Being Wanted For Everything, But Being Overused Because Of It

You know being wanted is a great feeling.  At least, most days it is, but recently my school has been using me more and more and my schedule is so full it's about to burst in my face.  Before my schedule was fine; three days off, work two hours on Thursday, five on Friday, eight on Saturday and seven in half on Sunday.  Now though it's Summer Intensive so I work every day.  Sure it's not too bad because it's only 2 hours extra on Monday-Wednesday, those aren't the problem.  It's Thursday, that is the killer day.

On Thursday I usually got to teach Kindergarden at Kids Castle (a school that hired me through Aston), but the bad thing about this school is its quite far from everything.  I only teach for one hour (three classes: two classes full of 3 year olds and another class full of 4-5 year olds).  After I teach from 3-4pm I race to do promotions, which are quite far and require a taxi to get too.  The promotion is also only an hour, which usually is fine because I get to go home afterward.  But not anymore.  Now after promotions that end at 5:30pm I have to race back to school and teach a Topic Class from 6-8pm!  This means that I would have 30 minutes to get to school, print out everything, and rest.  That's just crazy (every other day is fine because I have time to breath, but my Topic Class is really popular sometimes I have 20 students, so making a lesson and being prepared takes a lot of work!) 

So I am going to ask my school if the Kindergarden classes can be given to another teacher (who isn't doing Summer Intensive and has three days off and already teaches at the school in the morning). But of course, because it's China, I have to go through six different people before I can speak to the Chinese Manager (drives me crazy sometimes).

I dislike when China overloads me with things just because I am white, the other foreign teachers are just as good as me and just as qualified.  Yes, I understand that a black man/woman going into a classroom full of Chinese babies is traumatic at first (the kids will scream and cry), but after some time the kids will realize he/she isn't going to eat them or kill them and eventually have fun with them.

Sometimes I don't think my school realizes that I am LEAVING in less than two months (42 days!) and the teachers that are here are going to be their only options for classes.  I say get them to practice now, so when the time comes they aren't making as many mistakes!

Summer Intensive: Topic Class

Summer Intensive has begun!  Summer Intensive is when the kids sign-up for the next level of classes (so if a student is in C7 they would sign-up for C8) which consists of going to class nearly every day of the week for the next 6 weeks.  So of course the Foreign Teachers must teach these classes.  As an "Experienced" teacher I was sort of asked to do Summer Intensive (because no one else wanted to come to school every day of the week, I don't blame them).  

Too many ideas, too little time and too little pay!

So, since I teach most of the upper-level classes and I am also okay with teaching in the evenings I was given the Topic Class.  Sure, Topic Class sounds fun because it has lots of freedom attached to it, no book and no exam... But sometimes freedom sucks. Now Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of every week I teach a class from 6-8pm, of which has to have a new topic for the class.  There is no syllabus or list of topics that you have to do, so you sort of just make it up.  Creating a lesson from scratch every week is hard enough (I do that with my C12 and C13), but for every day it's really really difficult.  Luckily since I do teach the upper level classes and have also taught the Airport classes I have left over material already created to use for the Topic Class.

I arrived early for my class, trying to shake off my nervousness through talking with some Chinese Teachers. Then I was told that I need to create some materials for the class and I was like WHAT? (Literally they tell me nothing!)

So, then I began freaking out more, although they told me that today was okay that I didn't have any materials since it was the first day, but most of the parents of the students need some physical proof that their children are learning something (damn, noisy Chinese parents! You're making my life so difficult!).  So I decided for every class I will have a print out of vocabulary words I would be using and perhaps some pictures to go alongside the words.  I also prepared two notebooks for each student, one book for Class which will consist of Writing Assignment in class and Notes they take in class (marked with a C) and their Homework books, which they only have once a week because I am awesome and don't want to grade it everyday (marked with an H).  I also explained that there would be no sleeping or texting in my class and that I would know when they are doing it because I was a student not long ago and I know all the tricks of the trade (I also scared them by saying I would answer their phones in class or throw their phone out the window and were in a skyscraper). I told them if they don't do their Homework they get to wear a dunce hat for two hours or dance to Gangnam Style in front of the class.

So my first Topic Class went alright.  I was super nervous in the beginning because I had nearly 20 kids in my class who are all different ages and at different English levels, so it makes it quite difficult to teach.  Plus I have some of my fellow Chinese Teachers joining in on the class who want to learn more English, so thats an extra reason to be nervous!  I spoke too fast in the beginning (haven't been that nervous since I first began teaching almost a year ago), but as the time went by I spoke slower and got into my comfort zone, which is making the students laugh.




The first thing I did was introduce myself with a lovely Powerpoint that I made (only one slide) to show them how funny and cool I am (I probably seemed so lame!).  

Then I went over the notebooks and learned the students name (so far I know almost everyone's names! I had a SpongeBob, Siva, and Yezi which were the weird names of the day).  The Writing Assignment for today was simple: Tell me about yourself.  Your likes and dislikes. The hard part for most of them was writing 10 sentences in 10 minutes (I make them write because I get to see their English ability in writing and it shows me how well their grammar transmits from their brain onto the page - usually they speak better than they can write, but as a teacher I think doing both is important!).  I also tell the students not to use the word INTERESTING! Why? Well because Chinese love to use this word to get out of saying why they like something.  I have the students introduce themselves to the class (most Chinese are also very quiet so I told them we would practice speaking louder as well).  Some of them still used interesting and the other students laughed when my eyes got all big as a reaction.

After break we began to speak about the Topic of the day which was Jobs.  The students were very clever and knew a lot of jobs.  Some that made me laugh were Fire Worker, so I imagined someone who works with fire and Air Lady (aka flight attendant).  Then we talked about which were the highest paying jobs in

China, which is quite similar to the ones in America.  Then we discussed the most dangerous jobs and the ones that made me laugh were Sports Player (this is where I mimicked a sports player getting injured and how it's not that bad) and Pilot (bad pronunciation made me hear Toilet so I mimicked someone falling into the toilet being dangerous).  I made the kids laugh a lot.
Then I showed the students my Dangerous Jobs Powerpoint.  This consists of the 10 most dangerous jobs, including videos from online.  Some of the best ones were Taxi Drivers because I get to explain to the kids my experience of taking crazy Chinese Taxi's and they love it! I also scare them because I scream during my stories.  The other funny one is Power Line Workers because of the video I show which is from Home Alone where the bad guy gets electrocuted by the sink knobs.  And then the Truck Drivers because I show a great video of truck accidents that make all the students go, "Woah!" "OMG" "So crazy!" and of course the boys say, "That's so cool!"

At the end of the lesson I released the students and felt really exhausted, but I knew the students had fun and when my CT friends came over and helped me clean up I knew I had done an okay job.  They were also telling me how I should become an Actress/Comedian because I am so funny. My best friend also said, "You should stay here in Xianyang, you are such a good teacher.  Management is so stupid not to ask you to stay. I will talk to the leader tomorrow."  She is so sweet and when I leave I will miss her like crazy!  She also gave me a ride home on her Motobike, which I almost made us crash two times because I was laughing in fright and making her laugh because she said, "Why is the bus stopped?" and I said, "Because there is the bus stop!"  (You don't need a license to drive Motobikes!)