Archive for the ‘Teaching’ Category

8 comments

Hey Zhou: A Totally Impractical Guide to Hangzhou and Fuzhou


2012
01.19

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Nebulous Items, Teaching | 8 Comments »

I’ve been on a bit of a ‘zhou bender in the past month, flitting around the Eastern seaboard of China with two 4-day stints in Hangzhou and one down in Fuzhou. Given this, I should be writing a top ten list of places to visit, delightful things to see, local delicacies to sample, cultural curiosities worth noting. This, however, would be impossible because I’m on a totally different Tour de Chine.

Yes, I’m on the other tour. The Work Tour.  My super-secret part-time job is one of those theoretically coveted types that both pays well and lets you stay in exotic locations like, say, Hefei or Nanjing or Dalian, put up in places like the cushy Hefei Hilton (reportedly, the cheapest Hilton in the world, folks, but the bubble bath still has glitter in it and the bath tub comes with your very own yellow rubber duckie, gratis!) or the Huhhot Shangri-la (I’m still waiting for that assignment). It’s not the CIA but it’s close.

Yes, dear readers, I’m not the brave backpacking globe trotter you might have mistaken me for. When in Nanjing, I sleep at the Sheraton and I get there by way of the soft-seat class on the posh G-trains. Work pays for it all. I’d probably go hard-seat class and sleep on a park bench if left to my own devices (though these days, I’m sure Doug would have a flight booked and adorable boutique hotel reserved before I got a chance to cave in to my old, painful habits).

Having just spent a cumulative week in both ‘Zhous in the past fortnight, what can I tell you about their delights? Which scenic points can I point you toward? Which culinary treasures can I enlighten you on?

Er, none. I was working. I was locked in a room for hours at a time, grilling people, cop-style. The only thing missing was the spotlight, which would have actually been really nice because our venues aren’t well heated.

My itinerary was generally thus: taxi-train (or plane)-taxi-university-taxi-hotel-bed-taxi-uni-taxi-train (or plane)-taxi-home.

Let me give you a few highlights of my whirlwind Tour de Zhou.

Even this shark saw more of Hangzhou than I did this time

(more…)

4 comments

Hello, Dalian! A Totally Impractical Guide to That City up by Korea


2011
11.03

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Nebulous Items, Teaching | 4 Comments »

And by impractical, I really mean it this time. I have absolutely no information that might be of use to you here, unless you get sent up for work at the very last minute, as I did, and need to know where you can get really good sushi (*hint hint* the Grande Teda Mercure hotel at the edge of town really knows its sashimi but it’s only available as part of the dinner buffet so you’ll be forced to eat the dozen or so perfectly formed desserts as well, which possibly negates the nutritional and aesthetic benefits of the delicately sliced fish).

Why was I in Dalian? And where is Dalian anyway?

Well, let me tell you what it isn’t. It isn’t the long form version of Dali, so I definitely wasn’t down in Yunnan, smoking a ton of weed supplied by twinkly-eyed grandmas with dreadlocked backpackers. It also isn’t Dalyan, down in the lovely Muğla province in the South West of Turkey, near Marmaris and Fethiye.  No Lycian tombs for me, no ancient amphitheaters, no blue skies or access to decent meze and raki. Alas.

Screenshot from the Dalian wikipedia page

The Dalian (aka 大连) that I was shipped off to for a frenzied weekend of Super Secret Educatrix Work is the one up in Liaoning province on a little peninsula looking over at Korea, on the verge of being Dong Bei but not quite. It’s the northernmost southern port and the southernmost northern port. Or something like that.

It’s northern enough that the people are really huge (comparatively) and there are cabbages everywhere; however it’s still southern enough that I was getting by in just a cardigan at the end of October. It is apparently famed for its supposed warm water beaches and, if my students are to be believed, its modernity as exemplified by shopping malls and tall shiny buildings. From what I’ve gathered, it was the southern tip of the Trans Siberian Railway back when northern China was colonized by the Russians.

Ceci n'est pas Dalian. This is Harbin. Isn't it awesome?

This doesn’t mean, however, that it escaped with an awesomely old-skool Russian onion-domed downtown core like Harbin. No. Dalian is pretty architecturally dull, actually, from what I could glean. Aside from a few anachronistic neo-classical public buildings and some older, walled houses that I passed by in the taxi from the airport, everything else was pretty much the usual low-key apartment blocks intermingled with generic boxy businesses. I’m sure there are a few traditional Chinese gardens tucked away in parks somewhere but, like I said, I was barely there.

Why was I up on that little peninsula way up North, looking over at Korea? Well, it has to do with my Super Secret Side Job– or rather, now that I’m unemployed- my Super Secret Main Job. The Beijing office was short staffed so last Thursday I got a phone call telling me that I had a flight booked for 9am on Saturday, returning Sunday night. Yes, I am a true jet setter in the nerdiest interpretation of the term.

I spent the entire weekend in about four places: the airport, the taxi, the hotel and (mostly) the university. I am now intimately acquainted with Liaoning Normal University (辽宁 师范 大学).

I am here now to give you my totally impractical tour de Dalian, educatrix-nerd style. Come join me as we explore the richness of Dalian that I was able to capture during my whirlwind tour! (more…)

12 comments

Notes on my Supposed Unemployment: The September Edition


2011
09.30

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Learning, Nebulous Items, Teaching | 12 Comments »

Remember how I’ve been going on and on for months about being unemployed?  How it felt weird to be so suddenly unstructured and aimless after decades of chronic employment? Yeah, well, I lied. Kind of.

I am unemployed, by the day-job definition of employment. At 6am most days, there is nowhere I need to be except my bed with a cup of coffee and a few choice web pages open.  And this, my friends, is magnificent.

Kevin the Panda knows what I'm talking about

(more…)

21 comments

14 Notes on teaching English in a Chinese university, in the middle of a quiet burnout and impending unemployment


2011
05.14

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Learning, Nebulous Items, Sensory Overload, Teaching | 21 Comments »

1.

Two weeks ago I renewed my gym membership, which I had let lapse about six months ago.

Work in pairs, please

Sometime last Autumn, I had  figured that the five flights of stairs I had to climb 8 or so times a day between classroom and office were enough to keep me going through winter, combined with the 5km or so I walked whilst monitoring in the classroom, and the 40 or so minutes I walked to and from work during my commute . I carried a pedometer in the classroom as a clock. I averaged 12,000 steps during a six-hour teaching day, not including my commute.  In spite of this inadvertent regular workout, I still felt drained, exhausted,  and my trapezoidal muscles hadn’t been unclenched in years. My spinal column clicked.

Just after I found out that my job was probably going to disappear at the end of June, I decided that I needed to address my clicky back, my chronic insomnia, my taut trapezoidals, my general feeling of physical malaise.  If my life was going to go up in flames, at least I’d try to salvage my health along the way.  So, I rejoined my gym.

This post is not about the gym though. If I wanted to talk to you about running, I wouldn’t have dragged teaching into it. This is a post about teacher burnout. About what it feels to be somewhere in the middle of your own burn out.

2.

At the gym, I try to do about an hour on the treadmill, just to get the kinks out and to exhaust me enough so I can hopefully get some sleep at night. I haven’t slept more than 4-5 hours a night since we moved to Shanghai over two years ago.  An hour on the treadmill is a tedious endeavour which I mask with podcasts I’ve downloaded. I’m currently midway through a lecture series from Stanford University’s history department (20th Century US Civil Rights Movement). It’s a video podcast, filmed in an actual classroom, in an actual course.  And this is where the teaching part comes in.

3.

For an hour, several times a week, I watch a teacher walk into a classroom, calmly, methodically. He greets his class. The classroom is quiet, except for the few students who reply to his greeting. He starts immediately. He elicits ideas and concepts from the previous lecture. A few students put their hands up and give well thought out answers. Most of the time he lectures, telling stories and reinforcing the sense of place and context. The students take notes. Using pens that they had brought. In notebooks that they had brought. Pins drop with a thud.  For an hour, the lecturer speaks, occasionally elicits and gets at least one or two replies. At the end of the hour he thanks them and bids them goodbye.

If you are a teacher, this is possibly a wonderful moment of pure fantasy.

(more…)

15 comments

3 Short Scenes from the Chinese Classroom: Why I Probably Can Never Go Home Again


2011
04.01

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Nebulous Items, Teaching | 15 Comments »

Scene 1.

And there's still more back in my office if you want any

‘Happy April Fish Day, teacher!’ My students are knee deep in plastic snack-sized dried fish wrappers. It’s April 1st. There’s a huge grocery bag three quarters full of unopened dried fish packets under one of the rows of desks. It was a gift from a friend of a friend in Fujian province. A huge bag of dried fish, lightly spiced.

Everyone in the class has a mouth full of dried fish and they look quite pleased about it. During the listening segment of the lesson, one of the rows of hard, bench-like desks tips over with a crash. One of the boys had been so enraptured by the fish that he’d tried to sneak just one more from under the seat behind him. The Little House on the Prairie bench collapsed.

‘It’s delicious, teacher! Here, take!’ I’m given a huge stack of my own dried fish. After all, it’s April Fish day today.

I taught a 90 minute class on Introductory Paragraphs in Research Essays (background, general to specific, previous research and citations, aim and research question).  Every jaw in the room chewed the dried fish diligently as they took notes.

Scene 2.

Whilst explaining the concept of Academic Body of Knowledge and how a research essay is meant to refer to it and then to add to it, I drew a picture on the board to illustrate it. I drew a small circle and said, this was the first guy to research Subject X. Then I added little petals, one by one, around the center circle until I had a rather magnificent blooming flower and quite a hearty (though metaphorical) growing body of knowledge.

“Teacher! The body of knowledge looks like a chrysanthemum!’ exclaimed one boy. I was so proud. He could pronounce chrysanthemum. Hell, he knew the word even.

“Teacher!” exclaimed another, “It looks just like Student X’s hair from behind!”

Student X, who possesses a mighty head of hair, nodded and beamed proudly. Not only did he possess awesomely poofy hair but it also looked like a lovely blooming flower and represented the growth of academic knowledge and research.

Scene 3.

Mrs Gu and Mrs Tang are the classroom teachers responsible for the well being of my current and previous crops of students. They make sure the kids are in class on time, hauling them out of bed if necessary. They make sure they do their homework and eat their veggies. They yell at them if need be. They call their parents. They mother them because the kids have no mothers in the dormitories. Kids need mothers. They don’t actually teach and I don’t know if they ever did but they are still officially Gu laoshi and Tang laoshi and they’re the ones you don’t want to piss off if you want to keep your job. The guy I replaced two years ago hadn’t won their approval.

I have.

Mrs Gu on the left, Mrs Tang on the right. They are dangerous.

And I did it in a way that I’m 99.9% certain would have had me fired immediately anywhere else. It wasn’t planned. It certainly wasn’t planned because I’ve been called up for insubordination and inappropriate behaviour in the past for this sort of thing and nearly fired.  It’s a weak spot of mine.

It started small.  Last year with Gu laoshi, if kids were late, I’d jokingly slide my fingers across my throat to indicate what I wanted her to do with them if they were ever tracked down.

She and Tang speak only Shanghainese and I don’t.  The kids say they barely understand them, their local accents are so thick. But they are fluent in dark, dry humour. As am I. The light hearted throat slitting grew into slitting with a subtle mime of heads rolling neatly onto the floor with a thump. Then a quick game of soccer. Many hearty chortles and a quick volleyball serve of the metaphorical head of the tardy kid. The kids also thought it hilarious. A Greek chorus of chortles always emanated from inside the classroom.

Today, Gu laoshi beckoned me out into the hallway while I was taking attendance. She mimicked sharpening long knives, one against the other.  Skritch skritch skritch. Eyes glinted. She giggled. A quick finger slice to the neck and the nicely sharpened finger neatly did it’s job. The invisible head rolled down the hall. Thumbs up, mimed Gu.

Finger to throat again, she made rough, awkward sawing motions. Terrible, terrible, she indicated. Nothing worse than a dull finger! That head ain’t going nowhere.

I quickly opened my iPod Chinese dictionary and tapped in a word. Inefficient. That’s very inefficient, I said, in appalling tones. Gu and Tang agreed, vehemently.

I went back inside and taught a 90 minute lesson on European business recruitment practices.

No Comments

School’s out for…um, Spring Festival (insert Alice Cooper tune here)


2011
01.21

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Nebulous Items, Teaching | No Comments »

End times: Still life with school detritus

Classes finished nearly two weeks ago but the final exam for my course was scheduled only for the very last possible time slot.

This means I’d spent the first week off hauling my parents around town and drinking absurd amounts of coffee, sitting in the living room in my awesome new high-tech thermals (thank you, family), looking out the window at the frigid city rooftops and laneways.

I started this week temporarily back at work on Monday, invigilating in a freezing, dimly lit, post-apocalyptically deserted university where everyone except me, my 40-odd kids and the class matriarchs had gone home for the long winter break.

The walls radiated cold. The admin office was locked and dark and I had to wait until the last minute for someone to give me the exam and exam room number.

No one had remembered to get me the keys to the listening console so we had to send a runner down 5 flights of stairs to the tech office for that. They brought back the wrong keys and had to start all over again. Then it turned out that the computer console’s electricity had been turned off at an unknown source, then it turned out that the computer itself didn’t even work so the techie had to go back down to his lair to bring up a new one. Half an hour after the exam had started (and half an hour after the listening part should have started) I plugged in my USB memory stick and told the kids to brace themselves for the listening section only to discover the new computer didn’t have a media player installed. The techie was summoned again. The kids were nervous wrecks from all the interruptions.  We were able to begin 40 minutes late. The class matriarchs didn’t bat an eyelid. Such is China.

Not this year's kids, as I was too busy dealing with tech issues to play paparazzi

Yesterday, I trudged back to my office after two days of hair-pulling marking at home to input the final grades, only to find it even more dark and chilled and echoingly deserted. My normally chipper and green potted plant was shivering in its ceramic pot. It was snowing sideways. Three days of snow in a (insert quotation marks here) Tropical City.  I wore my mittens as I typed. My poor old computer roared after being awakened from its long, icy slumber. Every other office on my floor was locked tight, dark, deserted.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m just hallucinating my job.

Trudging away from my building through the deserted, snowy campus

Today, I’m officially done until the 21st of February.  My parents and I are off to Qibao for some touristing. Good times.

2 comments

The Chinese Christmas Party Post! (Part 2)


2011
01.02

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Learning, Nebulous Items, Teaching | 2 Comments »

Remember how my students organized a Christmas party in a tea house at the side of an eight lane ring road, under the shadow of a spider’s web worth of overpasses? Where I feasted on *sigh* everything that features heavily in my almost-but-not-quite worst nightmares?

The cold offal snack plate

The grinning whole fish with the staring eyes and the cold offal plate and the pumpkin soup studded with things in shells and things with legs and feelers and eyes at the end of long sockets. The one where there was not one but two pork dished that consisted 98% of just shining red fat, an inch thick. Oh, and watermelon slices and mashed-potato pastries for dessert.

That Christmas party. Yes.

The one where after a delicate nibble of everything placed before me by my forcefully adopted mother, Mrs Gu, I dined primarily on the vinegar-marinated red-skin peanuts that she ladled into my carcass-filled bowl, afraid I would starve.

The one where I met Gerald, or rather, Gerald was carried up the aisle between the tables by my moon-walking student in the fedora and presented to me on stage to much applause. An auspicious meeting, to be sure.

Jerry and Gerald

Well, it wasn’t just about trying to force feed myself every food group that normally makes me want to cry. No! The kids had prepared a full evening of light entertainment: surprisingly funny comedy skits, boy-band dance moves, funky freestyle moves to beatbox mouth-work, soulful crooning, surreal games of charades, intervals of gift giving and candy throwing and many many bottles of soapy bubbles blown for atmosphere.

The lovely D.L. was the official bubble-ista

Most of my kids should not be studying business administration. They should be enrolled in performing arts schools. In my two classes, I have nearly-pro musicians, dancers, singers, actors, artists. The dancing boy with the fedora, Jerry, was reportedly a finalist this year for Tongji’s Got Talent, my huge, multi-campus’d university‘s talent show. A degree in business administration will undoubtedly take full advantage of his awesome drawing, singing and dancing skills. Or not. *sigh*

Anyway, Let me show you some things from that evening.

(more…)

8 comments

My Students Gave Me Stuff for Christmas!


2010
12.26

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Nebulous Items, Teaching | 8 Comments »

This is going to be a very short post. I just wanted to show you my haul for this year, from my students.

First, the big one:

We haven't actually named hir yet. Gender as yet undetermined.

And then two smaller gifts combined:

Pretty wooden coasters with calligraphy and watercolour pictures, and posh chopsticks in silk sleeves

And finally, the slightly crumpled gourd-y ornament:

A gourdy Christmas to all!

Oh, and the three apples.  I gave one to the cleaning lady at work who always attempts to say Hi to me, so only two left to pose for the photo.

To keep the doctor away!

11 comments

Chinese University Students on Love, Lust, Dating and Marriage


2010
12.13

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Learning, Nebulous Items, Teaching | 11 Comments »

ETA December 14: Now with more love, lust and dating! Added quotes!

Part 1 in the series (Helpful Household Hints) was here

I originally typed this up sometime last week, back when I still had the energy and wasn’t consumed by a great big ol’ ball of sickiness. I’m currently consumed in a non-tubercular way by a deeply unpleasant cold (again) and by the cumulative exhaustion brought about by too much work. Yes, I did speaking tests all weekend. Yes, I nearly lost my voice again. Yes, I am still questioning my lifestyle choices.

Here are a few random photos from this weekend.

Industrialized Self-Service Hot Water for my bottomless mint tea

A rainy Sunday morning out in the wilds of Songjiang University Town, on campus, cold

In spite of me feeling like crap, lunch was very good out there

Luckily I didn't fall into any deep water and catch my death of cold

Rather than moan about how tired I am (I am!) or how I wish I could have slept all weekend instead of croaking out interviews with several dozen people (with intermittent coughing and sneezing), I’m going to present you with part 2 in my series on advice, tips, ideas and opinions from my students.  This week, they’re going to talk about love. Yes. And they have many thoughts on the matter.

Talk amongst yourselves, whilst I go have a nap, kids!

My students (who are awesome) had grappled at length with the abstract concepts of Love and Like and Lust and whatnot and had emerged victorious, with many things to say. I wish I had a photo of the board work from that day.

I’ll give you a photo from a similar class I had here in Shanghai a few years ago, in my first job.

Do what the Vocab says

So, without further ado, here is some food for thought and a brief foray into the minds of a few random 19 year old urban middle-class Chinese kids:

When we children, we do not have the ability to know what is ‘love’, maybe we do not know now either. However, it is undeniable that we have the lust… “Love” in the schools is an irresistible trend. Throughout love, we can exchange ideas, emotions and information. e can be benefited both physically and mentally, thus improving the study.  As the saying goes, ‘love is like a butterfly. It goes where it pleases and it pleases where it goes.’ All of us have the wonderful imagination about love. At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. On the whole, it is high time that we recognized the significance of love. It makes us mature and do not be afraid of the hurt during the love. Received the injury better and can grow up. No cross, no crown.  D.L.

Don’t promise somebody and don’t fall in love with some people before you graduate, even if you love he/she very deeply. Because you can’t give they anything until you find a job. Money was not base on love but if you don’t have enough money you cannot do anything for your love. It is so terrible. Jeff

Love is a thing between two lovers but marriage is a thing between two families. To live together is a good way which two lovers know each other and communicate with each other. It is terrible that couple find they aren’t appropriate after they got married even had a child. It is needed to know each other clearly before marriage and living together before marriage is okay. Vienna

Driven by the uncontrolled emotions, the university colleges increasingly tried to find a partner who they desired for during university time. However, it’s a not  correct idea for most students. First of all, the university colleages are too young to solve the contradiction. Since they grow up with the parents’  love, they always thought they were right and should be protected. Owing to this idea, they often had words with the partners. Only when they get elder and know how to respect and understand each other will they have abilities to creat a happier atmosphere among them. Tony

In 21 Century the more people are work hard in office. They are work in any time so have lead to many people haven’t time to do otherthings like dating. I think freedom of marriage is important but the marriage introduction service is fashion in 21 Century. Many unmarried person are find they lifelong companion. Many happiness lovers from there then they living in happiness life. I think arranged marriage ever is not bad idea! Xu Dan

(more…)

8 comments

Helpful Household Tips from Chinese University Students


2010
12.03

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Learning, Nebulous Items, Teaching | 8 Comments »

Do you want to know one of the fastest ways to wrap your head around a new country and culture?  Teach there.  Let me show you some things I learned today whilst marking my students’ process essays.

Contemplating Household Hints

How to wash your hair

First, you need to buy shampoo, wash basin and face cloth at the super market. Second, open the bottle of shampoo and put it beside you. The next step is put half a pot of hot water to wash basin when the water is full. Please soaked the face cloth. At the same time, lower your head, use the face cloth wet your hair. Afterward, besmear shampoo in your hair and besmear it equably in between the hair. Accomplish it. Use the hot water washed shampoo away. Please repeat it twice. At last, blow dry your hair by hair dryer.

-Zebin

How to wash clothing

Drying time

Firstly, put some detergent to the cold water and let it melt in the water. Secondly, put the clothes into the detergent water and let them soak in it for about half an hour and let the detergent work well. Then, rub the clothes with hands from the dirtiest parts to the whole clothes. Next, dry clothes by twisting from the detergent water. After this, wash clothes 2-3 times with clean water till the water is clean. Finally, hang the clothes up and let them dry.

-Eric

How to cook fish

This ought to be freshly killed

Firstly, the fish is washed and then put in the dish and then the oil and fish is put into the furnace. For a minute, the fish is turned over until you small the good smalling. Secondly, the spices is put like wine, start, burden and son. Thirdly, the fish is softed. Finally the fish is dished up.

-Ally

How to stew chicken broth

First, buy a chicken

Beforehand, go to the market and buy a chicken. First of all, wash clean the chicken, mushroom, and peels off the skin of the spring bamboo. After this, keep mushroom. Use heat opens water to hang about five minutes. And than spring bamboo becomes little slice from deep. It boils five minutes in water. It drags to rise release beside. At last keep water in marmite shaokais. Release chicken, boil very much. Release spring bamboo and mushroom again, add salt, season with monosodium glutamate. Go to chicken ripe directly.

-Tiffany

How to cook the tomato with eggs

Photo credit: essentialbaby.com.au

Firstly the eggs tomatoes and some onion is got ready. Then all things is wished. Secondly, the eggs is put into the bowl then the tomatoes and onion is cut. Thirdly the onion and eggs is put into the furnace and turn over again and again. Finally the food is dished up.

-Elaine

How to put the giraffe in the fridge

Image from fx.worth1000.com

To begin with, open the fridge. Later put the elephant out. At the same time, put the giraffe in. In the last stage, close the fridge.

-Raphael

2 comments

Do As I Say, Not As I Do: On Learning Chinese/ Teaching English


2010
08.29

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Learning, Nebulous Items, Teaching | 2 Comments »

Huh?

I’ve been told I’m a good teacher. I’ve been teaching English for nearly a decade now and know how to nurture a reluctant super-low beginner out of their speechless shell and into proud conversations in English. I’ve taught study skills so many times that I could teach a class on how best to learn a language at the drop of the hat.

I can’t say I do much of that myself when I’m at the other end of the piece of chalk. I’m an abysmally undisciplined language learner and, had I found myself in my own class being taught by myself, I’d likely be the one that Teacher Me gets infinitely annoyed by. Hello! I’m at the back, doodling and making occasional (kind hearted) snarky remarks and frequently refusing to read aloud or go up to the board. I probably also have my phone out, covertly sending an occasional text message from beneath the desk (work stuff, mostly, as I have to balance both this month). I have been known to feed my iFish on my iPod in the middle of Group Reading Aloud Moments, trying to focus my brain with the tap-tap-tapping.  I loathe reading aloud in class. In one ear and out the other. I’d rather sit quietly and parse my sentences.

But I do learn in the end, in spite of my many bad study habits.

From the Teacher Side

My Mandarin course has got me thinking about language learning and language teaching. If I am my own worst student (and yet I speak 5+ languages to varying degrees of fluency, mostly self taught) then I seriously need to stop and think about how we teach languages, what we expect from students (and why), and how we can reshuffle our advice to students about how to improve. I can’t say I’ve ever taken my own advice so maybe alternate advice is called for.

Why I suck at studying languages:

1. I’m shy. I may not look it, but I am. Even in English, I get nervous when I have to speak to people I don’t know. Ask me on my first day of Beginner class to go out in the break and ask 5 people 5 questions and I quake in my boots. Everything I just learned in class flies out the window as I struggle to contain my terror.

In Turkey, although I was actively studying Turkish on my own from the beginning, all my Turkish friends thought I was stubbornly stupid because I wasn’t speaking much more than hesitant, simple sentences for my first year or two. Other teachers, more outgoing teachers, happily blurted out sentences with appalling grammar and cringe-worthy pronunciation and used all the wrong words in all the wrong places and had praise lavished on them.

(more…)

13 comments

On Language Burnout After a few too Many Countries


2010
08.26

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Learning, Nebulous Items, Teaching | 13 Comments »

These chickens have nothing to do with language

It’s a funny thing starting an expat/travel blog sixteen years after you started travelling/living elsewhere and failed to do anything else with your adult life except, well, travel and be an expat.

For one, you’re not as freshly enthusiastic as those who are venturing out on their first big trip or landing in their first (or even third) foreign country.  Sometimes I can be downright jaded and cranky.

My rose coloured glasses cracked sometime around 1997 in London and were thoroughly smashed over the course of 6 years in Turkey (a country I love very much but which didn’t always love me back).  I don’t wear glasses at all anymore.

This is not to say that I’m beyond the point of wonder and fascination, no, no. You may have noticed that this blog is almost neurotically drawn to the quirks of the utterly mundane in Faraway Lands (or rather, as I’m in Shanghai, the Immediate Vicinity). I like exploring places very much, thank you.

Sometimes, however, there is burnout.

About a month ago, I posted a piece about my fast-travel burnout, how I just couldn’t take any more bam*bam*bam backpacking, dashing from crappy bus to slow train to trishaw to scary shared taxi to back-of-scooter.  I’m reaching a similar point in language acquisition.

I have no idea what this says

A little background here:

I grew up bilingual in French and English, having been sent through a French immersion program from kindergarten to grade 12.  That’s one spare language.

Then, in my London years, I was surrounded by, working with, working for, dating (just one) and living with an impossible number of South Africans. At the end of all that, I ended up living in Cape Town for 6 months. At one point, I was stage manager in a wholly Afrikaans speaking theatre company, taking all tech cues in Afrikaans. That was three years of Afrikaans immersion.  I can still recite dirty poetry and demand cups of tea, fluently.

After South Africa, I moved to Turkey and spent six years trying desperately to grasp Turkish so I wouldn’t feel horribly embarrassed when my students would say, “You’ve been living in Turkey this long and you still aren’t totally fluent? Are you stupid?” Their English skills (usually after a dozen years spent studying English) were generally no better and no worse than my Turkish skills but I still felt horribly ashamed. I spent most of 2005 (year 4) loathing the language, resenting it, feeling like it just wouldn’t sink into my brain, feeling utterly stupid.  That year passed and more Turkish was absorbed and I stopped resenting it. I left Turkey as a solid Intermediate (still not fluent, but very good at what I needed to be good at).

Before I left Turkey, I started studying Spanish, as we were tentatively planning to move to Mexico or Colombia or maybe Ecuador (we are flexible that way). For six months I ploughed my way through Live Mocha levels and tried to separate my Turkish intake from my Spanish (because I was also taking Turkish classes at the time).  By the time we made it to Mexico, I could easily read Spanish but my speaking was hesitant and my listening was just tired.

Between 1994 and now, I also travelled in countries that required German, Flemish, Portuguese, Twee, Bulgarian, Romanian, Burmese, Indonesian, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and Arabic. I learned between a little and a lot of each of these.

Could it be Walmart?

Now, after a year and a half in Shanghai, I’ve just started taking Mandarin lessons. It’s a 4 week intensive course and I’m ashamed to admit that although it’s just a basic beginner course, I’ve learned more in the past 3 weeks than I had in the past 18 months.  That’s actually quite embarrassing.

Why hadn’t I learned more than just the basics I needed to get by? I knew my Thank Yous and How Muches and Hellos and whatnot but I had a huge mental block against learning Chinese. I bought book after book of the Learn Chinese in 2 Days sort, hoping that I’d learn by osmosis. They mostly stayed shut, gathering dust on my bedside table or on my desk at work. I tried listening to people speaking and tried to pick up bits and pieces but usually failed (though I became fluent in metro announcements due to my long commute). I was functionally illiterate due to the character system so my old learning style of constantly reading signs and billboards and newspapers failed me. I mostly just felt tired and wished I could still use one of the other languages I’d worked so hard for, which were fading away in my brain already from disuse.

I have met a lot of foreigners who were fluent in Chinese: they had Chinese spouses or they’d come here out of a singular  passion for Chinese culture and language or they were super keen first time travellers with brains open to anything new. I felt like a big, thick, stubbornly ignorant old doofus because my Linguistic Firewall had slammed shut and I was almost willfully refusing to learn one more freaking language. I was here for work, and we were in China mainly because when we left Turkey in 2008 during the autumn height of the Big Fun Financial Crisis, it was the only place that would take us and pay us a non-laughable wage. I wasn’t here out of a love for China (though I do have a big soft spot for it now). Part of me resented China for making me learn one more freaking language. I was tired, damnit. Just leave me alone.

Ironically (in an Alanis Morrisette kind of way, perhaps) I’m a long-time career language teacher whose job it is to motivate students to learn and to help them develop independent learning skills. I know exactly what I’ve been doing wrong but, damn it, I’m tired.

I’m studying now, studying harder than I have since my early years in Turkey, trying to keep up with my course.  Sometimes my brain just feels full; sometimes Turkish vocabulary pops into my sentences when I try to say something in Chinese; sometimes I just want to bang my head against the table because I have way, way too much conflicting linguistic knowledge battling for space in my brain. I’m glad I enrolled, as I can now deal with shop keepers and waiters without feeling like a complete imperialistic jerk but it’s hard.

Is there a sell-by date for travellers and their ability/willingness to add one more language?

No Comments

(101 Things about Shanghai) Work/Learn/Chocolate


2010
08.17

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in 101 Nifty Things About Shanghai, Teaching | No Comments »

OMFG Cupcakes!

Things have been somewhat unsettled here on the Eastern Front since getting back from Myanmar.

Aside from the unnervingly deafening death rattle of the cicadas everywhere above you in the trees, the heat has been hovering in the late 30s with a bazillion percent humidity.

We have our dehumidifier running constantly. Last year, when we didn’t do that, our flat was reduced to a scary box full of mildew within a month. So far, with all windows shut against the hostile outside atmosphere and all machinery on full blast in the flat, we are comfortable but wheezy from the recycled air.

I’m looking forward to the Reasonable Season in October (Shanghai’s only really decent month).

On top of the heat, I also have my new intensive Chinese course, which started last week. I’m studying 4 hours a day, five days a week, for a month. I think I may actually be learning something. I waited a year and a half to start learning Chinese in any sort of consistent, non-half-assed way. I think I was still subconsciously annoyed that I had to start learning language number 5 (after French, Afrikaans, Turkish, Spanish) when I was still pretty pissed off just with being in Shanghai and not in Istanbul. I’m better now.

I’ll have even more time to study come autumn, as my university program is being massively cut due to an acute lack of existing students.  Declining birth rates in the early 1990s due to the one-child policy have resulted in fewer and fewer students writing the GaoKao university entrance exams each year and our program has gone from 5 teachers to 4 teachers to 2.5 teachers over the course of three years.

Come September, I’ll be the .5 teacher.  Yes, part time, up in my little bleak tower on the 9th floor of a tower block in north Shanghai, next to the elevated freeway. I’m actually pretty stoked, as they’ve already paid for my full time work/residence permit. I have enough Super Sekrit Testing Work lined up to not worry about having only a half salary and am rubbing my hands with glee at the notion of only teaching 9 hours a week and having the rest of the time free for evil machinations.

This theme of work and study leads awkwardly to my final theme of chocolate, which came about on our walk down XiangYang Lu, heading home after doing a ton of Super Sekrit marking this afternoon, just after my 89% certain part-time status was confirmed by my school . Just before our turnoff on Yongjia Lu we noticed that Awfully Chocolate had expanded from one side of a building to both sides of a building.

Truffles! Not pork floss!

Awfully Chocolate were famous for being a super duper cake shop that never actually displayed any cakes on the premises. You’d go into their stark white, minimalist (read: empty) little shop, wide open to the street through a huge wall-sized window, and peruse a catalogue which gave you the option of a small, medium or large Chocolate cake.

Now that they occupy the north side of the first floor as well as the southern side, they’ve added a minimalist counter carrying three things: cupcakes and truffles and seasonal dark chocolate moon cakes (in an fake antique wooden box, no less).

Inevitably, we went in. I’d had cupcakes on my mind for quite some time now. Sweet things in Shanghai really don’t float my boat much- I’m coping with occasional mochi gummies from Aji Ichiban and the occasional half melted Kinder Bueno from the supermarket down the street but I can’t bring myself to be even remotely enthused about the sweets and fake cakes found in the shops. Thus, I don’t bother. Thus, I’ve lost 8 kilo since I got here. I wonder if there is a connection (no comments, please).

Anyway, cupcakes. They look lovely. Really lovely. I haven’t even tried mine yet, aside from a small chartreuse plastic spoonful of the icing from the white one.  I’m too reluctant to mar their prettiness with spoon marks and stray crumbs. They still sit on the dining room table looking utterly gorgeous. They’re 25 rmb each, which is slightly outrageous but deservedly so. I bought one chocolate+chocolate one and one white-chocolate+chocolate one.  Doug bought a small baggie of the truffles (about 10 for 60rmb) and vouches for their awesomeness.  They are so rich and intense that he stopped at two.  I can’t decide whether I’m delighted or horrified by this discovery of cupcakes and truffles barely two blocks from our flat. It could be my downfall.

Awfully Chocolate 174 South Xiangyang Road/ 169 Wujiang Road in Point Plaza, Shanghai

2 comments

What I Do


2010
07.03

Tags: , ,
Posted in Nebulous Items, Teaching | 2 Comments »

How I Spent my Saturday ***

I haven’t spoken much about my job here. I have another site for that; if you want to subject yourself to much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth you can go there for the finer details. On a much broader level, I thought I’d introduce you to what I do.

There is a widely held mythology out there (especially on EFL forums) that says 1. all teaching jobs in China are easy peasy oral English positions that don’t require much more than Caucasian features, an intact cerebral cortex, and an ability to speak English to a convincing degree, and that 2. teaching salaries are crap in China.

Not true. If my job consisted solely of no-brainer oral English classes I wouldn’t have to spend this weekend doing professional development for marking writing exams. If salaries are truly crap here, I would never have been able to afford that 50rmb passion fruit margarita afterwards at Cantina Agave on Changle Lu.

I work for an Australian university that has joint-venture degree programs in Shanghai. There are many, many similar programs in universities all over China, requiring varying degrees of experience and qualifications. You teach academic skills (like essay writing or presentation skills) to Chinese students who want to study abroad (or whose parents tell them they want to study abroad).  The hours are sane (no evenings or weekends and for me, only 4 days a week) and the holidays are long (I work about 8 months of the year). The workload is often heavy though, and I usually have piles of papers stacking up that need marking. I definitely earn my salary.

For those of you out there (and there are many) who disparage EFL as a cowboy backpacker field full of maladjusted  losers who can’t get a job/date/life back home and who really ought to just go back to their home countries and settle down and get a real job, I’d like to put forward an idea:

What we have going on here is pretty damn real. We may not be in Cleveland or Vancouver or wherever home is, and we may not be working in a cubicle or making car payments or defining ourselves or our goals by conventional social markers, but we are definitely living our lives in a real and serious way (well, actually, no, not really- see my fake essay marking criteria above). The longer I live away from home, the more possibilities I see for other ways of living your life.  There really are no rules. It’s very liberating when you finally realize that. We feel quite settled here, in a really unsettled, nomadic kind of way.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

© 2011-2012 Mary Anne Oxendale / A Totally Impractical Guide to Living in Shanghai All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright