Classes, games, and students

In the past couple of weeks a few things have happened. In most of my classes before I started to teach the book I have been playing games. These games do have a purpose I am trying to get the kids interested in the class as well as have fun while using English. One game that went over really well was where I came up with 36 words. I wrote out each of these words on a separate piece of paper and had two copies of each word. I would then split my class into two teams and each team would have a copy of each word..one per student. I would then call out a word and the person on each team that had this word would have to run to the chalkboard and write the word in a sentence and do it faster than the other team. If the word was used correctly that was worth one point. If the sentence was grammatically correct that was worth two points for a total possible of three points per sentence. In each of my classes this worked really well until my class 17. In there the students got a little to into the game and ran up to the board a little too fast. This all ended with the chalkboard shattering into little pieces. Needless to say we did not play this game anymore. I have been informed that this is not the first time this has happened. Apparently other foreign teachers have learned the hard way that students can get really into a game and chalkboards will be broken. I informed the head teacher of this occurrence and also let Ms. Tian the vice principal know what had happened. I assured her that it was no one's fault really that it was just an accident and everything was taken care of without incident. The chalkboard has since been replaced.
I have since started to teach from my book of lessons. In each lesson the students are given a story. I teach these lessons by first reading the story to them. I then ask for volunteers to read to the class. It is amazing how many volunteers I get. It seems that the students want to impress me with their skills. Sometimes I pick people to read. There was one boy who told me that he couldnt do it. I asked him how he knew he couldnt do it if he did not try. So he stood up and read the story. He did so well and his pronunciation was so good that I wondered why he thought he could not do it and I told him so. It is always funny to me how the students will tell you that there English is terrible but they do so in perfect English. It always makes me laugh. The students always tell me that they think learning English is very hard and I tell them that is the same way I feel about Chinese. Amazing how something like this can really put things into perspective. After I have a few students read the story we go over the new words in the lesson. I write a word on the board, say it for them, and then have them repeat it back to me. Then I ask them "what is the meaning of this word?" The concept of raising your hand and waiting to be called on is lost here and so I am answered by a swarm of voices that is indecipherable. I tell them I cannot understand when they all speak at the same time and sometimes they say sorry miss dani. I like to surprise them by answering in Chinese with meishi and the whole class is filled with gasps of amazement and sometimes applause. The students love to teach me Chinese and are usually very surprised when I bust out in a little on my own. I love it. After this they give me the meanings to the word and I feel that these early lessons might be a little too easy at times for them. I am very impressed by how well they do and I usually reward them for thier good work. I like to let them know they are doing a good job because encouragement can do wonders for motivation. At this point in lesson 1 I teach all of my classes what a synonym is then I put a couple of words on the board and ask them to tell me some synonyms of the word. One word I always use is beautiful because there are so many synonyms for it. It surprised me to discover that almost everyone believes that smart means beautiful and I had to explain to them that this is not the case. Either way it is a good exercise and the students seemed to have fun with it. I try to make the lessons a little more interesting as the students do not get alot of enjoyment out of learning from the book.
After lesson one I made up a crossword using words from lesson 1 and words that I had taught to them when we did name meanings. At first they did not understand what they were supposed to do but with a little explaination the activity went well. The whole point was for me to see how well they could recall the information I had taught to them and associate words from meanings. In one of my classes the Chinese English teacher came to me before class and told me that if I ever needed help explaining something in English to the students to ask him and he would be glad to help me. I was grateful for this and told him so. He said he also wanted to sit in on my class for that day and I told him that was fine. He ended up doing the crossword as well. In that same class we had finished lesson 1 a little early so I gave the students a sentence and told them to make as many words as they could with the letters in the sentence. They turned in these sheets to me and I gave a prize to the winner. She came up with an impressive 37 words. Her prize was a US quarter which she seemed to be very happy for. As the class all did very well with the exercise I gave them all candy..this made them very happy as well. In this same class is my favorite student. He picked the name Allen Iverson. He is always volunteering to read and is kind of like the class clown. He has a good nature and always makes me laugh. His English is also very good. I would never tell him that he was my favorite student because I dont want any of my students to feel left out or that I pick favorites.
I have also been teaching my students some slang. One of the phrases I taught them was peace out with the hand motion. Here in China the hand motion for peace means victory so I had to explain that in America it also means peace. Now when I leave class they all say in unison Peace Out! It always brings a big smile to my face. I can't express how cool my students are.
The students are not supposed to have cell phones or anything of that nature in class but from time to time I catch a student taking a picture of me on thier cell phone. They think I dont know what is going on but it is so obvious. I always strike a pose which gets laughter from the students. As long as they are paying attention and putting in the effort I let these little things slide. Until it becomes a disruption I dont see the point of making it a bigger deal than it is.
I have also taken a couple of my students out for lunch. This makes them so happy. When it came time for the bill they pulled out thier money and I told them to save it...of course I would pay for them. They tried to beat me to the punch but I was a little quicker. The food here is so cheap and the school pays us so why not treat the kids every once in a while.
I feel very lucky to be here in Handan and to have such great students. I am really loving my time here and hope that I can truly impart some new knowledge for these kids. They work so hard and are under so much pressure that I want their experience in my class to be productive and enjoyable. So far I think this is the case. They are really great kids.

Weekend in Beijing

So this past weekend we went to Beijing and it was AWESOME!!! There is so much stuff to tell about. We got there around 7 pm on friday and checked into our hostel which was very old world style. It had several levels and everything was so neat. Lauren has pictures of it that I have to get from her and then I will post them. It was just the four of us (me, Matt, Lauren, Erin) in our room. It was very clean. It was also very close to Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. From our hostel we went to eat at a western restaurant called Grandma's Kitchen. The food was fabulous. From there we walked around Tiananmen as it was closed by the time we were done eating and took pictures in front of Mao's picture (Lauren has those too). I had forgotten to take my camera at this time so the pictures from that night will get posted next time. After that we were all pretty tired and so just decided to go to bed so we could get up early to try and find tickets to the paralympics. We woke up the next day and went to meet the others from Shijiazhang. While we were waiting we went to Starbucks (oh so good) and this other place where they sold the greatest muffins I have ever tasted. The one I got was apple cinnamon and had real chunks of apples baked into it. They had ones like chocolate cheescake with real pieces of cheesecake and others that just looked so good. I wish I had gotten some to bring back. From there we went to where the bird's nest and the olympic green are and found some people selling tickets on the street. They wanted way too much money for them so we passed and so then tried to go get them from the bank of China. But they didnt have any tickets available for the days we wanted. So in the end we didnt end up getting to go to the paralympics which was a disappointment. We plan to go back after the olympics end so that we can go inside the bird's nest and on the olympic green as at that time it will all be open to the public. After that we went to silk street which is a market. We spent a really really long time there shopping and haggleing. It was pretty sweet. I ended up getting a bag, some shoes, some jeans, some earrings, a watch, and some sunglasses. It was a great time and I really want to go back again. From there we went to eat at a Mexican restaurant, yes Mexican. It was so great to have margaritas (strawberry frozen baby), and chips and salsa. Oh so good. The food was okay but the staff kept messing up our order and tried to charge us for things we didnt even eat or drink. In the end we got it figured out. After that we all went back to our hostels to shower and change for a night out on the town. We went to San Li Tun which is a street with a bunch of bars and clubs on it. We spent the whole night dancing and meeting new people. There were so many other foreigners from lots of different countries there and we had an awesome time. There were people from all over the world and paryting with them was super sweet. We got back to our hostel around five in the morning and all went to bed. The next day we went to 798 which is an art district in Beijing. Matt and I were still really tired so we just kinda sat around while the others walked around to look at galleries. At one point Matt and I layed down on these wooden benches. We were laying in the same positions just opposite one another and behind us was a sign that said living culture. We got our picture taken like six times. Some I think just thought we were sleeping and that it was funny. But not all the people who took our pictures were Chinese so I am kinda thinking that some thought we were some sort of art exhibit given the sign behind us and the way we were laying the same. On monday we tried to go to this western market to get Mac and Cheese along with cream cheese and some other western goodies. To our chagrin they were all sold out of mac and cheese :( and a few other items we were looking for, so here is hoping that next time they will be stocked up. Oh mac and cheese i never thought I would miss you so much :) Also,on monday we went to see the Temple of Heaven which is absolutely beautiful. There were so many people and we took so many pictures. There was one place called the Echo wall where it goes around and someone at one end is supposed to be able to hear a person at the other. We tried it but it didnt work (hence the picture of everyone frowning LOL). There were just too many people there for it to work well. After the Temple of Heaven we had to go back to our hostel and grab our stuff if we were going to make our train back to Handan. Oh I almost forgot. On Sunday night we tried to go to Wongfujing to try out these weird foods. Apparently there is this street that sells strange food on a stick like shark, starfish, scorpian, testicals, and the like. But it had just rained a little earlier and so everything was closed up by the time we got there. So we just ended up eating at McDonalds :(. All in all the trip was a great success and a super awesome experience. I met some great people some I will never want to forget, (you know who you are) ;) I can't wait to go back and have even more fun and see other things. We didn't have time to do all the stuff we wanted because there is just so much to do. Next time we want to go back and go through the forbidden city, see the Maoseleum, and visit the Summer Palace. We have plenty of holidays coming up so I am sure we will have the time. I wish my writing in these blogs could be witty and entertaining but I just dont want to leave anything out and I am sure that even with all this there is plenty I have forgotten. If I think of anything else I will add more later. To all those at home: I MISS YOU ALL. To all those in Beijing we met and saw: see you again soon. To everyone else: CHINA IS THE PLACE TO BE!!! (Pictures: Us at Tiananmen, Us all dressed up the night we went out, at the mexican restaurant with people from Shijiazhang, on the train, at the Temple of Heaven, at night on Wongfujing, at McDonalds, others that were not included were in front of Mao's picture and a few other places that I will put up next time)

Going to Beijing

Classes have been going well. I have finished up giving everyone an English name and now we are working on meanings. For the next classes I will have them tell me why they chose the name they did and then will move on to a lesson in American history. We finally got our books to teach out of but I have not begun to yet as I would like to finish up the things we have already started. Matt, Erin, Lauren, and I are leaving for Beijing today. Tonight we will check into our hostel and then go to Tienamen Square this evening. Tomorrow we will get up early to buy our tickets to the Paralympics. This is going to be so awesome. We will be coming back to Handan on Monday night after we have a good time in Beijing. So my next blog will include lots and lots and lots of pictures. To my mom: talk to you in a few days I promise to be careful. To everyone else: BEIJING BABY YEAH!

More and more

So the first week of classes is over and we are into week two. This week we are picking English names. My students are so awesome. Some of the most interesting names are Anubis, K.O., Harry Potter, Mr. Frank, Mr. Steve, Niko, Wait, Pierre Martin, Remington, Reginald, Winston, Kingston, and many more. The students really have a good time picking them out. For the second class this week I will tell them the meanings to all of their names. We also celebrated teacher's day on Sunday. There was a ceremony and we got gifts. They gave us flowers and a cool book of stamps. It is pretty neat actually. A lot of my students are giving me gifts too. I am falling in love with all of them they are so sweet. They gave me a Chinese name too. It is Xiao Ya which I am told means graceful. But if you say it with the wrong tone it means duck. LOL. Today in one of my classes six or seven boys were 5 minutes late so I made them sing a song for me. It was awesome. This one boy was so into it. The whole class cheered. Then I had forgotten my sunglasses in my last class so I went to get them and I came back, the students were like "Miss Dani, you are late you have to sing" So I sang them a song and I got a standing ovation it was pretty sweet. I am excited for this weekend. We are going to Beijing to see the Paralympics. I AM SUPER EXCITED!!! This past weekend we went to this park they have here in Handan. It is very pretty but they have this zoo that is so sad. The cages are so small and there is no such thing as grass here. But the park was pretty and we say some cool things. I am putting a lot of pictures in this post since I have been slacking on my blogging (sorry). I'm not sure if I've forgotten to talk about anything but if I did I will put it in my next post. Oh yeah, when we went to the zoo there were these kids that were following us around taking our picture. It was like we had our own little fan club. They are the kids included in the pics here.