Classes continue to go just fine. There's little for me to say about them. I do have a new Small Stars level class, which means eight or nine new names to remember, but that aspect shouldn't take too long. However, one of the students has been diagnosed with autism, so that may prove a bit tricky. I'm genuinely surprised that the child has even been medically diagnosed with autism. I'll try my best to give him additional one-on-one help whenever I can.
Children with learning disabilities are rarely properly diagnosed. In addition, there are no facilities to aid these children, so they wind up in standard classes with other students. (I suspect I have one or two in my classes already...) This is another cultural difference in China, and it has to do with their one-child policy. Parents rely on their children to provide for them in their old age, so many refuse to accept that their child may be developmentally challenged in any way. It is thought to reflect poorly on the parents. They instead feel that the child is simply lazy and does not apply themselves. And, unfortunately, the "encouragement" parents use to make these children apply themselves sometimes falls to physical discipline, which of course will do nothing to improve the situation.
The past week, the foreign staff was required to attending a meeting with Gregory Wilder, who is based in Shanghai as the hiring manager for all of the EF schools in China. It was good to finally meet the man I initially contacted when I began investigating teaching with EF. He was mainly concerned that our EF franchises in Chengdu were living up to the promises that he made during the interview process. I.e. that EF was adhering to the contract, that we were being paid on time and being paid the promised amount. Many of the questions fell to me, as I was the senior foreign staff member in the meeting. I had no complaints about my experience with EF. Unfortunately, our newest staff members, Colleen and Christopher were thrown in at the deep end. I had nearly a month of training before I had a full schedule, but that was partly because we had a surplus of teachers at our school when I arrived. They have not been so lucky. Phil left a few months ago, followed by Matt and Ana. So we were short-staffed when the two of them arrived and they received very little training before they had to start teaching classes full time.
Not much else has happened this week, apart from me going out to dinner with Monica again. She was a part-time teaching assistant at our school before she left for a management level position at an outlet store in one of the malls near Tianfu Square. So we don't see each other very often. We caught a cab across town to the Soho building to eat at the Indian restaurant there. She had never eaten Indian food before and found it enjoyable. Although the cab ride made her a little motion sick.
Outside of school, I've been working on making a graphic novel prologue to my video game, "Angels and Aliens." Using a combination of Photoshop and my 3D programs, it's coming along rather nicely. Here's the first two pages of the comic. I'm working on the next two pages this week and hope to post them soon.
Children with learning disabilities are rarely properly diagnosed. In addition, there are no facilities to aid these children, so they wind up in standard classes with other students. (I suspect I have one or two in my classes already...) This is another cultural difference in China, and it has to do with their one-child policy. Parents rely on their children to provide for them in their old age, so many refuse to accept that their child may be developmentally challenged in any way. It is thought to reflect poorly on the parents. They instead feel that the child is simply lazy and does not apply themselves. And, unfortunately, the "encouragement" parents use to make these children apply themselves sometimes falls to physical discipline, which of course will do nothing to improve the situation.
The past week, the foreign staff was required to attending a meeting with Gregory Wilder, who is based in Shanghai as the hiring manager for all of the EF schools in China. It was good to finally meet the man I initially contacted when I began investigating teaching with EF. He was mainly concerned that our EF franchises in Chengdu were living up to the promises that he made during the interview process. I.e. that EF was adhering to the contract, that we were being paid on time and being paid the promised amount. Many of the questions fell to me, as I was the senior foreign staff member in the meeting. I had no complaints about my experience with EF. Unfortunately, our newest staff members, Colleen and Christopher were thrown in at the deep end. I had nearly a month of training before I had a full schedule, but that was partly because we had a surplus of teachers at our school when I arrived. They have not been so lucky. Phil left a few months ago, followed by Matt and Ana. So we were short-staffed when the two of them arrived and they received very little training before they had to start teaching classes full time.
Not much else has happened this week, apart from me going out to dinner with Monica again. She was a part-time teaching assistant at our school before she left for a management level position at an outlet store in one of the malls near Tianfu Square. So we don't see each other very often. We caught a cab across town to the Soho building to eat at the Indian restaurant there. She had never eaten Indian food before and found it enjoyable. Although the cab ride made her a little motion sick.
Outside of school, I've been working on making a graphic novel prologue to my video game, "Angels and Aliens." Using a combination of Photoshop and my 3D programs, it's coming along rather nicely. Here's the first two pages of the comic. I'm working on the next two pages this week and hope to post them soon.