There's only so much that can be said about my current daily schedule of class observations. I do my best during the classes to assist whichever teacher I am observing. My activities range from going around and helping the students with their written work and helping prompt them during the reading practice, to making photocopies of course material and helping control some of the more troublesome kids.
My first class went well enough. I've been assigned a Small Stars group, which as I've mentioned before is made up of four to six year old children. I started out by introducing myself to the each of the six students one at a time encouraging them to respond with the full phrase “My name is...” while checking off their names on the attendance sheet. Once the roll call was completed I played the “Hello song” on the digital whiteboard, which is to be played at the beginning of every class to encourage participation, and reinforce a sense of routine. Next we played a game in which a ball is passed from student to student. The child passing the ball asks “What's your name?” and the child receiving the ball responds with “My name is...” before passing the ball to the next student. After the ball went around twice we changed the rules, encouraging the students to sit in a large circle and roll the ball back and forth between them, repeating the same pattern of question and response.
Following that section I played a song on the whiteboard introducing the various characters that make up the course material. While the song is played various character puppets and body gestures are employed to reinforce the identities of the different characters. Roddy is a small boy who is at the center of course material for the Small Stars and High Fliers classes. Kev, a frog is the second character , followed by Mel, a bird, Ben, a bear, and Vic, a hedgehog. Each has their own distinctive voice and corresponding action. i.e. Kev hops, Mel flaps, Ben stomps, and Vic curtseys.
Another game serves to reinforce the student's ability to distinguish between each of the characters. Flashcards are placed on the floor and each student is encouraged to come up, one at a time and identify each when asked “Where's Kev?, Vic?, etc.” The corresponding action is pantomimed with each question to help prompt the students. Once the students seemed to be able to identify each character, I passed one card out to each student and had the remaining child go from chair to chair asking “What's your name?” to each in turn, prompting that student to respond with the name of whichever character card they were holding.
The final activity for the class involved a page of bookwork where each student was to draw themselves in a line up of the various characters, and write their name in the space below. Once they had completed their drawings each student stood up to show their picture to the class and introduce themselves again. After each student had done so, the last few minutes of class are spent singing along to the “Goodbye Song”, which wraps up each session. All in all, I feel much more comfortable in my ability to keep the students occupied and entertained for each hour long lesson.
The following day, I was supposed to accompany Arria to a local health clinic for an in-country medical exam. Except I wasn't told by Tom, who was probably preoccupied with the arrival of another new teacher whom he had to collect from the airport the previous evening. Arria texted me at a quarter past nine to tell me she was waiting for me at the KFC adjoining the Carrefour. After I showered and dressed myself I hustled over to join her. We walked a block or two and had pictures taken and printed for the forms at the clinic, and proceeded a few blocks further until we arrived.
The process at the clinic is only slightly better than the process at the airport, requiring waiting in several lines before the actual exams take place. However, the lines at the clinic were much more orderly than any I've seen thus far during my stay in China. Once the form was given to us and the exam fee was paid (by the school), we proceeded up several floors to the first station, which draws blood for testing and passes out cups for urine samples. Following that we go down a floor for ECG and Ultrasound exams, and finally returning to the first floor for a chest x-ray.
The work (Z) Visa I received in Chicago is apparently only valid for a month, and this process of registering with the local police and the additional medical exam is required to obtain an extended visa. Arria collected my passport from me and is in the process of having this new Visa applied to it. Thankfully I had already exchanged my cash at the local bank, as a valid passport is required for the transaction. Whether or not I will be required to travel to Hong Kong to have the new Z Visa verified (as I was told is part of the process for those who travel to China with a tourist Visa) remains to be seen. Thankfully I already exchanged my currency at one of the local banks as a valid passport is required for the transaction. Mike (another American) who just arrived is not so lucky, as Arria has also claimed his passport for the Visa process, and has yet to exchange is money.
During the weekend, I remained at the Yopindo branch for observation, rather than commuting to the Shawan branch as I did the week before. Class observations went much the same as they have during the rest of the week. On Sunday, Mike and I, as the newest additions to the staff were assigned the duty of laminating the stock of flashcards supplied to the schools for the courses. Which Fia humorously refers to as “Operation: Lamination”. After school ended, Lee and I attended a going-away dinner for one of the long-term British teachers at a barbecue restaurant a few blocks from the apartment, which featured a buffet setup as well as selections grilled meats delivered on skewers to the table by the wait staff. Everything from grilled vegetables, smoked sausages, leg of lamb, sections of pork, and calamari were served during the dinner.
Afterwards a small group of the teachers took the elevator up a few floors to the International Snooker Club. Snooker, as I learned is a variation of billiards in which different balls have different point values. The game is taken very seriously and local "Snooker Sharks" are quite competitive. There were also traditional pool tables, one of which we rented for the course of a few rounds. It's been awhile since I've played pool, in fact the last time I did play was back at GVSU in the game room of the Kirkhoff center. PJ as it turns out is quite skilled at the game as is Phillip. Since I intended to wake early Monday morning, I left for home at around 11pm.
Monday morning I texted Mike and the two of us walked over to the Bookworm for breakfast. He had done a bit of exploring himself in his first few days in Chengdu, but had failed to find the little cafe. I had my customary apple pancakes and coffee, once again taking advantage of their decent internet connection to Skype home. I'm told that the longer one is a customer of the various ISPs in the city, the better your connection will be. Which explains the rather lousy connection we have at our apartment. As the Bookworm has been a customer for many years they have much better service. While we were there, we made plans to visit Chengdu's latest landmark, The New Century Global Center. The largest free-standing building in the world. http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/01/travel/china-largest-building-chengdu/index.html The building is located in the Southern outskirts of the city and is quite close to the apartment. Once we met up with Lee, we made our way to the metro station and took the South-bound subway to the end of it's line, which deposited us just outside the building.
The structure is indeed massive, (you can see it from space) and to get decent photographs of the exterior required us to walk about a quarter mile across the vast, empty parking lot. Once we got inside we realized why the parking lot was empty. While the main structural construction has been completed, many of the attractions are still in progress and inaccessible, including the center's massive beach and waterpark area (Which was very disappointing, considering how hot it was outside and how appealing water looked.) The entire interior surface is covered in marble, with golden escalators, and an one incredible continuous skylight. Given the immense greenhouse nature of the ceiling, I have no doubt that an army of air conditioners is working overtime to keep the building a comfortable temperature. While most of the features are still works in progress, we did enjoy exploring what few areas of the mall were currently open to the public, which included many clothing stores and restaurants. The best photographs have been uploaded with this post.
The remainder of Monday afternoon was spent lounging around the apartment. Lee and I did make another excursion out for dinner at one of the few local restaurants I had yet to eat at, names Rice Plus. The eatery specializes in curry dishes and western style food, and is very good. Tomorrow it's back to work, including my second class.
My first class went well enough. I've been assigned a Small Stars group, which as I've mentioned before is made up of four to six year old children. I started out by introducing myself to the each of the six students one at a time encouraging them to respond with the full phrase “My name is...” while checking off their names on the attendance sheet. Once the roll call was completed I played the “Hello song” on the digital whiteboard, which is to be played at the beginning of every class to encourage participation, and reinforce a sense of routine. Next we played a game in which a ball is passed from student to student. The child passing the ball asks “What's your name?” and the child receiving the ball responds with “My name is...” before passing the ball to the next student. After the ball went around twice we changed the rules, encouraging the students to sit in a large circle and roll the ball back and forth between them, repeating the same pattern of question and response.
Following that section I played a song on the whiteboard introducing the various characters that make up the course material. While the song is played various character puppets and body gestures are employed to reinforce the identities of the different characters. Roddy is a small boy who is at the center of course material for the Small Stars and High Fliers classes. Kev, a frog is the second character , followed by Mel, a bird, Ben, a bear, and Vic, a hedgehog. Each has their own distinctive voice and corresponding action. i.e. Kev hops, Mel flaps, Ben stomps, and Vic curtseys.
Another game serves to reinforce the student's ability to distinguish between each of the characters. Flashcards are placed on the floor and each student is encouraged to come up, one at a time and identify each when asked “Where's Kev?, Vic?, etc.” The corresponding action is pantomimed with each question to help prompt the students. Once the students seemed to be able to identify each character, I passed one card out to each student and had the remaining child go from chair to chair asking “What's your name?” to each in turn, prompting that student to respond with the name of whichever character card they were holding.
The final activity for the class involved a page of bookwork where each student was to draw themselves in a line up of the various characters, and write their name in the space below. Once they had completed their drawings each student stood up to show their picture to the class and introduce themselves again. After each student had done so, the last few minutes of class are spent singing along to the “Goodbye Song”, which wraps up each session. All in all, I feel much more comfortable in my ability to keep the students occupied and entertained for each hour long lesson.
The following day, I was supposed to accompany Arria to a local health clinic for an in-country medical exam. Except I wasn't told by Tom, who was probably preoccupied with the arrival of another new teacher whom he had to collect from the airport the previous evening. Arria texted me at a quarter past nine to tell me she was waiting for me at the KFC adjoining the Carrefour. After I showered and dressed myself I hustled over to join her. We walked a block or two and had pictures taken and printed for the forms at the clinic, and proceeded a few blocks further until we arrived.
The process at the clinic is only slightly better than the process at the airport, requiring waiting in several lines before the actual exams take place. However, the lines at the clinic were much more orderly than any I've seen thus far during my stay in China. Once the form was given to us and the exam fee was paid (by the school), we proceeded up several floors to the first station, which draws blood for testing and passes out cups for urine samples. Following that we go down a floor for ECG and Ultrasound exams, and finally returning to the first floor for a chest x-ray.
The work (Z) Visa I received in Chicago is apparently only valid for a month, and this process of registering with the local police and the additional medical exam is required to obtain an extended visa. Arria collected my passport from me and is in the process of having this new Visa applied to it. Thankfully I had already exchanged my cash at the local bank, as a valid passport is required for the transaction. Whether or not I will be required to travel to Hong Kong to have the new Z Visa verified (as I was told is part of the process for those who travel to China with a tourist Visa) remains to be seen. Thankfully I already exchanged my currency at one of the local banks as a valid passport is required for the transaction. Mike (another American) who just arrived is not so lucky, as Arria has also claimed his passport for the Visa process, and has yet to exchange is money.
During the weekend, I remained at the Yopindo branch for observation, rather than commuting to the Shawan branch as I did the week before. Class observations went much the same as they have during the rest of the week. On Sunday, Mike and I, as the newest additions to the staff were assigned the duty of laminating the stock of flashcards supplied to the schools for the courses. Which Fia humorously refers to as “Operation: Lamination”. After school ended, Lee and I attended a going-away dinner for one of the long-term British teachers at a barbecue restaurant a few blocks from the apartment, which featured a buffet setup as well as selections grilled meats delivered on skewers to the table by the wait staff. Everything from grilled vegetables, smoked sausages, leg of lamb, sections of pork, and calamari were served during the dinner.
Afterwards a small group of the teachers took the elevator up a few floors to the International Snooker Club. Snooker, as I learned is a variation of billiards in which different balls have different point values. The game is taken very seriously and local "Snooker Sharks" are quite competitive. There were also traditional pool tables, one of which we rented for the course of a few rounds. It's been awhile since I've played pool, in fact the last time I did play was back at GVSU in the game room of the Kirkhoff center. PJ as it turns out is quite skilled at the game as is Phillip. Since I intended to wake early Monday morning, I left for home at around 11pm.
Monday morning I texted Mike and the two of us walked over to the Bookworm for breakfast. He had done a bit of exploring himself in his first few days in Chengdu, but had failed to find the little cafe. I had my customary apple pancakes and coffee, once again taking advantage of their decent internet connection to Skype home. I'm told that the longer one is a customer of the various ISPs in the city, the better your connection will be. Which explains the rather lousy connection we have at our apartment. As the Bookworm has been a customer for many years they have much better service. While we were there, we made plans to visit Chengdu's latest landmark, The New Century Global Center. The largest free-standing building in the world. http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/01/travel/china-largest-building-chengdu/index.html The building is located in the Southern outskirts of the city and is quite close to the apartment. Once we met up with Lee, we made our way to the metro station and took the South-bound subway to the end of it's line, which deposited us just outside the building.
The structure is indeed massive, (you can see it from space) and to get decent photographs of the exterior required us to walk about a quarter mile across the vast, empty parking lot. Once we got inside we realized why the parking lot was empty. While the main structural construction has been completed, many of the attractions are still in progress and inaccessible, including the center's massive beach and waterpark area (Which was very disappointing, considering how hot it was outside and how appealing water looked.) The entire interior surface is covered in marble, with golden escalators, and an one incredible continuous skylight. Given the immense greenhouse nature of the ceiling, I have no doubt that an army of air conditioners is working overtime to keep the building a comfortable temperature. While most of the features are still works in progress, we did enjoy exploring what few areas of the mall were currently open to the public, which included many clothing stores and restaurants. The best photographs have been uploaded with this post.
The remainder of Monday afternoon was spent lounging around the apartment. Lee and I did make another excursion out for dinner at one of the few local restaurants I had yet to eat at, names Rice Plus. The eatery specializes in curry dishes and western style food, and is very good. Tomorrow it's back to work, including my second class.