Ms. B.'s TESOL

On Saturday last, Fr. R led us on a journey to Shenyang, China’s fourth largest city. We assembled at 5:15 am in front of our hotel and took taxis to the station. If you want to imagine a Chinese taxi, recall to mind the double-decker bus that takes Harry Potter to Hogwarts. On our return to the hotel late that night, our cabbie must have averaged 50 mph on city streets, running through three red lights and coming within six inches of other vehicles a dozen or more times, leaning on his horn the whole way. And he kept the change from 15 yuan when the fare was only 13.90 – a no-no, since there is no tipping in China. (Granted, we are quibbling about 16 cents.)

Taking the high-speed train (more than 200 mph) you can go from Jilin to Shenyang in less than two and a half hours. The trains are wonderful: spotlessly clean, comfortable, quiet, with nice restrooms. Since many of them travel very long distances there is usually a bar-car or dining car. Most of the countryside along the way resembles the land on either side of the Ohio River.

Once in Shenyang we met a Chinese friend of Fr. R, a postal worker called Frank. About ten years ago Frank noticed that there were so many people in Shenyang who sent packages to English-speaking countries that he decided he ought to learn English. Though self-taught, he speaks very well and knows all kinds of idioms and slang. Some years ago he accidentally encountered a Maryknoll priest and through him has made friends with many others, like Fr. R.  Frank arranged for an English-speaking tour guide to take us around the imperial palace of Shenyang (built in the 1630s, rebuilt after fires in the 1740s). Originally, Shenyang was the capital of the Manchus, from northeast China. They intermarried with Mongols. When eventually the capital was moved to Beijing, Shenyang remained a place of religious importance.

This ties into something that Dr. D talked about that we need to remember and understand in connection with China, perhaps with most cultures of the Far East: traditionally the Crown was responsible for the practice of Religion. Whereas in Christian countries there was a priesthood which offered sacrifice (and the monarch endorsed it and led by example), in China only the king or emperor offered sacrifice. Since sacrifices were mostly offered to the spirits of the ancestors, the monarchs would have to return to the place (Shenyang) where the ancestors had lived and were entombed. Usually this took place two or more times a year.

Our tour guide was quite knowledgeable but her accent was one of the worst I have heard here. Mandarin syllables nearly always end in a vowel (occasionally in an “n” or “ng”), consequently it is difficult for Mandarin speakers to handle English words that end in consonants. King becomes “king-ah”, sacrifice becomes “sa-ca-ri-fi-suh”. (Think of Jar-Jar Binks.)  Spoken rapidly this is very hard to follow, especially when the speaker has a sophisticated vocabulary.

So many cultural treasures having been destroyed or abandoned during the Cultural Revolution, I was surprised that the palace grounds are largely intact. And anything not in good condition is being rebuilt or renovated. The original kitchen/cooking area has been replaced by a modern supermarket, but that seams to be the only major loss.

Nearly all the buildings are stone, surmounted by wood. Roofs are tiled, mostly in green and gold (the royal color). the corners of the roofs turn upwards, just as we remember from our fairy tale books, and a collection of fanciful animals guards each. Here, there seems to always be a dragon, often an ox, made of yellow-glazed terra cotta.

There is a grand open space lined by small pavilions for ministers of various ranks and purposes and culminating in a great circular building in which the king or emperor would hold court and greet visitors. While we were there they mounted two performances re-enacting such a ceremony – very pretty costumes, some dances, and some clearly stylized forms of verbal address (as we might find at the opening of court or of Congress).

The king did not have quarters of his own! He did, however, have five Mongol wives, each of whom had a pavilion (with one large, one small room) and he slept where he liked. He also had a dozen or so Manchu concubines, who lived four to a house just outside the perimeter of the wives’ homes.

Like homes in Korea (a similar climate) the palace used a form of undol heating: a fire is kindled just outside and under the exterior wall of the building (the foundation of which is granite). The smoke from the fire is drawn under the floors of the building, so if you are lying or sitting on the floor you can get pretty cozy. One giant chimney serves for the drawing off of smoke from all twelve or more buildings.

Unlike the Korean palaces or old-style homes that I’ve seen, the palace at Shenyang seems frankly uncomfortable. There are wide wooden benches/beds and 20-foot intricately painted ceilings. But no sumptuousness. Of course, I suppose we could ssay the same about any place inhabited by Oliver Cromwell or William and Mary…or our own Colonial forebears. At least the Chinese had “central heat” and good ventilation.

Most disappointingly, so much of Shenyang palace seemed either dirty or neglected. As I mentioned, large parts of it are undergoing restorative work. But so much beautifully carved wood is covered with decades of dirt, so many surfaces show only a trace of color where their Korean counterparts would be reveling in bright greens and blues and scarlets and whites.

Perhaps we’d best come back in five years or so. Then, it will be a showplace.

Fit for a king, to coin a phrase….

 

 

I’ve lost my voice almost completely despite lots of tea and sympathy from roommate Ms. K, who has nearly recovered from her own troubles.  I did force myself to go to breakfast, which is included with the hotel room.

Though they are not changing the menu as often as last year, there are still plenty of choices:
– four kinds of congee (watery rice-based porridge)
– breakfast meats (bacon, sausages and “ham” that tastes more like Spam)
– hot vegetables (greens or cabbage)
– cold vegetables (usually spicy)
– fruit (fresh melons and plums as well as “fruit sugar water” — we would say, “Canned Fruit in Lite Syrup”
– Chinese dim sum dumplings
– eggs: hard-boiled, fried, or cooked to order
– Chinese and Western breads and pastries (including a fresh baguette every day)

Spending the remainder of the day in bed is not nearly so restful as I hoped….

I don’t know when Chinese preschoolers sleep, but they certainly don’t do it after 2:00 pm in this neighborhood, because a group of very amateur musicians have been rehearsing next door. They don’t seem to even pretend to listen to each other. Periodically I hear the strains of “It’s a Small World After All”, played on an ice-cream-truck-like carillon: this means the street-sweeper truck is going by.  Meanwhile, a team of workmen have been running chainsaws somewhere in back of the hotel building.  I’m guessing these are not using protective glasses, ear-muffs, face shields or breathing masks, or gloves.

Safety as we know it in litigious America doesn’t exist here. We were shocked in 1983 to see Hong Kong workmen seven stories up a building, climbing on scaffolds made of bamboo poles lashed together with hempen or nylon twine.  Thirty-four years later…they’re still doing it.

One of our young teachers visited the amusement park I mentioned the other day and was appalled at the lack of safety bars or at the roughness of the rides.  People got off the Ferris Wheel, for example, without waiting for it to stop.  I was put in mind of silent film footage of Coney Island 100 years ago. Watching the rides then makes you think, “OW!”

Things I see from my window that I did not see last year:
– couples walking hand-in-hand.  It’s common to see pairs of women friends holding onto each other, and occasionally you see male friends doing it, but boyfriend-girlfriend public closeness is something new.
– people in wheelchairs.  The sidewalks in Jilin and other cities are paved in a special way that enables the blind to find the middle of the path as well as the street corners (though I wouldn’t bet money on a blind man safely crossing the road here).  You are also starting to see handicapped restroom stalls, containing a “Western” toilet. But the medical college has no elevators and only one ramp that might get a wheelchair…or a hand-truck…into the ground floor of the teaching building. However, both in Jilin and in Shenyang we are seeing with “senior people” out in wheelchairs with their caretakers (presumably sons or daughters).  We even saw one poor soul who appeared to be on a gurney but was still able get out into the park on a nice day.

Being idle and unable to sleep because of the racket outside, I’ve dreamed up an exercise for getting to know Class 7, whom I should have met today.  I will hand out red and yellow Uno cards, keeping the corresponding blue ones for myself. I will use my cards to draw a number. The two students who have the same number will draw slips of paper containing “getting to know you” questions which they must ask each other.  This will, I hope, minimize my need to speak and at the same time give me an idea of their ability to speak readily and fluently, as well as indicate pronunciation issues.

And now…back to bed…

Class 6 is a good group. With only one or two occasional exceptions, everyone is always paying attention, and willing, if not eager, to have a turn to speak. Good thing, too, because I could hardly croak out a greeting this morning. Except for services in Fr. B’s office, Ms. K and I spent all day yesterday in our hotel room, washing out our clothes and hanging them in the shower to dry, making tea, and napping until about five in the evening, when we both planned classes and read assignments.

Meanwhile, the other teachers were meeting for dinner and, we found out later, “KTV” — karaoke. But not as you and I know it in the States. Here, a group of friends gets a private room outfitted in chrome and neon and complete with disco ball, video monitor, and three microphones. Then you are free to make as big a fool of yourself as you like, as it isn’t exactly “in public” but just among friends who already know you can’t sing. The hit of the evening was, apparently, Mr. D, our Irishman. No one got home until 11:30, by which time Ms. K and I were long asleep.

Not trying to look virtuous here. We are sick, they are not. Both of us did manage to get through today, though, and count it a success.

The Divine Ms. M presented on physicians and their pay. Again I taught Class 6 the unknown vocabulary (mercifully few words, as everyone needed the same words explained).

Then I asked each student to read aloud four to six lines of text and explain their meaning. This is only half worth doing, since often they really cannot get the gist of anything less than a full paragraph (but that would mean fewer people having the chance to speak).  I have just this instant decided that with Class 7 I will have everyone read short bits on the first day, then ask half the group to read longer passages on each of the following days.

Before lunch I assigned groups to teach anatomy: each group was to write as many English words as they could for a particular part of the body. They dove into this with much enthusiasm. When they returned from lunch they found the chalkboard covered in diagrams which they were to label.

We had a few false starts. Several named the bones in the arm rather than giving us “forearm” or “upper arm”, and one pair actually had the Latin name for the inside of the elbow! And somehow the word “udder” appeared….

After making a few corrections and additions I introduced idioms based on parts of the body: brainless, spineless, stop breathing down my neck, etc.. They weren’t too engaged with this, perhaps because it may best be presented as a writing/reading exercise. Something to resurrect another time.

For the last period I handed out slips of paper with questions relating to the article. This time each student thought and spoke alone, and this time I heard only things the students knew of their own knowledge or things that were clearly their own opinions. Refreshing!

For the last ten minutes Mr. J joined us, since my voice was failing fast, to review the words and tune to “Old MacDonald”. About half the class knew the song, and soon the Class Leader was truly leading the class.

Special notes for today:

Don’t ever try to explain the word “dangle” by telling a student that she is your dog and you are dangling meat in front of her. The girl did not look me in the eye the rest of the day.

Do tell another teacher, in front of the class, that they are a great class and that they all speak better than the tour guide at the palace in Shenyang – which is the truth.

 

Funerals are not the richest source of discussion material. First, speaking of death is as  taboo in China as it is in most parts of American society. (Coincidentally, “taboo” was one of the day’s vocabulary words.) The second challenge is, most Jilin students are young enough to have not yet experienced the death of a family member. Conversation about practices, customs, attitudes, and finances relating to funerals is hampered by their not having had to think about these things before. At the same time, since no one was emotionally invested in the subject, we were able to talk about it dispassionately .

All I know about Chinese funerals I learned from today’s article and from the few times I’ve encountered a funeral procession in San Francisco (where a brass band playing quasi-Dixieland music is apparently de rigeur). Class 6 didn’t seem to know any more than I, so we didn’t delve into the details of customs but just stuck to generalities and emotions. Here I hit pay dirt.

After quickly summarizing the important points of the China Daily article and going over new vocabulary (mercifully few words, and all rather simple), I divided the students into groups of four and told them to pretend that their father has died. Then I passed out colored index cards. A blue card meant you were the dead man’s son, pink his daughter, yellow the widow, and white the undertaker or someone else. On each card was written an attitude or emotion: angry, greedy, unhelpful, happy, indifferent, etc.. The groups had to talk with each other to decide what they were going to do in the way of a funeral – negotiating through each person’s emotional state and ulterior motives.

My initial plan was to force them to talk only in English during the small group period and to not have them report to the class as a whole, on the assumption that this was too touchy a subject for public discussion. As I visited each group, though, I found they were very much engaged by the assignment. Each student was enthusiastically writing down dialogue to read aloud to the teammates. (As is usual with English as a Foreign Language Students, nearly all students read and write far more adeptly than they can speak.)

During the lunch break I thought about how well they had addressed the morning task, so when we reconvened I asked whether they would like to make a presentation to the group as a whole after all. Everyone immediately agreed. It was quite entertaining. In one group the wife did not care about any funeral details, the son was more interested in going to a party with his girlfriend, and the “crazy” sister was beguiled by the greedy funeral director into lavish spending, including a gold-plated coffin and fifty horses to draw the hearse! In another group the dead man’s sister stepped in to overrule the funeral director, who was trying to cheat the widow and her sick daughter. A third group included a widow’s lament to her beloved “Bill” (“Oh, honey, how you leave me all alone?”). And the last group were frustrated by an undertaker who refused to give them any advice or guidance on which to make a decision.

So, this was a successful exercise. Would I try it again? I’m not sure.

Class 6 students, on average, speak willingly and without too much time lost in searching for words. Only one person in this class has what I consider a good accent, but only a couple are truly difficult to understand. So they are able to tackle this kind of role-play, and, judging by this experience, happy to engage in it.

At the same time, I wonder how it would have gone if there had been one or more students who had lost a parent or grandparent or sibling in recent years? Certainly we could not have had the fun of talking about gold-plated coffins! Would we have opened a wound? Pried into somone’s private life? I think the focus in that case might have had to be on the role of the nurse or doctor (these students’ future) in helping people through grief…an area in which I have very little expertise.

Mr. P, one of our younger teachers, told me of the great success he had with his class: each student had to write his own eulogy, then choose another student to deliver it while the “deceased” lay on a bier (three desks pushed together) and the rest of the class served as mourners! He said they were all very enthusiastic – in one case the dead man decided to read the eulogy himself. While I think this is a good assignment as regards writing, speaking, and thinking about oneself and one’s life, I would definitely have hesitated before implementing it, especially in a situation like Jilin where I’m not that familiar with the culture or with the home life of my students.

I did try, once, at home with my African-born high school group, to get them to write their own obituaries (with a view to getting them thinking about possible future careers). Several of those students were visibly revulsed by the suggestion of doing anything remotely connected with death and I realized that this was not the proper approach, given that many come to America because of war, genocidal campaigns, and other tragic reasons. Our Chinese students, like many “heartland” Americans, have had a mostly peaceful youth; our African students, like some inner-city Americans, have not had that blessing.

It is a fine line to walk.

I am not a creature of habit. Sadly for me.

I try to begin each group in the same way: multi-lingual introduction, followed by dictation and its correction, followed by introductions, followed by Two Truths and One Lie, then new vocabulary. I got it all mixed up today. I forgot to correct the dictation, so I had the students go ahead and begin to write their new vocabulary words on the blackboard.

Then I remembered and corrected the dictation, then remembered that they had not had the chance to introduce themselves! I was kicking myself the entire time because the purpose of the dictation is to indicate to me how well they understand my speech, and the purpose of introductions is for me to gauge their ability to speak and to identify pronunciation issues. This groups consists exclusively of second-year nursing students, 13 girls and one boy. Luckily, they appear to be at about the same level in speaking. I’m not so sure about aural comprehension.

I ended up with ten minutes left over after we got all that done, so I did Two Truths and One Lie for myself. As usual, no one believed that I have five children, but they all oohed over the family picture I passed around just as we broke for lunch.

When we reconvened, it was their turn to do Two Truths and a Lie. Nearly everyone seemed eager to talk. Unlike Class 5, these students don’t seem to need each other’s presence for moral support when standing in front of the entire class. This is probably due to Mr. G assigning them job interviews and such as speaking exercises when he had them earlier in the week.

I quickly reviewed the important points of today’s China Daily article, which discussed doping scandals in sports. Again I divided the class into four groups with four discussion topics, with every student required to speak. This time I made certain to point out to each group that I was expecting answers from their own imaginations, not from the news article. Topics were written on the board: – What do drugs do to athletes’ bodies? – Should sports be big business? – You think that using drugs is a way to cheat. How do we prevent it? – You think that using performance drugs is all right. If we allow it, how will sports change?

As before, two of the groups misunderstood the question. Their answers made sense, even if they were a bit off-topic. And in a couple of cases they contained some very sophisticated phrases, such as “normal physiological functions”! But they didn’t address exactly the issues I wanted them to consider.

We finished up with ten minutes of pronunciation drill. This group has trouble with V and the short i, and a couple of girls add the extra syllable on the end of words.

Tomorrow: the Funeral Industry.

I don’t like to use the word “sequestered” but since our arrival in Jilin the schedule has been tight enough to limit our opportunities to learn much about our immediate surroundings. Today, though, there was a chance to change that. Class 5 took the afternoon off!

Nearly all of the students joining us, at one o’clock we piled into taxis (for which they refused to let me help pay) and drove halfway downtown, to Century Plaza, a very large paved area which fills up every evening with townspeople socializing and relaxing after dinner.

Most of those seen there in the evenings are over 30 and come to dance. While last year I saw a massive group waltzing, the people usually perform a combination of line-dancing and tai chi, though sometimes a director will lead the group (ranging from a couple of dozen to one hundred or more) in a small circuit, perhaps around the large statue in the middle of the plaza (see above).

This afternoon we encountered a group of about thirty women dancing with large artificial flowers. Though many were quite graceful, the dance itself was slow and rather simple. I was immediately reminded of the scene in the musical The Music Man where the small-town society ladies are rehearsing their “expressive dance” of Grecian Urns.

I noticed quite a number of women wearing either a surgical mask or a veil covering their faces below the eyes. I commented to my students that these ladies must have colds and are being careful not to make others sick but I was quickly corrected: they cover their faces so as not to get sun-tanned.

We visited the Jilin Museum, which purports to tell the history of the area. In fact there is a large room containing panels telling the story of the Japanese conquest of Manchuria (1937 -45) and another room with pieces of a meteor which is Jilin’s primary claim to fame. Otherwise, there are hardly any artifacts, barring a room full of driftwood sculptures, made from washed-away trees from when the Japanese built the large reservoir (Songhua Lake) upstream from here and all of which are for sale.

It seemed to me that the museum staff hustled us out of the place, but I was told later by both Ms. R and Mr. G (who were visiting at the same time with their own classes but whom we did not see) that the building is in bad repair and becoming dangerous. Apparently they were closing early for safety’s sake.

This is a common theme no matter where you go in Jilin: so much is broken down in some way. Fr. B’s office has one corner showing serious water damage, as did one wall of the restaurant private room in which Class 5 had their dinner the other night. “Brick” sidewalks are crumbly aggregate concrete under a red coating; manhole covers sit two inches below the level of the pavement. Window panes in the university are broken. Fr. B has one of the nicest apartments on campus (because of his status) but most Americans would call it a slum.

After the Museum Class 5 went to the City Park, for which you pay admission. There is a student discount, and I caused a mild sensation when I pulled out my (valid) student ID from University of Southern Maine. I cannot tell, however, whether or not I got a discount.

The park was beautiful – shady and cool, with lovely flowers (all in pots!). It includes long walkways, grassy and forested areas, a small amusement park with a Ferris wheel, bumper cars and such, and even a little zoo with lions, tigers, llamas, a leopard, wallabies, seals, and raccoons. This last reminded me of when I was very young and visited the Bronx Zoo in New York. In those days a zoo was a place where people could look at animals. Today, American zoos are centers of conservation…and by the way, people can come see the animals. Jilin’s Zoo is like the Bronx Zoo of my childhood: cages and water dishes, and not much in the way of “habitat”.

In an earlier post I mentioned that our nursing students had no prior knowledge of ultrasound technology. Apparently they don’t know much about anatomy, either.  At the Zoo, we talked about the tiger as “he” (which he was) then moved on about a hundred yards where we found another tiger, whom we jokingly said was his girlfriend. We drew near and I said, “Oh, it really is his girlfriend!” My best student asked how I could tell this tiger was female.

It was a lovely afternoon. Of course, the students wanted to return to the university by taxi, so as to be sure that I would not get lost, but I insisted we take the bus, which is only about 15 cents in American money instead of $1.50 for the taxi. One of the girls, though, was going to walk with me from my stop to the hotel (which would have required her to wait for and to pay for another bus). I was successful in convincing her that I could find the hotel on my own.

 

This was a short day, which I probably should not have agreed to, though it benefitted me greatly. The students of Class 5 had wanted to take me “anywhere you want” and I had asked to do it today, so I only taught two sessions. Ms. L-B, a Chinese lady who is a friend of Fr. B’s and a tutor for both English and Mandarin, asked to sit in with us, which flattered me very much.

First, Mr. P presented the article, which was written by a Chinese pediatrician who is concerned about increasing numbers of suicides among young folks (ages 15-24) in Hong Kong.

Back in our classroom we reviewed the new words, and wrote additional ones on the board. As usual, I underlined portions of each word (where I could) to identify the root word. For example, “equa” leads to equal, equalize, and equivalent, and “press” gives us pressure and depression. I have noticed students making long lists of vocabulary words, but I have not checked to see whether they are writing down the roots. I will need to do this with the other groups when I get them. Nearly always, though, when I ask the meaning of a prefix or suffix someone in Class 5 has the answer.

Then we took turns reading aloud, with me correcting only the glaring errors of pronunciation and then paraphrasing each section to clarify the meaning.
Again I wrote four discussion questions on the board and divided the Class into four groups. After a few minutes I realized that, once again, students were poring over the article looking for the “answers”. I pointed out that while some of the answers were indeed there, I was more interested in the answers in their own heads! Ms. L-B joined one of the groups, which was a great help to me as she understood what I wanted to accomplish.

This time students spoke more readily (though many still read their answers). And the “answers in their heads” were…exclusively…ideas that I had presented orally. So be it – at least they were listening and understood what I said!

I’ll take my victories where I can.

(Yes, Mr. P really is that handsome.)

In one of the songs from “The King and I”, the English teacher says:

 It’s a very ancient saying, but a true and honest thought:
That if you become a teacher, by your pupils you’ll be taught.

Apparently I don’t write Chinese characters very well.  (Who knew?)

One of the students re-wrote part of my name.  Ms. L-B concurred, so it must be correct.

My version

 

 

 

Corrected version

 

 

I think I can rest easy that I am not named “This End Up”.

After school about 12 of the 14 students took me to dinner in a Dongbei (northeastern China) restaurant. Dongbei culture and pride are very strong here – attitudes and cuisine are different from those in other parts of China, so some fuss is made over students who are native to the area. Something like Yankee Pride in our own Northeast, I expect.

The specialty of the region is called Hotpot, and consists of some kind of broth or seasoned water brought to a boil in a shallow pan at your table. Then various meats, noodles, and vegetables are brought and you drop them in and take them out as you fancy. The students also ordered some kind of cold noodle and soup concoction that was surprisingly good, some very spicy kimchee-like veggies, and “char” — which is meat, fish cakes, or egg-roll-like foods that have been grilled on skewers. Two students ran to the nearest grocer to bring a 2.5 liter bottle of Seven-Up (the restaurant doesn’t mind if you bring in drinks).

The girl to my right, who speaks the best English, served as my interpreter, while the girl to my left kept filling my glass whenever she wasn’t piling food onto my plate. I really grew concerned that she wasn’t getting anything to eat, herself!

It was quite a merry little party, to which I was not permitted to contribute anything but my presence and my admiration. This generosity is typical of Jilin students and, in my experience, of everyone we have met in Maryknoll, the university, and the hotel.

I had planned to write some blog posts in the evening, but instead returned to the hotel and slept for twelve hours.

So much for feeling hungry half an hour after eating Chinese food!

Though there really is no standard format for our classes (other than the first period) I do tend to conduct my classes in roughly the same way every day, based on my experience last year. At the same time, oftentimes I will omit an activity I have prepared and substitute something that just popped into my head; sometimes a planned session runs short – or runs too long, and so something is added (usually pronunciation) or truncated.

On Day 2 Ms. E presented a China Daily story about the surplus of men in China – more than 33,000,000 more men than women. This is one of the unfortunate results of the One Child Policy, instituted about a generation ago (and now significantly relaxed). For a young lady not yet out of college, Ms. E was impressive: I’ve seen many seasoned teachers who could not address an audience so masterfully.

Back in my room with Class 5, we reviewed the new vocabulary and the students wrote on the chalkboard any (many!) additional words they did not know. Generally, all students will write something; the average is six to eight new words from each.

The thrust of the article is this: while abortion is not illegal in China, it is illegal to use an ultrasound machine to determine the baby’s sex in order to decide whether or not to abort.  Due to “feudal mentality” (i.e., the traditional quasi-religious reliance on sons), most children aborted in the last generation have been girls, causing the large surplus of men. Doctors will hide ultrasound machines in stores or homes, or expectant mothers will send blood samples to other countries for the purpose of finding out the sex of the baby. The government now recognizing the problems which attend “gender imbalance”, they seek to crack down on “abuse” of these diagnostic methods.

Not one of my students knew what an ultrasound machine is. I don’t mean that they didn’t recognize the English word; I mean that when I described how it works (likening it to echo-location as used by bats) and what the image looks like, they were clearly intrigued. But just as clearly, no one had any prior knowledge of such a thing.

Since this particular article is rather lengthy, we did not read it aloud but moved straight to discussion. I divided the class into four groups (using the Uno cards) and assigned each group a question to talk about amongst themselves and report on to the entire class, giving them about 25 minutes. Since the speaking ability of this group is sometimes very limited, and since it is very early in the program, I permitted them to talk to each other in Chinese and to write down in English, and then read, what they wanted to report. I probably will not permit this with the last two groups I will teach.

Having noticed last year that students are uncomfortable speaking alone while standing in front of the class, I had them stand up in their groups, but required each person to say something.

Now, the results of an exercise like this are not always what you would think. Here are the questions I assigned: – Do families really prefer boys over girls? Is this changing? – You are a young man who wants to marry. Do you feel you must “compete” with other men? – What can be done to solve the problem of gender imbalance? – What problems arise from too many “extra” men?

Interestingly, all three students who addressed the first question agreed that in their home provinces, boys are preferred. They did not think this attitude was changing, nor did they seem to think that it should. They also agreed that in the case of two equally-qualified job seekers, they would hire the man.

The students who took the next question performed a dandy little skit in which two men came to blows over a girl, who separated them. One man offered her a heart full of love, the other a big home, a car, and “anything you like”. She chose True Love.

I was quite disappointed in the groups who took the last two questions, and perhaps this was my own fault. I wanted their ideas and opinions, and every one of them read verbatim a conclusion or recommendation written in the original China Daily story.

I then brought up to the front of the room our lone male student, who had played the rejected suitor in the little skit. I praised his qualifications as a marriage prospect (house, car, prestigious job, kind heart, good family, etc.) and asked: what about him? What can he do to find a wife? How can we help him? Oddly, no one volunteered any solutions. I think they were puzzled, and looking back now I think I should have asked the young man what his own thoughts are, since he is directly affected. But since everyone was silent I put forward the idea of emigrating and returning home with a foreign bride…or emigrating, marrying a foreign woman, and not returning home. Students didn’t seem to be certain how serious I was about these proposals, or how realistic they may be. But…they had no ideas of their own. (Unlike last year’s group, whose solution was that every girl would get two husbands!)

Since I had 15 minutes left over, I asked for volunteers to write on the board. I then dictated four sets of “minimal pairs” (words that differ by only one sound). I spoke, and they wrote, words like bin – bean, hit – heat, fit – feet, etc.. Working quickly, everyone had a chance to do this. Most students got no more than five of the eight words correct, which got not only my attention but theirs, too, especially once I pointed out that we were working on the difference between the /ɪ/ (“short i”) and /iː/ (“long e”) sounds.

After lunch I wrote on the board several key vocabulary terms from Day 1 and Day 2. Then each student drew from a box a slip of paper on which was written one word, such as “potato” or “frightened” or “searching”. The idea was to tell a continuous story, with each student adding on to it, in random order. I began the story by giving three short sentences, then tossing a pair of rolled-up socks to the best speaker in the class. She did not continue my story, however. She used her paper and several words from the board to make her own brief statement. Everyone else followed her example, so we did not get the lengthy story I anticipated, though each person did say three sentences employing the new words correctly. As each student finished, I had to coax her to toss the socks to the next speaker…who never thought to catch them. “Unclear on the concept” indeed, though I daresay this may be due to inadequate explanation on my part. I will have to ask Leo or Ms. W whether Chinese youth know how to add on to a story.

Since the “story” didn’t go over too well, I abandoned the additional pronunciation drill I had in mind in favor of Two Truths and a Lie, which is more fun for everyone. I write three brief facts about me on the board, and students have to decide which is untrue and why. Then each student addresses the class with three statements about himself. While they are nervous, it is a lesser problem than during the discussion period, described above, since they are eager to fool their classmates.

We did have some trouble during the last few minutes, as Ms. E had taken her class outside and they were positioned directly under our window playing a noisy game like pat-a-cake. They were kind enough to let us join them after class; I was the first person “out”, which delighted the students.