Teaching: First Day

Student:  “Oh no!  I thought I had a Chinese teacher this term.”

Me:  “Surprise!”

[Uncontrollable giggle.)

That was an exchange that I had with my English 83 students on Friday.   Despite the initial disappointment, the students have been quite wonderful – engaged, willing to laugh at and with me, and at themselves, as well.

One complication to teaching in China involves names.  Of course, all of the class lists are in Chinese.  The lists also provide the students’ ID numbers, so that I can match the body to the Chinese characters.  But, again, this is not much help when teaching.  Thus, besides their Chinese name, each student has an English name as well.  They chose it early in their education, when they started studying English.  Thus,  it frequently is the name of a character in a movie or on an English TV show – I have Lisa and Katherine, Anna, Ann and Zoey, Ursula and Estella.  Others however, go off on their own, finding English words that they like:  I have a student named Mulberry, Sky, Winnine, Firror, Sophist, Xyner,  Deep-end, Burning, Only, Azure, Magnolia, and Canon. (When I looked alarmed, she reassured me that it wasn’t the military weapon that she named herself after, but instead the beautiful piece of music by Pachabel.)

 We started class with a quick chance to introduce themselves -- why they’re in the class, why they are majoring in English, what they do for fun, and more about how they chose their English name.

About half are majoring in English because they want to be global citizens:

“Because I like learning different languages and culture, I want to improve my writing skills and write in a more native way.”

“I am interested in English-speaking countries’ culture.  It’s an amazing thing to express in another language.  When I finish your class, my hope is that I will have no limits when I’m writing and speaking.”

“I want to be a better writer because I think writing is very important in many fields and in daily life.  I feel peace when I’m writing.  I’m majoring in English because I like the language and I’m interested in Western culture.”

The other half are taking the class and majoring in English, because they have no other choice.  They wanted to be in Science or Engineering, but didn’t do well enough on the entrance exam to make it into those classes, so the foreign language department is their only option:

“First, I have to take this class, but I think writing is the most important part in English, and I’m not very good at writing.  I have no choice on major:  I must study English.”

“I did best in English.  I was admitted to this University, and I have two choices:  foreign languages and law.”

“I take this class because I have to, but this is not the only reason.  I also want tip to know how to write English essays effectively.”

Their first assignment was to come up with a random list of 25 interesting things about themselves.  Once they had the list, they were told to look at their sentences and try to use all of the sentence forms in the English language:  Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound/Complex.  (How many of you could do this?) 

Looking through the assignments that I’ve received so far, everything looks good. Their next assignment is to turn the random list into an essay. 

My class, right before my students arrived