It was my first day of actually sitting in front of a class and teaching English to EF students. I was pretty nervous I must say. Especially when one of the Chinese teachers comes to me and says that her students really liked the teacher before me and that one of the kids parents is thinking about pulling him out of the class if he didn't like me. There's some added pressure. I was told not to think twice about that by my boss but how the hell can you not think about a comment like that? Especially on your first day!
At noon I had a one on one lesson with a college student who is studying to take an English test that will give her permission to travel to Canada. From what I understand you cant just up and leave, you must be able to prove that you can take care of yourself. She was a good student, we mainly just sat there and talked. I would correct her English whenever she made a mistake or needed something clarified, other than that her English was great.
My next group were "high flyers" ages 8-10. This is the class I was told that they loved their old teacher (who had to leave due to a family emergency). I walk in and there are 10 kids looking at me like they just found a hair in their rice. Kind of weirded out and confused. I sit down and make some faces at them, ask them their names and how they are that day. The soon warm up to me, and the lesson begins. I pay special attention to the kid who might be taken out of the class and make sure that he is following everything. I even had him come to the front of the class to arm wrestle me.....he won (wink). He walked back to his seat grinning ear to ear.
I actually got so into losing I fell out of my seat and the back of the chair hit me behind my right ear, now I have a sore spot. The rest of the class goes smoothly and then it ends. Later the Chinese teacher who basically told me that I better be good, approached me and said that she asked the students to raise their hands if they liked me. She said that they all jumped out of their seats and tried to raise their hands as high as they could, some of them even tried to raise their legs! Nothing like receiving some positive feedback.
My last class of the day were what we call "small stars" 3-6 years old. The are adorable and we go over numbers, colors, letters, and family members. Its funny, when we came to the "brother" and "sister" flash cards, the class fell dead silent. They have no idea what a brother or a sister is because none of them or anyone they know for that matter has any! You are allowed one child and if you have another one the government will charge the hell out of you.
We had a good time in class and on a high note.... the small stars goodbye song, its to the tune to the barney song:
Goodbye friends, goodbye friends,
We'll have fun another day,
I will see you soon, and we can play again,
But for now I'm going home.
Picture me marching in place and doing hand motions to this song surrounded by nine 5 year olds. It's a pretty funny sight.
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