A Walk Through the Past

Last night, I had a wonderful time walking with 5 of my students to an outdoor concert to raise enthusiasm for the 2008 OIympics. We walked about one hour to get there. Although we could have taken the bus, one of the Chinese teachers said that she would get sick, so a few of us walked with her. We have one guy in our class who really enjoys walking and knows how to navigate so he so kindly walked with us. It was good quality time with the Chinese teachers. We decided to walk on the way home also. It was a lot of fun. We walked through a park and saw an outdoor dancing courtyard. There were two couples dancing. It was like something from a fairy tale or a movie. Towards the end of the walk, we started to share riddles and jokes with each other. They taught me some funny jokes, and I gave them a riddle. "A man went to town on Thursday. . . " I realized at the end of the evening how hard the Chinese teachers had worked in speaking English the whole evening with me. No easy feat. I feel very close to many of my students already. They have strong values and morals and they know how to appreciate the simple things of life--walking through a new city for example.


This week-end, we had a wonderful tour of the Hutong district in Historical Beijing. We rode in a rick-a-shaw (spelling). It is a bicycle with a seat in the back for 2 people. My room-mate and I felt a little bit sorry for the rick-a-shaw bicyclists. We had a wonderful morning with the other North American teachers as we got to see the ancient doors and also got to experience what life may have been like inside one of those doors. The highlight of the morning, however, was a Chinese tea ceremony. We were taken to a tea house inside one of the famous gardens and shown the tea ceremony. We also got to taste several different kinds of tea. The most unique tea flavor was made from lychee and dates. It supposedly helps women with their stomachs.

For lunch, my room-mate and I had cold noodles in a soup with one of the ladies in charge of the program. We swapped some English and Chinese words over lunch. It was a neat experience. I am starting to become more aware of how necessary it is to speak the language when you travel to another country. We can only communicate in a very limited manner with all the other Chinese people we meet who do not speak English. I wish that I knew more words and could have conversations with people.

As I was reflecting on my teaching last night, I realized that I needed to slow in down when I give instructions in class. I also need to keep mixing up the types of activities we do in class. I have a student in my class who has his masters in Methodology. He challenged me on something I said in class. I was a little flustered, but I did my best to explain my reasoning. Thankfully, toward the end of the class, he said that I had just provided a good example of task-based learning as opposed to my earlier example which he had found irrelevant.

Tomorrow, we are going to the Chinese government church. I am not sure how transportation, timing, seating, etc will work out. I think it will be a good experience for all who are going. I have found that Sunday mornings are the most stressful part of the whole week. Funny how that works.