I teach kindergarten classes and primary school classes. I teach at 2 different kindergartens and I think 5 different primary schools. I also teach 2 internal primary classes. I was teaching an internal kindergarten class but now I am not, as detailed in a previous post. One kindergarten we visit every day, so the classes get English lessons daily - and i think that their teachers also do some English with them. The other kindergarten we visit weekly, but the classes rotate so they only get one English lesson a month with a foreign teacher. We were warned that this kindergarten is painful, but it hasn't really seemed to be so much. Some classes are quite hard to handle, but others aren't! They also do English classes with their teachers and some of the teachers can speak English quite well. I guess this kindergarten is more annoying in that they don't have a curriculum book that they use - we just make up our own lessons. This can be a good thing and a bad thing but it isn't as bad as we were led to believe.
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| CMD Kindy G2C3 |
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| CMD Kindy G3C2 |
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| CMD Kindy G3C2 |
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| Weiting Zhonxing G3C1 |
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| Weiting Zhonxing G3C1 |
The primary classes we usually see every other week. My schedule is the same from week to week pretty much, but say this week I will see Grade 3 - class 1 and 2, and next week i will see grade 3 - class 3 and 4. It works like this at all of the schools we visit, except for Friday where we actually rotate schools every fortnight. I teach mainly grade 3 classes and most of the classes are OK. Some classes are just errgh though. It's so weird that you can prepare the one lesson and use it in multiple classes, and get great results in one class, and the next it's like trying to get water from a rock. I guess it's all a learning curve and i really need to realise that when i go into the classroom, I am talking solely in English which is a totally foreign language to most students. All school students do English lessons with their Chinese teacher, but it's wrote learning. (is that the right wrote?) They have words to learn and read a dialogue in their book and that's the only dialogue that they use. I find it quite frustrating sometimes because when you think that the older kids have been studying English for at least 5 years, surely they can be more creative with their conversations rather than just rehashing what they've read in their book and possibly substituting words! I like to think I can make the students think about the words and the context in which they are used, which hopefully can help them to understand the language more. Who knows if it works though. Some kids just want to play games, but they need to learn a little and understand a bit before I can just launch into a game. Some classes totally drop their bundle and go chaotic if you do anything too adventurous. Such is life though I guess. We use two different curriculum books for the schools. We use Wonderful English for the internal classes and for one or two schools. The other book we use is Fun with English. The schools where we do lessons based on Fun with English are great as this is just a review lesson for the classes. When we have to prepare lessons from Wonderful English, it usually means we are actually teaching the class something new and sometimes the kids don't care. The Wonderful English books can be really vague sometimes and it's difficult to know which direction the lesson should head in. It's also hard knowing what previous teachers have taught and finding out where the kids are at. I guess we have only been here for a month and we haven't done too badly during that time. We can only learn and get better from here. At least once we prepare a lesson, we can use the same lesson plan for multiple classes - therefore we don't have to prepare new lessons plans for each and every class that we teach. The kids like playing games and it keeps the class interesting and fun so we always try to throw in games or activities and possibly a song. The only bummer is that we have no access to print off worksheets. Sometimes these would really be useful!
This Saturday I am lucky as Jake and I get to take a group of kids to the new Suzhou aquarium!! I should see if I can create a worksheet for this day as they want us to do activities with the kids. After we leave the aquarium we will hang out and entertain the kids for a while. I hope that Jake talks to me about it and doesn't just run off and run with his ideas. Grrr there's no I in teamwork! We have to present a 5 minute 'play' for the special classes that we have on Fridays and Jake is kind of talking as though it's all his, even though our classes need to combine and we really need to fully discuss what we are going to do. Anyways!! No matter where you are or what the workplace, I'm sure there will always be workplace dramas.
I got to leave work early today as soon as we'd finished classes as the power was out in our part of the office. Next Monday is a public holiday so I actually get a proper weekend!!!! WOOT!!! Matt and I aren't sure if we'll just hang in Suzhou or if we should go somewhere for the weekend. If we go away we need to organise it stat! They really don't give us much notice at work about stuff. I don't think we'll really get any holidays either whilst we are here, so doing much travelling isn't going to happen. It sucks. I think we may get a day off here and there and a week in October possibly, but that is all. We will probably even have to work on Christmas day! Such is life in China.
So that is life pretty much and our lives revolve around work. I guess if we worked for a different school / company, things could be different. Some contracts specify that you get 4 weeks of paid leave a year. Oh well .... we'll see how we go. We've only just survived the first month. 9 months to go!
Another thing about 'Asia' - the toilets. I find traditional toilets to be so degrading to women. Some of them are just so dirty and disgusting and sometimes it's just not easy to use them. They also don't flush paper and stuff and there are waste bins full of stuff you really don't want to see sometimes. And sometimes they really smell! Gah!!!! But y'know - when it's cold and you've really, really, really gotta go, you gotta go and it's really better than peeing your pants.
Another interesting fact which I can't remember if I've written about already or not - fireworks / crackers and bangers. Pretty much not a day goes by without hearing something! They are so loud and just reverberate around all the high rises. Noone else seems to take a lot of notice, but Matt and I still find it amusing and run to the window to see if we can see anything and watch.
Anyways, that's enough for now.
till next time ( and I should really add photos!!!!!)
xoxo
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