November 1st 2015
Yesterday was halloween and it was a very full day. We spent the majority of the day as a group. We went to watch a movie at the cinema, “Mountains May Depart”, and then went to watch a professional soccer game. I had no idea how passionate Chinese people were about soccer. There was lots of organized cheering, people sporting team merchandise, and confetti.
The real craziness began after the game. Earlier in the week, I had agreed to volunteer at a halloween party taking place at a children’s music school. I had asked for details, but didn’t get too many. Initially they asked if I could teach English to 40-50 students, but I told them that I didn’t feel I had time to prepare for that. They told me that they could organize activities and I could just go and play with the children. I felt relieved and happily agreed.
I have to preface my experience by saying that when I imagine a halloween party I picture the halloween parties from my childhood. Small stations where about 5 kids stay at a time participating in activities such as bobbing for apples, musical chairs, guess how many candy corn pieces are in the jar, pin the wart on the witch, etc….
So after the game, my tutor and I hopped on a bus to go to the music school.Because of crazy traffic, the bus ride took over an hour and we arrived a little late. I walked into a darkly lit lobby-like area with many halloween decorations. It was not a classroom, there was no whiteboard, nor activity stations. About 30 kids were swarming around a woman with a microphone, while parents hovered just outside of the swarm. It was chaos. Another woman recognized me and lead me towards the swarming mass of children. Pushing our way through, the woman holding the microphone saw me and looked relieved, she then tried to hand me the microphone telling me to talk to them and teach them English. I got really nervous. I don’t like public speaking, and this is exactly what I didn’t want to be in charge of, being the English teacher. I was there though, and it was already utter chaos, so after trying to tell them I didn’t know what to do (with translation help from my tutor), I took a few deep breaths, tried to think of some English phrases they might understand, and then took the microphone.
The swarm of kids jostled their way towards me, the more aggressive ones elbowing their way closer to me. All of them said “hello, hello, hello”. I started out with introducing myself and saying “Happy Halloween” and trying to teach them to say “Happy Halloween”. It was hard getting the kids to hear me, and to get them to stop talking, and to know whether they understood me or not. Meanwhile, parents were snapping photos in the back. After a few painful moments of wondering what to do next (while maintaining a plastered smile on my face, as I did the whole night), I began saying hello to kids and asking them their names, and saying nice to meet you. Even that didn’t go too smoothly though. Kids were pushing their way towards me, yelling hello, grabbing my arm, handing me candy, putting their witches hat on me.
The kids were really cute though. One of my favorites was a four year old boy that was initially crying when I got there. When he got the courage to come talk he told me his English name was Peter. Peter was dressed as spiderman. He was very shy, but summoned the courage to come up and talked to me a few times. Another girl, Candy, was one of the kids who pushed her way towards the front and managed to stay right by my side for most of the night. She would repeatedly say “Hello! Hello!”, with a huge smile, and whenever I said something back she would giggle and say in Chinese “I don’t understand”.
After a little while of trying to ask kids their names, the teacher asked if I could sing for them. It was hard to understand her because of the noise level, and the language barrier. I gave her and my tutor a frightened stare and said “I don’t know any halloween songs” my tutor translated it to Chinese, and she said it didn’t matter. Then she turned on the song “twinkle, twinkle, little star” and I led the kids in a sing along. Then she came up next to me and asked me If I could do a dance, again I gave her and my tutor a frightened stare and then “I don’t know any”. Then she told me the bunny song, and I said “I don’t know it” she seemed to ignore me as she put on the song and then did some hopping motions, I told her again ” I don’t know it!” and she said “ok, you follow me”. After the bunny dance, me trying to talk to the kids dissolved into kids, parents, and teachers taking turns to take pictures with me. My tutor asked if I felt like a star, and I said yes. Honestly, my tutor would have done a much better job at teaching them English, but she stayed in the background, and calmly helped me when occasionally I gave her a frightened look and asked her what was going on.
I later found out that the music teachers had told the parents I was an English teacher…which is a blatant lie. But it made me feel better that none of the parents seemed mad, or had even noticed I had no idea what I was doing. From this experience, I was reminded of one of my swim coaches’ favorite lessons. He draws a tiny circle on the board representing our ‘comfort zone’. He then draws a much larger circle around the tiny circle. Outside of the larger circle he draws some sharks. The space inside the larger circle is our ‘safety zone’, and the shark zone is the ‘danger zone’. The point is that we are still safe, far outside of our comfort zone. Not only are we safe outside of our comfort zone, but it is healthy of us to stretch it, because that is what leads to growth. Not only were the adults ok with my “teaching” performance, they asked me to come back as a regular English teacher. I declined though because somehow we already have less than a month left in Jinan!
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November 17th 2015
Tonight I returned from Tian’an, a ‘small city’ of 1 million people… Us Lewis & Clark students were sent to three different schools to observe English teaching. It wasn’t until we arrived that we realized we would be playing a part in the English teaching. I was really excited. This time I would have a whiteboard, the students would be seated at desks, and they would all have the same level of English!
So, I entered the fifth grade classroom excitedly and confidently, went over the class’ vocabulary lesson for the day with a ‘repeat after me style’, and then asked questions about the vocabulary. After that, the teacher gave me free range to do what I wanted. So I let the kids ask questions about my life, like what my favorite food is, what kind of music I like, and where I am from. I then asked them similar questions back. Later, I was even asked to sing a song, but this time I was prepared! I taught them ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’, and all of the kids participated. I have to give partial credit to my great experience as a guest teacher, to how well behaved Chinese students are in the classroom setting. I think this is because of the high expectations from both teachers and parents.
After the fifth grade class I had a second grade class whose limited vocabulary made interacting with the students more difficult.However, I had a really great experience at the school and I was reminded of how much I like working with kids. I don’t think I would’ve had as great of an experience at the school if it wasn’t for stretching my comfort zone by taking the mic on Halloween night. It reminded me that if you want to grow, you have to keep on stretching.
Ian, Emma, and I were placed at the same school, Tai’an Olympic Garden Elementary School.
Emma and I participating in a dance class. We also got to sit in on a calligraphy class, a sand drawing class, and a ‘robot building’ class. We were really impressed by the school and its resources.
We also got to join a P.E. class. We played a version of tag similar to ‘cat and mouse’. It was really fun.
Emma signing some notebooks! The kids were really interested in us and excited we were there.