One of the most fun things about teaching is when what your students think surprises you or helps you to understand their mindsets and perceptions a little better. I had two such experiences lately: one at Web (a part-time job) and another at the university. Since Web provides me with all of the lesson plans and materials that I need to teach each class, I am constantly getting new ideas for activities and topics that are fun and interesting for Chinese students learning English. A recent exercise that I had with students at Web was a lesson about stereotypes. We talked about what they mean and discussed different opinions concerning whether they were good or bad. The main activity involved the students working in pairs to come up with their own stereotypes of Americans, the French, people in Shanghai, the Japanese, China in general, Korea, Africa and the U.K. Here's the combined results of the class:

Americans - talkative, well-dressed, lazy, humorous, outgoing, fat and rich
French - lazy, romantic, polite, emotional, outgoing and arrogant
Shanghainese - cheap, sophisticated, talkative, arrogant, hard-working and well-dressed
Japanese - serious, aggressive, hard-working, polite, formal and nationalistic
China - hospitable, hard-working, talkative, traditional, arrogant, nationalistic, and tolerant
Africa - rude and natural
Korea - emotional and well-dressed
U.K. - formal, respectful, punctual, serious and gentlemen

The students admitted that most of their opinions came from: the past or what their parents told them, movies and TV shows and one or two people they had met from the country or area.

In my culture class we did a similar activity concerning America. We had already talked about the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand and our last two units involved the U.S. and Canada. To begin talking about the U.S. I asked each student to write down the first word that came to their heads regarding America. Here's what they said:

humorous, civilization, fair, rich, wealthy, open, power, beautiful, high-tech, entertainment, violent, powerful, freedom, democracy, weapons, independent, NBA, crime, famous, advanced, fantastic, fashion, junk food, guns, competition, multi-ethnic, developed, modern, busy, exciting, tall people, Bush, strong and Obama

Other random student facts:

I get asked many questions about: fashion in the U.S., food in the U.S., how much things cost in America, my relationship with Sean, where I have traveled and what high school and college were like for me

Students want to see pictures of: my house, my car, my family, my friends, my town and my college life

Students are always surprised that: I'm 28, I prefer to be tan instead of having very white skin, I don't have a lot of money and I can speak Spanish

Some interesting conversation topics lately have been about: Christianity, homosexuality, curfews, dating and differences between American and Chinese business practices and manners/etiquette

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