Most of our students admitted that they had not used spoken or written English during the winter break of two months, so we had some techniques to get their mouths moving in English! A BYU teacher shared a chant at our Hong Kong Conference so we tried it out on the students. They thought we were crazy, but they quickly enjoyed clapping the rhythm and trying to increase their speed with the words.
It's time to talk a little, talk a little
It's time to talk.
It's time to talk a little, talk a little
It's time to talk.
Say what's on your mind, say what's in your heart
Say a little, say a lot, say it now, let's talk!
We enjoy being back in the classroom, but find we get tired after 4 hours of talking and standing. The students are back to square one, reluctant to speak, but we just call on them. Since they are obedient they will share and then sometimes you can't get them to stop talking!
Most of our first semester students are in our classes with a few exceptions. We have a few issues with technology...like a classroom that Nancy used a thumb drive in last semester did not have a working projector and Stan couldn't get any technology to work in one of his classrooms. So, we became the "chalkboard professors"! We have some people working on trying to resolve these issues for the future. With oral English lessons you can often provide many speaking opportunities without computers, but in writing classes we try to show samples for the students to see on the power point. Now we may be frequenting the copy center on the street corner as a substitute for computers! We spent most of the week trying to finalize lesson plans so we can be a little ahead in planning this semester.
Friday night we had planned to celebrate a BYU teacher's birthday with a potluck and cake. However, the Purnells, were delayed on their flight returning from the US that day so we postponed the event. As a last minute substitute activity, Wayne and Libby Clarke, sent out a general email invitation for BYU teachers to join them for dinner at "The Irish Pub" near the SDU west campus. Stan and I hopped on the bus and knew that a 45 minute-1 hour ride awaited us because of Friday night traffic. At one of the bus stops two BYU couples got on the bus, including the Purnells, the couple that had just arrived from the airport 10 minutes earlier! That foursome had not gotten the email about the dinner invitation and they were just heading out on their own to get some food. We thought it was quite unusual that they would be on our same bus since it runs every 5 minutes and there are numerous other bus options. As a result, 8 of us went to dinner at the "pub" and enjoyed some western food.
This week Brian, the American teacher who dressed as a tree for Halloween, joined us for dinner since his Chinese wife is still in Taiwan after the birth of their second son. Their 4 year old has some symptoms of autism so they are trying to arrange help for him when the entire family returns to Jinan in a few weeks. We are hoping to help them connect with a doctor that has befriended the BYU teachers in the past and has a child with Asperger's.
Today after church we had a very nice potluck dinner. Wendy Purnell, the wife of the couple that returned on the Friday flight, always makes too much food and today was no exception. Plus we had our delayed birthday celebration and received all the items the Purnells brought back to us from the states. We called it Christmas in February! It was great having all of us back together after six weeks.
In oral English we asked the students to share what they did during the semester break. One on Stan's junior's had a very interesting, yet terrifying experience. Jessica, (her English name), did not go home for the break. Instead, she had done some research and found that she could volunteer at a school for disabled children in Vietnam. She paid her way to Saigon and traveled there alone. She had a wonderful time working with the children. One day she was in a crowd and someone took her purse. She lost all of her money and her passport. When she reported what had happened to the authorities they either didn't understand her or didn't believe her. They detained her and put her in a jail cell. She was so frightened and distraught she began to cry. Someone felt sorry for her so they found someone who could speak English. With their assistance, she was able to explain herself and get help from the Chinese Consulate in Saigon. She was issued temporary documents so she could get out of the country. She was so happy to be back in China.
My thought was: "See, it's not a bad idea to learn to speak English well. You never know when it will come in handy."
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