energetic teacher they see once every week. It's this exchange that makes me think about how to be the teacher these kids deserve as I go home for the day, what more I can give them, how to better bridge where they're at with where I want them to be, and just generally warms me to think that I have such awesome students who are growing with me. Do I have to shake them awake sometimes after a hard day? Yeah. Do I have to push a little to get everyone's attention? Yes. Is it tiring to stay up all night making big colorful posters, lesson plans, and monthly and term-long plans so I can be sure my students will have the foundation they need for the next activity I have planned? Yes, but every time I see them light up with something as small as waving Homer Simpson's face around in the front of the classroom or teaching them the English names for the cartoons they recognize I remember how it's so, so worth it.

I asked "Jim" (my motivated student) what he wanted to know about English or learn about English. He seemed unsure about how to say what he wanted or maybe my question was too broad, or maybe the possible answers are too broad and difficult to articulate given that I'm the one teaching him what I know about my native tongue and the place I grew up. I'll give him some time to come back with an answer. I'd love to get more input from my students about the things they want from my class, I can see how hard they work to understand me whenever they pull out their books and turn to the index or the dictionary. At first I forbid myself from using Chinese, but now that I understand the level that they are at, I understand that what few bilingual instructions I can give are actually very much appreciated and I have more students speaking to me now that they've heard my bad Chinese. I still limit my Chinese a lot and I hope to use less in the classroom as time goes on, especially since it's always so thrilling to hear them speak a little more. Here, teachers go up a grade along with the students they teach. I sometimes think that I wouldn't mind staying if it meant I could follow them for another year, continue answering their questions,  andlet them see what their capable of with each activity. I've built my lesson plans this month primarily to ensure my students would be able to understand most of  the song "This is Halloween"  because there are few things I want more than to say "Look, you say you are not very good, but you understood a song in English!"

They are worth every late night, hours of marker fumes and scouring books for grammar and vocabulary that are new and provide new challenges but are not impossible to achieve. I really hope I can get a solid collection of Playaway devices set up in a secure space so that my students always have the option of not only reading, but hearing English spoken by someone other than myself. I'd give them the world if I could, but I am a limited human being and they are middle schoolers with many other things to learn still.

This past week my students got a surprise: their teacher knows a little Chinese and can communicate a little bit with them when they are confused. I've been really reluctant to bring Chinese into the classroom, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it but I want to limit my Chinese as much as possible. 

I finally sat in and observed one of the other English teachers at work. I always hear him in my office I know we share classes so I wanted to see what they knew and how classroom procedures were with Chinese teachers. I was hoping to be able to just turn invisible in the back of the classroom, but he had them all greet me and my site mate before he started class. He was very clear and well-paced. Either today was a review day or I have been moving too fast with my lessons. I tried to get them to talk about phone numbers for my second week of classes but today I heard them go through a listening exercise involving phone numbers. So I guess I have thrown too much at them. Since the National Week holiday is on its way soon, I think this next week will just be a recap of what we have done. I'll teach them about Jeopardy or something so we can play a review game, reinforce what they're learning, and maybe make my students feel less lost or overwhelmed. I could do a better job of teaching. That's why it surprised me so much when my colleague asked me if I had any feedback or comments. He's been teaching for about 4 months, if you count my one week of practicum, I've been doing this for about 5 weeks. He is definitely senior to me, and his lesson was very clear to me as someone who only speaks a little Chinese. Also, I now know where my students learned to say "You are cute". I'm not totally sure, but given that I heard my name in class a few times, I think he told them to say it to their foreign teachers and ask us about our first and last names. I can only guess from their giggling. And the fact that my name came shortly after the words "You are cute".

I felt bad for distracting them too, I had to keep pointing forward so they would pay attention. They're so peaceful in their other English class, but then again, I'm the crazy foreign teacher, the fun teacher, and I teach the one thing that's not on the gaokao. This means that I have both very energetic and enthusiastic students and students who don't care as much because English is already difficult and oral English is not part of the national exam. I have had to tell students repeatedly to put things back in their desks. I could be tougher, but I'd like to emphasize to my students that they decide their grades and choose their own behavior and consequences. That and knowing how much work they have, I'm not sure I am comfortable taking away their textbooks. Simply tapping their desks, looking at them until they focus, or motioning that they should put it back in their desk seems to be sufficient for keeping them alert all period. Especially this week. I had a lot of difficult behavior this week, but also a lot of participation due to my friend, the donut. This is really what drove participation this past week. Part of how I get around oddly pigmented powerpoints or computers that don't work is by drawing, coloring, cutting, and laminating (with tape) different objects. Not only can my students see what I am talking about, but they can hold them and they love that I bring these brightly colored things into their classes.

This has probably been my toughest week so far when it comes to fighting, crying, and getting students to pay attention. I found my wireless mouse so that will have to serve as my powerpoint clicker until I find one here. I need to circulate more so I can better control my classroom. I don't want anymore crying students, no more fights (even before class has started), and no other work in my class. I nearly gave one student a heart attack when I saw she wasn't paying attention so I slapped my paper doughnut on her desk and asked the class if it was "His or hers?" I can't remember what she was doing but she was clutching her chest so I asked if she was OK. I wanted her to pay attention, but not freak out like that. Oops.

I'm sorry for not having photos as I originally intended, but I'm not comfortable bringing my camera into class. I'm sure my students would love photos, but I'm waiting until the end of the year for that. I also haven't traveled much so while I can easily get a few shots of things around my apartment without worrying about privacy or other issues, I really don't have much to show. I can tell you that there's a lot of building going on around me and I wonder if that contributes to the dust I see everywhere. I still haven't gone back behind my building enough to know if the Sheraton is in progress or if the sign near me is to let people know that a Sheraton is coming. But I think it's one of the signs of how much Zhuzhou is growing, changing, and opening up to the rest of the world: not only is this a hotel chain recognized abroad but that there are hotels here means that people not from Zhuzhou are coming to visit and take part in business or tourism.

I think I'm going to end here for today as I'm still fighting off something, need to get dinner going, and have to teach class on Sunday since the National Week break has changed my schedule somewhat. That and I'm going to an event held by the Zhuzhou govt. especially for foreigners and it will be a nicer event. I want to be at my best for that. There's a lot of schedule shuffling going on and it's made harder by the fact that as the foreign teacher who can't speak Chinese, I need to rely on my liaison to give me the information I need. I can't just attend meetings like the other teachers and get information about what's coming up. I wish I could, I'd love to be more involved as a real teacher would be, but that's not how I figure into the system at the moment. If at the very least I can get my students to say more than "Hello my name is", "I'm fine thanks. And you?", and "Good morning/afternoon" then I will be happy. I'll be happiest when I introduce them to a song or something and then I can tell them at the end of class that they now understand a song in English. That will be a source of pride for me if I can show them what they are capable of.

I was supposed to get paid yesterday, but due to some difficulties with the name on my account I still only have about 10 kuai from when I first opened my account. It turns out that after they demanded that I fill out the forms again because they wanted my name to look exactly like it did on my passport (I left out my middle name) they left out a space so that my first and middle name were smashed together. Now that I have that figured out, I should be getting paid my first full stipend soon. Otherwise, my account will have about enough for 5 pieces of stinky tofu and a sprite, which still leaves me with 1 kuai for the bus ride back to my apartment. That had better be some awesome chou doufu if that's all I have and do with that money.

Anyway, it's my third week in and my classes are still very noisy. I love their energy and their mischief tells me just how clever they are. But I still need to control my class. I hate taking points, but I'm going to have to be even tougher to ensure I have a quiet and focused classroom. I also want to be sure that it's a safe space for people to make mistakes. I took the advice of my field director to randomly call on people after students speak and ask questions of different students. I don't have the incredibly quiet classrooms that I hear when I pass my students and they are with their other teachers yet, but the noise did change quite a bit after I started pulling names from the name bag I had students create on the first day. I have their names in Pinyin and Chinese so even if they try changing English names without telling me, I will find them by their Chinese names. That and they should have the name tags I spent over a week cutting out and creating for them. The names I got seemed a little less wild than some of the other teachers, but part of that may have been that I let them pick from a bunch of names I had written and cut out the weekend before. Unfortunately, I ran out of names in one class and wound up reusing some of them. One of my classes has about 5 Olivias.

I'm not where I want to be yet, so I have to keep reminding myself to be firm, clear, and consistent. If I have to tell my class to be quiet 3 times, I take a class point away. If I catch individuals, I card them and they have to come see me after class. I'm now creating a poster so my classes can see how well they are doing relative to each other. Hopefully, the competitive drive will boost classroom behavior. And stronger lesson plans. I think at the beginning of the week, I made it too hard or too hard to understand. Then I made it too easy so students found themselves with free time to goof off when they were done or bored. I need everyone engaged all the time. I'm not giving up until I've shown these kids that I deserve a quiet classroom like their other teachers. I'm worried that students are hitting each other when my back is turned, and when other students tell on them, I struggle to penalize them because I didn't actually see what happened so I usually wind up saying "I need you both to work and keep your hands to yourself or I will be back".

Maybe I'm really not trying hard enough. I don't know, that's sometimes the impression I get talking to others: that I'm too kind when I need to slam things on their desks  and let them know they are in trouble. I do want them to know they are in trouble and for my class to see that there are consequences, but I don't want to shame them or kill their enthusiasm either. They're not bad kids, but I need to be a better teacher.

This has probably been one of the most frustrating and one of the most rewarding weeks as I condition my students to enjoy English but behave well in class. I love it when they're excited like when we went over family members using the Simpsons and especially the reactions of all the Lisas in my classes, but dang. When your smallest class is 55 students you cannot tolerate talking. At all. Get it immediately or you'll find it growing. The last thing I need is 55-60 students distracting and disrupting each other.

Fall seems to have finally reached Hunan. We had rain yesterday and it's been cool enough that I don't need the A/C or my desktop fan like I used to. I was enjoying an unhealthy lunch from the school cafeteria consisting of fried chicken and some spongy cake thing with cream inside while listening to the music they play during lunch break. Yesterday, it was Taylor Swift and the High School Musical soundtrack (the American one, I haven't heard the Chinese High School Musical soundtrack here ever). It's funny to me. Most people talk about getting used to the smells in China. Though there were certainly some I had to get used to to begin with, smell actually hasn't been as big for me as sound. China is very much an aural experience.

Sounds that have become a part of my everyday life in Zhuzhou:

• Motorcycles honking as they ride behind me on the sidewalk
  
• Cars honking all the time to tell people and other cars they want to go ahead
  
• Enrique Iglesias's "Escape"  playing at the accessories shop across the street everyday
• Some song at the Vanguard shopping center that has the words "I know that, I've gotta get out of here" that plays every time I'm there
• Firecrackers/fireworks. From early morning to late at night. While this isn't quite daily, it is regular enough that I don't run around looking for the source when it happens. Most of the time, it's off the top of  building nearby but one morning I got up extra early because the light was flashing through my curtains and later walked to the stationery/convenience store behind where I live and found bits of red paper strewn everywhere.
• The school bell. Except that it's not a bell. When I was in middle school, the submarine beep meant it was time to run off to your next class. Here, it's the teachers that move from classroom to classroom and I know my work is done when I have managed to wrap up just as I hear a piano start Beethoven's "Für Elise". I have also heard a piano version of "The Ash Grove" which I think signals the end of lunch and the beginning of the nap period.
• There is also some lively tune they play for the students eye exercises along with a woman's voice going "yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba". The students have 5 minutes for these eye exercises and they do them twice a day, though since my earliest class is at 10:25 I've only heard it before my 16:00 class.
• "Teacher! Class is ended!" if I continue speaking after the bell.
• Fast-talking store employees advertising aggressively, but with such incredible speed and clearness to their voice that it's really an art.
• The "Xiao Ping Guo". Because it's viral and everywhere. Whether it's a street food stand, middle-aged women dancing out in a square in a large group, my students during their music or dance class, a dance competition, or a nearby KTV, "Xiao Ping Guo"  by the Chopstick Brothers has also come to take its place in my daily life
• The incredible enunciation and rhythm produced by the other English teachers' classrooms. I often hear one teacher come in with his mic and very calmly and clearly recite the vocabulary the students need and have them chorally repeat it. It's amazing. It's completely the opposite of my classroom where I often feel choral repetition is the only time I have for getting all my students to focus and participate. But to keep them engaged I'm going to have introduce something a little tougher or include a few more words.

I imagine this is only the beginning to a growing list of noises. Forget China's smells, it's the sounds that seem to be making an impression on me.

I have a ways to go, but I've already been in Hunan for over a month. My vocabulary grows with every trip to the grocery store and with the assistance of my energetic, bright, loveable, but often mischievous students. I hope to grow as a teacher and make it very clear that helping me with Chinese is only for before or after class. As their English teacher, I'm there to speak English and make sure they do too.

So I relaxed on Monday for the most part. I went to this two floor shopping center where they not only carry tons of stationery, books, and maps but have a number of instruments as well. So now I know where to go for my violin as well as any supply needs I have. I just have to test them out and decide if I want a traditional one or a blue one. They sell guitars and erhus as well. I think it's funny that every stationery shop I've been into sells recorders as well. Maybe some schools require it?

I also got a lot of mooncakes. I bought 4 at Metro before leaving Changsha, then another three from a work colleague who really loves English literature and was talking to me about how Mark Twain and Jack London are popular in China. I've heard that The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye are becoming very popular now too. I'm brainstorming English books I could donate to the school. I've also heard that there's some program that gave a couple funding to start a "Wai-Brary", a library of foreign books. I might apply for that and see if I can get something going for my school or for the area. I think it'd be cool to get my students more involved with something like comic books since they can read but also see what's going on if they don't understand. Given that I teach Junior 1 students who are at a pretty basic level, I would like to offer books at a variety of levels. The Great Gatsby might be hard if all you know are numbers, colors, and "I'm fine, thanks. And you?" I have Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree  as well as other books on my list right now. I would just really love it if my students had more opportunities to use their English than reciting in class. I told them that there are many ways to use English. More than for a test, if you understand English you can make friends who speak English, play games in English, read books in English, and watch movies in English. In this way, you have more to see and your world gets bigger. I haven't mentioned the independence you get as you get better, but that may be learned in time.

Oh, and in all this brainstorming I forgot to mention that I received another 6 mooncakes from the school. I can only eat so many!

This past week just flew by. We had Monday off for the Mid-Autumn festival, but then we also had a half day on Wednesday for Teachers' Day. I received candy and flowers from my students in class 6. A class of good kids who sometimes challenge me, but I know they're all really excited and often at very different levels of English. I have to try hard to not only keep them quiet and listening, but to scaffold what I teach so everyone can participate. I think my lesson this week intimidated some students and confused a lot. I told them to write a conversation together in which they had to ask each other their names, their hobbies, and their phone numbers since they're learning about introductions, greetings, and phone numbers this week. I don't think I really have their attention until I get to the slide with Taylor Swift and Lebron. Then I practically have students falling out of their seats in excitement. Note to self: pop culture references keep their eyes up front but I still need to quiet them.


I usually wrap up class with a review of what we did and learned today as well as a review of the class points and how well behaved everyone was. Then I give them a preview of the next lesson. They're going to start learning about families next week and I thought that it would be a good opportunity to incorporate some American TV since there are so many shows that revolve around families. I had pictures of the Addams family on the last slide and the Simpsons. No one responded to the Addams Family, but judging from the excited screams the Simpsons are popular in China. So I guess I'll have them making a family tree using the Simpsons next week or something similar. I have to figure out how to lead them into a speaking activity though. It seems like it'll be a fun day if they're already excited. I'm trying to think of how I can bring a simple song into the class as well though that will be a separate lesson. I had a number of students tell me they really want to learn and that they're really interested in the language and culture. I'm two weeks in and already really love my students. I just wish I could get to know them all but it's nearly impossible when I have 13 classes a week of about 55-60 students in each class. And getting them to behave is sometimes difficult. I hear talking, but sometimes the talking is so that other students know what I'm trying to teach them. I get to be the fun teacher, which means in some ways I have to be tougher to control my students but also means I have a lot of room to win my students over with my lessons.

It's only week one and I'm really tired! On Wednesday, I had 3 classes that were all back to back. I had more time to get to my last one because the students had to do eye exercises for 5 minutes in addition to the ten minute break between classes. I have now introduced myself as Teacher Chicken 13 times over as my name sounds like ji1 (鸡) which means chicken. I intend to use this to my full advantage if it means that everyone pays attention in class. I have surprised my classes everytime I say I am from America. They don't seem to understand me the first time, because whenever I just let my students ask me questions about myself, they still ask and sound really surprised. I've also found that if I write California on the board, I don't necessarily get a big response. If I draw California on the board, my students start yelling "It's a boot!" If I say and write Disneyland, they look really confused or don't respond. If I draw a Mickey Mouse head, they totally know who that is and how to spell his name. I feel like I'm either too fast or too slow. I saved myself a lot of time the other day when I didn't offer English names, and no one said anything. All my other classes have told me when they do not have English names, but now I'm afraid that I just have a bag full of Chinese names with "no English name" written on them. I guess I'll just have to give them names myself. It's funny too, everytime I want them to fill out name cards with their Chinese, Pinyin, and English names, I give them an example using my own name in Chinese and English. This means that every class I either have students applauding me for my bad handwriting in Chinese or sounding my name out once they see it. Which is fine, they're curious, but I still need to make sure they understand and follow my directions. I'm afraid that not everyone understands what my yellow and red cards are for or how my rules all work so I have to make them even simpler. I need to review all these things with them again next week. Hearing students yell "Football!" when I raise my cards and ask them about the rules tells me I need to be more clear, but I also feel that I can push my students more than I've been told. They definitely know more than what is in the textbook if they can ask me how heavy I am. 

The teachers here are very willing to help me with just about anything. I have been observed a lot of times and get a little more advice to think about everyday. Hopefully, it will really go well next week when I am back from my three day weekend for the Moon Festival and have my materials ready to go as well as a lesson plan related to what the students are learning that week.  My school has taken very good care of me and I want to get better everyday so that I can return the favor by teaching my students to be more confident speakers. Sometimes I realize I've made things harder for myself than perhaps they should be, but I also know that once I say something I need to fulfill anything I say. The students are supposed to be going over greetings, introductions, and telephone numbers this next week. I'm trying to find a song or a video clip I can use in addition to teaching them to say more than "I'm fine, thanks. And you?" which is the standard answer you will receive if you ask students how they are.


I am not wholly comfortable taking photos at school, but I wish I could show you all what our school's opening ceremony is like. I've never seen anything like it at an American school. All the students and teachers came outside and assembled for announcements. They all had to face forward in lines and there was this large inflatable arch with dragons on top for the school year beginning in 2014. There was some singing too. Very different from my own experience of middle and high school.

Anyway, it's been tiring, but I don't feel it when I'm in the classroom for the most part. I just get in there and focus on the materials I need to cover and the information I need from them. I'm looking forward to going down the street and checking out this small area filled with calligraphy, brushes, carved gods, and jade jewelry. I found that they have a couple of places selling name chops in there and I really want one. If not for keeping track of my students participation and points, then at least for myself as a reminder of my time here. It would certainly be more unique than other things I might get here.

Today was long and difficult. We had to lead two classes. I got off easy since my second period was an activity period, but I couldn't decide at what point it was reasonably noisy for an activity and at what point it was too wild. I think accidentally gave out a red card to a kid who tried to say sheep but I thought it was "shut up". I feel really awful now knowing that I gave an unwarranted card out. Ugh. I want to be a better teacher, I want to hear better and not make mistakes like that again. We wound up playing hangman. Again. Like everyday except the first day I taught and my first period earlier today. My sense of time for these activities and for learning is pretty off. At least I haven't just walked out of the classroom when I had no slides left. I take that responsibility pretty seriously. And I'm being observed tomorrow. It wasn't supposed to be that way and I wasn't supposed to know, but due to some scheduling issues I am one of the last to be observed. My final class is tomorrow and I'm sure I have confused them a lot, though I hope they learned something. Whether that be "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade", "It's all a mystery to me", a fun new game involving action instead of words, ways to begin and end a letter in English, I just hope that they find it useful someday. Here's to a good last day of practicum, stepping into the classroom with a smile and becoming an incredible teacher and manager by the end of the year.

Jia yo!