Sorry
for the long post folks! It's
day three now, and my first class is only two and a half hours away.
Am I nervous? *%#* yes. Why am I nervous? Here's the story to
date.
Day
#1 (Monday)
Okay
so I wander into the classroom at 1:30. There's nobody there.
Apparently class starts at 2:00. Flang. Well, that's cool, I can
write some stuff up on the blackboard (that's right, a blackboard. I
haven't seen a blackboard since I was in primary school in Fiji.
Serious deja-vu goin' on here.) So I scribble some stuff on the
board, and include a smiley face for good measure.
As
you might be able to surmise, I have no idea what I am doing.
But
that's cool too. I
will admit, I had put together a lesson plan, but it went along the
lines of 'Go to class, teach some English, come back home.' I like
to keep things simple, you see.
Today
was going to just be an introductions day, plus something random like
“What
you do you like about learning English?” I am assuming of course
that the kiddies will have already spent some time learning English
in high school. (And, can you believe it, they have! Prior to taking
English at SNU, they have all studied our crazy language for 6 years
or more already! And, I was to discover, they can tell their verbs and
adverbs apart! So who the heck was gonna be teaching who here?)
I
twiddle my thumbs for a bit longer. Then I pace up and down the
classroom. Then I make an adjustment to the smiley face (I gave him some hair, so that he wouldn't look like me). Pace up
and down again. Look at my watch. 1:32. Somehow, when you are
nervous, time doesn't actually, like, go any
more.
At
about 1:50 (which easily felt like three hours later), the first
student came in. “Hullo?” she says. “Yo, howsit goin'?” I
reply. Real smooth. She smiles nervously, then runs to the back of
the classroom so she can be as far away from me as possible.
The
next victim wanders in. This time I reply with a “Hello. How are
you?” He doesn't seem too scared by my response. I'll stick with
being normal from now on, I think.
The
classroom fills up. There's a grand total of 35 kids, which is a
lot, man... Suddenly a bell
rings.
How many Universities do you know of have bells for Pete's sake?? First a blackboard, then a bell. When I was at
primary school, Mom used to make me tinned-mushroom-and-vegemite
sandwiches for lunch. I had quite deliberately forgotten about these
abominations, until now. Stupid bell.
“Well
I guess we better get started!” I say. However, I will soon learn
that what the students probably heard was: “W'llagessw'b'trgusstar
dead”. The students turn to one another and whisper furiously. I
do believe they were wondering whether I was their teacher, or just a
funny-looking student who spoke very poor Mandarin.
“Hi
everybody,” I say. “My name is Andy and I - “
“Excuse
me!” comes a voice from the back of the class.
“ -
come from yes?”
Laughter.
Apparently I now come from Yes. Flang.
“Can
you pl-ease eh-speak slow?” the student asks haltingly.
Ah,
right. This I can do.
“Sure. Thing.” I reply. “My.
Apologies. You. See. Where. I. Come. From. People. Speak.
Very. Quickly. (pausepause) And. I. Speak. Very. Quickly.
Even. For. A. New. Zealander. (pausepausepause) Many. People.
Think. I. Am. A. Retard. Because. I. Speak. Too. Fast.”
No
laughter from the class.
Great.
Day
#2 (Tuesday)
Lesson
plan – check. Water bottle – check.
Keeping-my-stoopid-jokes-to-myself – check.
Today
was going to be a little bit of a challenge. Yesterday's classes
were easy to deal with, because introductions ain't too difficult,
and consume lots of time. Today, however, I had to create some
actual
content. So I made up some stuff about how to have a conversation (I
really, really have no idea what I am doing), and threw in some
pronunciation and grammar exercises as well. My “Elements of
conversation” section of the class had things like “statements,
questions, opinions, facts”, plus a bunch of other stuff which I
truly am an expert on. Like hell.
And it was during this section
where things turned fun.
“Okay,
Glacier... can you give me an example of a question?”
Glacier
stood up. Glacier is not her real name, by the way. One of these
days I will be able to pronounce her real name, and maybe then
everyone won't laugh when I do. (Additionally, 'Glacier' is not the
most interesting name in my class. I also have a Fox, Tiger, Fly,
Deity, and good ol' Stonk. And although these may seem strange to
you, please remember that my nickname is Pies, and to some people
(Doctor Love), Pies is actually my real name. So I ain't fazed by no
'Stonk' in my classroom.)
Back to Glacier.
“Do
you think she is very pretty?” Glacier asked, pointing at the girl
in front of her. Remarkably, the girl in front retained her
composure.
“Er,
very good, that's a great example of a question, Glaci - ”
“Answer
the question!” said Glacier, and this was an order.
“ -
huh?” Okay, what the heck was I supposed to do? “Er, sure!
Yes, I think you all look very pretty - ”
“Do
you have a wife?” asked someone else.
“That's
also an excellent example of a question! And to answer it, no, I
don't have a - ”
“Do
you have girlfriend?” “How old are you?” “When are you get
married?” “Where
are
you get married?” “Why are you not get married yet?” “If
you are not married yet, what kind of girl you will marry?” “Why
you not married your girlfriend?” “Can I marry you?”
Flang.
Okay, if that wasn't bad enough, where things really
turned to custard was when I decided to play the 'this-is-a-what'
game. For those of you who have no idea what this game entails, let
me fill you in:
Take an item, say, a pencil. Pass
it on to the person next to you and say “This is a pencil.” The
person next to you replies, “A what?” You repeat: “A pencil”.
The person next to you then says, “Oh, a pencil,” and then
relieves you of said object. You can then add more items in order to
turn this fun and exciting game into something even more fun and
exciting.
So I hand a packet of Pringles to
Harry (Potter, by the way, in case you were curious...). “This is
some Pringles,” I say.
Harry looks at me blankly.
“Okay,
now you say, 'a what?'”
“Pringles!”
he says excitedly.
“No
no, you say 'a what?'”
“Pringles!”
Needless
to say, after watching these items get bandied about the room at
random to cries of “A what!” and “a Pringletowelpenumbrella,
ahahahahaha!”, I decided that this game a) sucked, and b) sucked
hard.
I won't even mention the “Nuclear Bunker” debate that followed.
Day
#3 (Wednesday)
(This bit was written well after I
began the post... apologies for the discrepancy!)
In theory, today was gonna be
good. I had learned many lessons from yesterday's debacle (those
poor, poor kids) and was set to improve on them all.
And
guess what! The day actually worked out really well! I actually
sounded
like
I knew what I was talking about, and the kids seemed to have a blast!
We even managed to play Pictionary for a bit, although the
large-group Chinese whispers fell apart real fast when the kiddies
discovered they could just yell the answer to the person up the
front. Oh well.
Pies out.
Pies noodles of the day: In
keeping with my time-honoured tradition of assessing food quality (in
particular, pastries), I have transferred my vast ability in this
area to the equivalent staple of China. That's right, I am referring
to the packet of instant noodles. (The Chinese, unfortunately, do
not have a taste for mince-and-cheese-packed pastry... yet.)
Today's choice is called
“Green-and-yellow-with-blurry-chicken”.
These
noodles had a texture that reminded me of chewing cardboard as a
child. This would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that the
flavour of these noodles also resembled that of said childhood
cardboard. I give these noodles two thumbs down.
I also had the
opportunity to review some instant vermicelli, however I forgot to
take a photograph before consumption. Be thankful. This vermicelli
was so bad that we couldn't even convince the crickets that live in
Lindsay's bathroom to consume any. Which was a bad sign, considering
that these crickets consumed everything from Lindsay's washing
machine hose to the, er, stuff that was under her bathmat.
