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.