Adventures in Kunming and Beyond

It was a hectic day. Let’s start with class. Well, my third session of viewing, listening and speaking (vls) for the week got a little hostile. This particular group is one of my quieter ones, so I was figuring that this meant the material was over their heads, and was really dreading teaching them academic writing on Thursday (I teach vls to four groups of juniors, and two of those groups are also my academic writing classes later in the week). Not so. Our topic du jour was social life. Start with the basics I figured, until they were willing to open up. About an hour into the class and during a dialogue discussion, two girls ended up having a showdown about how the class sucked, while the other defended me. Although I was a little offended, it finally came out that some of the class felt the topic was elementary and already knew all of the vocabulary, etc since all of their previous foreign teachers covered this. First, I don’t know what the other teachers taught them. Second, I spent half of the first class session engaging each class in a discussion about what would be meaningful for them to learn about. Third, if you’ve already heard this material a zillion times, then why can’t you speak/use it??? So I challenged them with that point and said that they needed to demonstrate to me that they could do it. Yeah. Besides, ESL is a continuous process. You don’t just learn stuff and forget it, you have to keep using it in different situations. Anyway, while frustrating, I was actually quite pleased that I had gotten a reaction and an opinion out of someone. So, not a total loss.

Well, on my way back from class, Mr. Wong (one of the building managers) was waiting for me out by the road. Neither Mr. Wong, Mr. Li or Mr. Wong’s wife (all of the people that manage/watch our building) speak any English, so I had no idea what message was being conveyed. Turns out, my gargantuan 52 lb box from Ryan had arrived!! Poor Mr. Wong wouldn’t let me carry it up the three flights of steps. I was so happy for the box’s arrival, but clearly did not know how to convey this in Mandarin, so I just kept saying thank you and decided I should shake his hand (my first reaction was to hug him, but I figured this could be a a little strange). I’ve never been so happy to see chips and salsa, oatmeal packets and trashy celebrity magazines in my life. Ryan is pretty much amazing. Also, just for your entertainment, there was a bit of a communication error, so for some reason Ryan thought I had asked for the Hanson “Mmmbop” CD. So, however strange the request, he sent it (yes, I do own it), so the first thing I see when I open this box is a Hanson CD. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, and now it’s pretty funny to think about receiving a Hanson CD in China In the midst of my glee, however, Havvah informed me that our favorite (major sarcasm) foreign office person had called and decided we were going for our medical tests in three hours and we also needed to obtain 8 pictures of ourselves to have this done. This is the second time the assumption has been made that we’re sitting around waiting for plans. And, for the second time, I had a scheduling conflict. Grrr.

My scheduling conflict certainly wasn’t more glamorous. In fact, I was scared to death to give my presentation to the English department/foreign language department. In the end, I survived, although it was a little weird. While it was also an approval of my lesson plans, I guess the presentation was also intended as a seminar for the faculty. Yeah, at 22, I really don’t feel like I have a lot to bring to people with Ph.Ds. But, they didn’t fire me, and the dean was nice to me. The meeting ended with the promise of more “seminars” to come (oh, dear).

Anyway, I was exhausted, but told Havvah I would go to English corner with her. We decided to be lazy and hit up the Western restaurant prior to it. This is only remotely interesting because the music they play there tends to resemble a “Greatest Romance Movie Soundtracks” of all time. On more than one occasion we’ve heard “My Heart Will Go On” and other songs that you once sang to that you wish remained lost. In the end, we never found the English corner. Oh well. I was happy to get back and delve through my box some more instead of tackling a lesson plan for tomorrow.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 10:56 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.