I met my co-worker today. In a great stroke of luck four co-workers were brought in for four foreign teachers. This isn’t a TA position held by a student. Rather, the school has brought in English education professionals to assist us with translating and arranging the class. So, get used to seeing the name John mentioned a lot as I believe he will be saving me from many pitfalls in the translation process. John is my co-workers name…that might have been apparent but…oh you get the idea.

Here’s a fun situation I found myself in today. This afternoon I taught an open class for potential students at an English Language Center in downtown Jiujiang. The children ranged from 7 – 11 years old. There were no guides, no material, no outline of what they wanted me to teach – and it was all a bit of a surprise since I was under the impression that I would be there as a foreign “delegate” not today’s teacher. There were two teachers from the school there to assist with translation and five minutes into the class I was grateful they were there. 

The basic words I wish I knew when I arrived failed me the moment I stepped into the classroom. I was a deer in headlights trying to explain the meaning of the word too to elementary school children. By the time I tried to explain AM and PM I wanted to “accidentally” fall ill with some horrible virus that would render me handicapped, unable to speak and need immediate evacuation. You cannot imagine the clarity of vision that can play out inside your head about ways to escape as you hopelessly try to teach children of a foreign language that “you” is … you as you point like a doo-doo at one of the students. I will not go into them all but I’ll tell you that one involved a fantastic maneuver of flexibility as I careened out a 4th floor window like I was Jason Bourne. After today some poor girl in the first row will forever be nicknamed “you” because of me.  

Nick, a fellow foreign teacher at the University recently back from India and the Philippines, asked if I could also go to a village an hour and a half away tomorrow to do it again for two classes. Only this time because the village is fairly remote there is a good chance many of the people have never seen a foreigner before so the children may not be as advanced as the ones today in their English. My head was a bit in the clouds after only twenty minutes of teaching the class today but I believe I excused myself from tomorrows classes by describing the overwhelming pile of socks I have to sew…or something about as ridiculous as that. [For what I think will be a very small group of readers not familiar with my random...we'll call it humor...I'll admit this time that I was much more cordial about my explaining that I was not the instructor Nick was looking for to teach little children on Sunday and politely declined the offer.] It was an offer too; teaching at Language Centers on the weekend is something foreign teachers do to supplement their income. I think I will keep with the college level teaching. I liked the experience but not enough to switch to K-12 education.   

That was my day briefly. The Picasa gallery is up. There is a link in the side bar now. I’m working through the first week of images trying to caption and edit down to a nice 1st week album. But some photo’s from walking around campus Friday are online.

Words I should know by now but don’t:
Excuse me …
Pardon me …
Please.