English Corner

This evening, our school held its first official English corner for this semester. English corner is an event where students gather with the purpose of practicing their English speaking skills. For me, it was a kind of slow torture. I had been dreading the evening the entire week-end. Luckily, I came prepared with a list of questions that I could ask students if their questions started to become rehearsed: “Can you use chopsticks? Where have you traveled in China? Can you speak Chinese? How can I improve my oral English? etc.” But the problem was this—the groups were randomized, and every 10 minutes a new freshman would pop into our group, ask my name in the middle of a conversation, and then give some canned compliment like, “You look so beautiful tonight.” I think I saw the sophomore students roll their eyes a couple of times in response to the freshman.

So, after I would ask a question to steer the conversation, two of the more outgoing students would answer, and then someone would ask me what I thought about the question, and after I gave my opinion, the conversation would die or a new freshman would suddenly pop into the group.
Perhaps the most stressful moment, was when a student who was not even in the conversation, jumped in our group and asked me how to pronounce a word that I have never seen before. A huge loss of face on my part when I told her I could not pronounce it. A few minutes later, a freshman student told me that I looked very “charming and childish.” Great—not exactly the image I am going for. I want to be a wise sage, not a pre-schooler who can’t even pronounce words in her native language.