Exams - Week 3

So the final week of exams is complete - it's been a mixed bag.

If Tom had still been in Foshan, and hadn't already left on holiday, he would have received numerous requests (from me) to just put me out of my misery and shoot me. Trying to persuade some of the remaining students to do their exams has been a more stressful experience than necessary. I had one class where a couple just refused to even do it - i'm not entirely sure what the repercussions of that situation are but I wasn't going to waste my precious trying to persuade them to string some sentences together when I have 1200 much more willing pupils to deal with!

Bizarrely, a surprisingly common phrase that has been used throughout the 3 weeks of exams is 'in a word'. I don't know who taught them this phrase but they haven't taught them how to use it properly or what it actually means. At the end of their speeches lots of students would say "in a word, I love basketball because...." and proceed to give me their spiel all over again about why they love x,y,z, they obviously haven't grasped the one word part!

When we return next semester i've created a lesson entitled 'words and phrases that are driving Gillian crazy!' in an attempt to correct the common mistakes made throughout the year group as well as widen their vocabulary - i'm fed up of hearing 'on my holiday I like to eat delicious food and visit places of interest'. When you ask them what exactly 'delicious food' and 'places of interest' are they haven't the foggiest; my aim is to change all that!

After 3 weeks of listening to slightly flawed English i've noticed i've started coming out with the occasional sentence with questionable grammar - i'm going to have to sort that one out pronto...

There is one distinct phrase that has stuck in my mind this week from one of my female pupils from when she was talking about school; "I love this school like I love my mother." I have no idea what this means and I didn't ask...

G x

BBQ cat anyone?

I've been trying to show you these pictures for weeks but my phone wasn't having it.

If you love cats, it's probably not wise to look at these pictures.

On New Year's Eve, on our walk home from the school, Tom and I came across a very unexpected sight on the pavement.

We hadn't seen anything like it before, or since. I've decided that it was maybe a New Year culinary treat. I've got to say, i'm glad I don't see BBQ-ed cat every day because it's a pretty horrible sight, especially it's face!

Mind you, if he'd offered me some cat right there on the pavement I wouldn't have said no...

G x

Exams: week 2

So the hardest part of the exams, on my part at least, seems to be getting all the students organised in order to fit in at least 20 exams per class. This aim is proving to be a challenge to some to say the least, with some even refusing to do it because they claim they aren't ready (they've had 2 weeks!!) -  I've found threatening them with failure suddenly makes them all very keen to do the exam...

I noticed one of the boys had written his speech on his arm. I presume it was his speech because it was in English and I can't imagine he had any other English exams on at that exact moment. He didn't seem to use it though, probably because he saw that I saw it - I'd told them they had to do the exam without notes. Nice try though.

Week 2's exams have seen some interesting as well as unusual speeches. I've discovered that some people can fill a good 2 minutes talking about basketball whilst the next person can only talk about it for about 20 seconds yet they still talk about all the same things - I still haven't quite worked out how this happens! Sticking with sport, there seems to be an urban myth in these parts that playing badminton will make you taller - i've lost count of the amount of times I've heard this recently!

I've also had a few moments where I felt like i'd been thrown back into the 90's with some students talking about break dancing and pop'n'locking, one boy even gave me a break dancing demonstration - I got a bit concerned when he clonked his head off the floor when he did a head spin (i'm sure this move has a proper name but i'm just not cool enough to know it), I was a bit concerned he wasn't going to stand back up again but it seemed to go unnoticed on his part.

I think my most entertaining moment of the week arrived out of a moment of mispronunciation. One girl was talking about how she was a member of the singing club and how it helped her confidence. I could have sworn she said this: "I used to be shite in the singing club". It took me a good few seconds to work out that she actually said "I used to be shy in the singing club", and then I had to spend a good few seconds stifling laughter. I would have admired her honestly, and been very impressed, if she had used the word shite!

The American TV series '2 Broke Girls' is also proving popular amongst pupils with both boys and girls talking about it - even though they keep calling it '2 broken girls' I didn't expect to have to write 'broke = to have no money' on exam papers. This is on of the few cardinal sins that keep getting committed - the worst is just about using the word funny instead of fun when describing why they like basketball. I'm going to have to really drill that one next term and maybe start a forfeit system for those who still commit this crime against my sanity. I'm also very bored of hearing the words boring, exciting and interesting - these words are banned in my lessons and my seemingly endless attempts to provide alternatives to these words seems to have been largely ignored,. I was far too happy when one girl managed to use the word tedious  (which i've peddled out a few times) in her speech - I think I need to make her my poster girl for vocabulary expansion! 

On girl did her speech entirely on the actor James McAvoy. It turns out he is a big hit here in China and they even have their own affectionate nick-name for him (which I've forgotten).

One boy managed a speech on Mr Bean while another attempted a speech on the film 'Bugs Life' (this film came out in 1998, this lot were hardly born then). He didn't tell me what he was talking about Bugs Life, I thought his favourite movie was a documentary on Ants...

The head teacher was described by some pupils - he seems to be someone who is fondly talked about by the pupils - as having a round face and being a little fat. I haven't met the head teacher so I have no idea if this description of him is accurate or not.

One student said is his speech that my lessons have inspired him to learn English properly. If this is true it's very flattering and must mean i'm doing something right!

And finally, some pupils give me a little bow when they finish their speech, i'm not sure if i'm supposed to bow back so I just nod my head and smile instead (hopefully I don't look demented. It makes me feel a bit like the Queen...

G x

The price of education

So I finally discovered this week how much it costs to send a pupil to the school I teach at; it's only taken me five months! I ended up ambushing a pupil with the question and she seemed pretty unwilling to answer - perk of being a teacher, you have to answer my questions! Her unwillingness to talk about money surprised me because i've lost count of the amount of times strangers have asked me how much I earn, maybe it's not the done thing to talk about your parents' money.

So to send your child to Nanhai Experimental High School, a school which seems to have a very good reputation - i've been told it's the best in Foshan - it will cost you ¥10,000元 (£1000) a year. In China 10,000元 is a lot of money - it's double my monthly salary here. Saying that though, the pupils in my school either have very rich parents (I should be jealous of all the exotic holidays they go on) or are at the school on on a scholarship, but even they aren't poor in comparison.

only pays for your daily education and your sleeping accommodation. If the students want to eat, have a hot shower, go to the school nurse, use the swimming pool t, have all the seemingly endless items of school uniform, their parents have to fork out extra for that as well.

Sadly after paying all this money, the students safety isn't even guaranteed. Last week one of the many security guards on the school campus, who (I think) are supposed to act like house parents and look after the pupils came back to the school drunk and proceeded to beat up one of the male pupils - to say I was shocked to hear this is an understatement. It seems that if the pupils were weary of the guards before there is very little trust left now - this is the vibe I have been getting from my students in their English exams recently when they talk about school.

The food is also endlessly slated by the pupils, in one of today's exams, two students were talking about what the school had said about the school, it went something like this:

Student A: "When we asked the school to improve the food they told us that the food is very cheap so we can't complain if it is bad. They told us if we want better food we have to go to a restaurant but we will have to pay more".
Student B: "Yes but if we go to a restaurant all the time we will end up like a pauper".

The jury is still out on how I feel about the use of the word 'pauper' in this sentence....

G x

The cost of marriage

One of the girls, based in Tianjin, near Beijing, wrote this a few weeks ago. I thought it was really interesting and maybe some of you might as well...

https://emmascamerainchina.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/the-cost-of-marriage/

G x

Sunday

As today was such a beautiful day I had no choice to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. I live very close to one of the major waterways, which winds it's way through the middle of Foshan, so I decided to go and explore for the afternoon. It seems I was definitely in an area where not many foreigners commonly venture as the endless staring was getting a bit tedious by the end of the afternoon.

It definitely wasn't an afternoon of clean air, I stumbled upon the shoe manufacturing district and there was no mistaking the smell, and taste, of chemicals filling the air, but I enjoyed it none the less.

Some pictures from my afternoon...

G x

Exams: week 1

So my first week of exams has been more successful than I expected. It has felt like a very long week though - paying 100% attention all the time is surprisingly exhausting.

I have had some very interesting speeches and discussions to listen to which has made the week quite interesting as well as eye-opening. I gave my students four different topics to choose from, to give them some speech inspiration as well as to make sure they didn't start talking about very obscure things. The topics were:

1. Sports
2. Holidays
3. Sports
4. Movies/TV

A lot of the students described the school as beautiful in their speeches, as well as green?!?! However, some  described the boarding school as a prison. The food also got slated, with reports of cockroaches and other un-identified objects being found in student food -  a bit grim to say the least...

Our 'beautiful' school

Some students were having pretend arguments in their dialogues, some even tried flattery

A: "I think our teacher, whose name is Gillian, is very responsible." 

B: "No, I think she is very beautiful and nice" - It didn't score them any more points but it did make me laugh.

Another student made sure to check that I was in a good mood before class started so that I would give them all good grades...

One group decided to talk about music and decided that playing their guitars, rather than talking English would help them pass the exam - it didn't wash with me, but I did at least compliment them on the guitar playing.

One girl, after talking about her home-province of Yunnan offered to be my tour-guide, i'll have to keep here in mind as i'm thinking of going there in February.

I'll have to see what next week holds, and whether if I can find a way to stop some of them physically shaking, I like to think i'm not that scary....

G x