This week is the first week of classes and right after I got my schedule I started making a lesson plan for day one of European culture. Daniel, who taught the class last year, sent me all of his power points and lesson plan outlines which was a big help in knowing how to organize the course and what to cover. Usually the first day is pretty easy for me to plan. I introduce a little bit about me, find some creative or funny way to get them talking about themselves and finally explain the course and its requirements.
In my Western culture course last semester I had the students make personal flags and draw what was important to them. This semester I started out by asking what they would put on a world time line. We added some dates that they knew and then I put on some important dates as well. Then I circled the dates that the course would cover and explained what A.D./B.C./B.C.E./C.E. meant. We finished up the first hour by making personal time lines. I told the students to choose 10 events in their life that were memorable or funny and warned them that they would be sharing the time line with others and the whole class. After doing an example on the board, they got to work.
Obviously, Chinese students are not American students and sometimes my activities or ideas go completely differently than I had planned. This can make class a little awkward for me at times, but it's always entertaining. A recent comment from Mike's blog comes to mind, "If you want an endlessly fascinating job, teach people in a language other than their own. I get to do this for a living, and every day it’s a new experience."
One of the frequent differences that I experience is boundaries in what to share with the class. This one always takes me by surprise. Because most of my students are quite shy, I never expect them to be very open or personal. However, these expectations always turn out to be completely wrong and today was no different. On my time line I had examples of events like when I broke my arm, when I rode my first horse, when I met Sean etc. and I was hoping the students would follow my lead and for the most part they did. Others went into a little or a lot more detail.
To practice English, I had them pair up and share their time lines with each other for about ten minutes. Then I asked them to choose two events to share aloud with the class. As usual, some students wanted to talk for a long time and share their entire time line, some just said one thing, others wanted to share a long and detailed story pertaining to their time line. With over thirty students, this can take longer than I want and it's difficult to keep things moving without being a little rude.
What caught me a little off guard, however, were the particular events that the students were eager to share with the class. They were totally different than what American students would have shared in the same activity. It was hard to know how to respond to students who talked about really sad or heart wrenching stories so I usually said something like "that's too bad" or "thanks for sharing" or "oh gosh" and then kept moving on. Nobody else thought anything was weird though, maybe it was just me. Here are some examples:
"In 2003 I liked a boy but he didn't know"
"In 2008 I broke up with my boyfriend and it was heart breaking"
"In 2006 I fell in love"
"In 2011 I broke up with my partner TOTALLY"
"In 2008 I got drunk for the first time"
"In 1996 I got my first rabbit light (?)"
"In 2006 I was hurted by a rabbit"
"In 1997 I fell into a well and was rescued"
"In 2012 I will be dead" (many students really believe that the world will end in 2012)
"In 2007 I cried sadly for exams"
"In 2008 I got my first mobile phone and computer"
"In 1992 my mother told me when I was very little one day that when I was sleeping my uncle said I stole his money, she hit me and I cried loudly"
"In 1996 I had something wrong with my legs"
"In 2001 I learned swimming and nearly drowned"
"In 2010 I became fatter and fatter"
"In 1995 I fell from the second floor without being hurted"
"In 2008 my parents divorced"
"In 2008 I graduated from my high school and I cried a lot"
"In 2010 I crushed on a boy I've loved for 8 years"
"In 1998 I was mistaken for a boy"
"In 2004 I became a member of the Communist Youth League"
"In 1996 I began to learn the piano and it was a long and terrible experience"
"In 2011 I wore my first high heeled shoes"
"In 2007 I lost the computer exam and I was very ashamed"
"In 1997 my teacher hit me because of eating in the classroom"
"In 2008 it was my first time to look at the sea"
"In 1993 I hid in the big pipe made of steel with my brother for a day, the whole family set out to look for us"
"In 1999 I failed the exam and I erased the mark on the paper and was beaten"
"In 1993 many people said I was a beautiful girl but then I cut my hair and turned ugly"
"In 2004 I started my adolescent years which was the most ugly period in my life because of poxes (zits?). I was very dispirited"
"In 1998 I was seriously ill and nearly died"
For the most part the students listened to each other's events and were respectful and many stories made them all laugh. Then I showed them some pictures from my trip over winter break and I took pictures of them with name tags so I can learn their names. One girl told me that I was making her feel like a "criminal" doing this but overall it went fine. I'm still getting used to the classrooms that the school assigned. Instead of a screen at the front of the room, each student has their own computer which shows my powerpoint. It's interesting.
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