Well this last few weeks has been a bit of a mad rush to get everything ready for winter courses here at EF Chengdu. So I apologize for the lack of updates the past few weeks. I'll try my best to bring everything up to speed...
Winter courses are extended hours at each school in addition to our regular work schedule. Meaning that all of the teachers have only one day off per week and specific additional classes assigned to them. There are three individual extra courses being run. The Storytellers classes are making a return for the Small Stars level students, and there is an upgraded phonics curriculum for High Flyer and Trailblazers levels. I volunteered to teach the third course, a writing class.
Writers Guild, as it's called is for the Front Runner level, beyond Trailblazers. And while the book is broken down into four sections, including research and essay writing. But we've decided to focus on movie reviews and creative writing for this particular run of the course. Unfortunately the English used in the movie reviews collected in our course book is beyond even the advanced level of the class. Nearly 30-40 minutes of class time was spent on defining words in the articles, just so that the students could comprehend the text. But they seem to be enjoying the class itself, which will continue after the Spring Festival holiday. But not everything has been stressful and serious.
Winter courses are extended hours at each school in addition to our regular work schedule. Meaning that all of the teachers have only one day off per week and specific additional classes assigned to them. There are three individual extra courses being run. The Storytellers classes are making a return for the Small Stars level students, and there is an upgraded phonics curriculum for High Flyer and Trailblazers levels. I volunteered to teach the third course, a writing class.
Writers Guild, as it's called is for the Front Runner level, beyond Trailblazers. And while the book is broken down into four sections, including research and essay writing. But we've decided to focus on movie reviews and creative writing for this particular run of the course. Unfortunately the English used in the movie reviews collected in our course book is beyond even the advanced level of the class. Nearly 30-40 minutes of class time was spent on defining words in the articles, just so that the students could comprehend the text. But they seem to be enjoying the class itself, which will continue after the Spring Festival holiday. But not everything has been stressful and serious.
I went out with Rachel to see Ender's Game, which just recently opened in theaters over here. I've read the book and thought the film adaptation was acceptable, if a bit by-the-numbers. The story is that of Ender Wiggin, a child born in a near future where Earth has fended off an alien invasion by the skin of their teeth. Ender is enrolled in a military training center at a young age because the military strategical command has deemed that children are more prone to out-of-the-box thinking and are better equipped mentally to counter a unorthodox enemy such as the one humanity is being threatened by. His military training is based on a gamut of virtual reality games intended to encourage him to make difficult, spur of the moment decisions, often with no clear course of action. Matched with this is a series of zero-G war-games designed to test his ability to take the lead and establish his authority as a commander. His final exam is a grandiose simulation of the assault on the alien home world. During the simulated battle he loses every ship in the fleet but the one carrying the super weapon which he successfully utilizes to destroy the alien threat for good.
It's at this point in the story where it is revealed to Ender and his companions that the entire final exam scenario was not a simulation but was actually taking place, making Ender responsible for the deaths of everyone aboard the lost fleet of ships and the perpetrator of genocide against an alien race that we come to learn had no further intentions to attack the Earth. The impact of the revelation is not as surprising in the film. Had the simulation appeared as a glorified game of missile command and not the expensive CG special effects reel the impact would have been much more profound. Here are some pictures taken out in the city that evening.
It's at this point in the story where it is revealed to Ender and his companions that the entire final exam scenario was not a simulation but was actually taking place, making Ender responsible for the deaths of everyone aboard the lost fleet of ships and the perpetrator of genocide against an alien race that we come to learn had no further intentions to attack the Earth. The impact of the revelation is not as surprising in the film. Had the simulation appeared as a glorified game of missile command and not the expensive CG special effects reel the impact would have been much more profound. Here are some pictures taken out in the city that evening.
During the second week of January, we had our annual meeting with the entire staff of EF Chengdu. The annual meeting for 2014 was held in the large banquet hall in one of the malls near Tongzilin, adjacent to a large buffet restaurant that hosted our dinner. It was a great team-building activity to spend time with the extended EF teachers and staff, and we got to see the performances each school had been preparing in the weeks prior. Our school performed a short ten-minute play that James and I collaborated on called "Breaking Alice"; a modernized, comedic take on Alice in Wonderland. Other performances consisted of other short skits, dance routines, and a hilarious video which can be seen here:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjYyNDA3MTUy.html
Here's a peek at the annual meeting party:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjYyNDA3MTUy.html
Here's a peek at the annual meeting party:
Our school had its own separate team building activity, here at the end of the first half of Winter Course. A night out at an outdoor shao kao barbecue restaurant, and a trip to a nearby KTV bar. Matt had a stroke of good New Year's luck when he found a bottle of wine on the patio that had evidently been purchased and forgotten by whomever had used our KTV room last. We shared a few more drinks and sang along to Chinese and American music. I tried my luck at singing "Hotel California" and "Creep" by Radiohead and then I left to ransom my bike out of the Yopindo parking lot before they closed.
This week Nick and I will probably meet up with Quinn again and discuss plans for forming our media company under his stewardship. I'm looking forwards to the extended break from classes during the Spring Festival Holiday, before Winter Course resumes. Matt will be leaving to teach at a school in the North of China and I'll have the apartment to myself for the foreseeable future. We're taking time before he leaves to get the apartment straightened up, including having the maintenance man stop by to fix our toilet and replace the lights in the living room and my bedroom. It will be kind of strange seeing Matt go. While it was Tom who fetched me from the airport, and Lee whom I lived with first, Matt was put in charge of bringing me up to speed and was the first teacher that I met at EF Yopindo. Once he and Anna leave over the next few weeks, I will be the senior foreign teacher at our school.