The Students

Our students have become a big highlight of our time here in China. Always friendly and looking for chances to speak to us and become our friend outside of class. They made us feel so welcome from the first time we met them. Many of them have never met a foreigner before and have told us time and again: “It is my pleasure to be your friend! You are the first foreigner I have spoken with. I am so excited to tell my friends that I know a foreigner.”

We have a lot of fun teaching our Oral English classes. I have 8 (two hour) classes a week and Doug has 3 (he is somehow still balancing a full-time job along with teaching responsibilities!) The students are (for the most part) so excited to learn about western culture and practice English. Don’t be mislead though, we still have our fair share of mischievous students that skip class or play on their cell-phones all period, but all the good ones make up for that.

The first week of class we help the students choose appropriate English names. Here are a few examples of actual names my students chose even after our lesson about good English names: Waters; Blandis; Kinky; Mango; Bush; Adolf; House; Cautions; Flying Fish; and lastly Micoscofield (an obvious fan of the TV show “Prison Break”) These were chosen even after I personally told them they were bad choices and they should consider changing names…

I had a really fun lesson with them a few weeks ago where I taught them 20 American slang words, ie: dude; sweet; true dat; bling; b-ball; oh snap!  We practiced using them in sentences; I would say a sentence and the students would repeat it (hilarious). Then I split them up into group and they had to come up with a short skit incorporating 3 slang words. The students had a ball, but I definitely had the most fun watching these skits and laughing hysterically!

As you can see in the pictures, the students are in a huge classroom and sit in front computers and listen to headphones all day! Boring. I try to make my classes as interactive and exciting as I can with my limited resources. I know they must get so tired of sitting and listening to lectures all the time. Last week we had some amazing weather so three other foreign teachers and I arranged a “field day” for our students outside. We taught them silly games like “Red Rover” and “Capture the Flag”. After one of my classes I received this email:

Dear teacher
I don’t  know  how  to  express  my  feelings  exactly  in  English  about  the  afternoon  activities,and  I  just  want  to  say  “I  had  a   very  happy  time  in  this  afternoon.I  really  enjoyed  these  games  with  you.And  I  am  keen  to  do  it  again”.Thanks  for  my  dear  teacher!Have  a  good  dream!
Your student, Ian

I thought it was so sweet and made me so happy that we could give the students a break from their rigorous studies and have fun together. They usually only spend time with students in their major- from one class to the next it’s all the same students. So we were happy to join our classes so the students could make and interact with new friends.

The students are so funny. They are really shy and are a little behind on their dating/social interaction skills. A lot of times when they get into groups they will all be separated- boys from girls. My guess is that they don’t develop these skills in high school because they are too busy with their studies.  It’s really interesting to watch though because they’re all university students around 20 years old and still afraid of the opposite sex! I try to encourage mixing up group work with boys and girls.

The weather here has gotten cold very fast. I went to lunch with a few of my students the other day and they were telling me about their apartments/dormitories. None of the students have heaters, hot water or laundry facilities. They take cold showers and have to wash their clothes in the sink– and can’t even warm up afterward because their rooms are so cold! I said “Oh my! You must get so cold at night” and my student responded “Yes, but mostly when I wash my hairs, it is very cold!” Doug and I are blessed to have a heater in our bedroom and hot water in the shower. Everyone reading this that was able to take a warm shower today should count their blessings! It’s quite different here, it’s colder inside any building here than walking around outside where you can heat up your body by movement. Makes me miss Southeast Idaho winters where everywhere you go is heated, dry and comfortable.

They love it when I bring a camera to class, every time I took a picture of my students they would get so excited and say “Oh! Sank you, sank you!” and instead of saying “cheese!” when taking a picture they say “Qie zi!!” (pronounced chee-et-zuh) which means eggplant. I think it’s funny :) Here are a few of our many wonderful students:

My classroom
Smile!
Peace
Too Cool for School
Working on their group pro
Working on their group project
"Qie Zi!"
Class photo (Wednesday 10:00)

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14 responses to “The Students”

  1. Marlena Avatar
    Marlena

    Thank you so much for this post about your students! I loved hearing about them and looking at their happy faces. They are wonderful! What an incredible and heart-warming experience it must be to interact with these young people who are mostly very serious about their studies and sincere in their friendship. I just love them all. When you are teaching are they looking at you on the computer screen or what exactly are they seeing on that screen as you teach? I could just imagine them practicing their “slang” terms in skits and it made me laugh, too. That would have been priceless video. I feel bad for them having no heat, etc. They seem happy in spite of it, maybe because they know how to cope with it. I will be extra grateful for our warm home. Those were two fun games you taught them. What a great way to break up the lectures. You two are making such a positive difference in their lives. P.S. “World News with Diane Sawyer on ABC” is currently running stories about China, their people, lifestyles, economy, etc. She spoke of the emphasis they put on learning English and showed several Chinese showing off their English skills. Maybe you can watch this series on the internet. It’s fascinating, especially because you all are there right now!

    1. alyson Avatar
      alyson

      Good question- I make powerpoint presentations for each class, so thats what they see when they look at the computer screens. I don’t have a whiteboard/chalkboard in my room (Doug does, he has a different set up than I do) When I first started my goal was not to use powerpoints or the head set when talking- I wanted to walk around and interactively teach. It didn’t work. The class is just too big and no matter how loud I spoke whoever was on the opposite side couldn’t hear me well enough. And without a board to write on, I had no way to illustrate my point, so I had to give in to the powerpoints. Thank you for the ABC recommendation, it sounds really good!

  2. Sara Avatar
    Sara

    OH MAN! I so wish I could see their skits!!!
    And I didn’t even shower this morning. I’ll take a nice hot shower tomorrow and be so very grateful for it ;)

    1. alyson Avatar
      alyson

      Maybe you should shower more often, you ungrateful little stinky girl. HAHA, I’m kidding :)

  3. Skylette Avatar

    I wish you guys had video of the skits! And can you explain the Asian fascination with the peace sign? We had a Japanese exchange student when I was in high school and her group was also sporting that sign in ANY photo – am I missing something?!!? :)

    1. Doug Avatar

      Aly did take some videos of the skits, but we are having trouble finding a place to upload them. Youtube, Vimeo and most other video sites are all blocked in China. China is a free country, but not THAT free (side-note, that’s why we don’t really talk about the really juicy stuff like communism, free-speech, and 2010 nobel peace prize winners etc… we don’t want our own blog to get blocked!)

      Over in China the ‘peace-sign’ is more of a ‘v for victory’ type thing, but really, I don’t think it means anything. I asked another student why they do it and they said because “it looks cute”. So it’s just something cute that 1.3 billion people have decided to do I guess.

  4. Meredith Avatar
    Meredith

    I love this post :) I’m so curious about your students and their life style. I love how they all use the peace sign in pictures. And the English names they picked are hilarious!!
    I can’t believe they don’t get hot showers or heaters. I have absolutely nothing to complain about- we have it soo good here!
    I would love to see video of their skits! I bet that was funny.

    1. alyson Avatar
      alyson

      The peace sign thing is hilarious! I was hoping I could get better pictures of the girls outfits for you to see, but they’re all wearing coats/jackets since it’s chilly so they weren’t that great. Question for you–do girls back home wear mini skirts or black short shorts with black tights and knee high black boots EVERY DAY? I’m so used to that here that I honestly can’t remember if it’s an asian thing or an everywhere thing…

      1. Meredith Avatar
        Meredith

        It doesn’t seem like I see tights and shorts very often but there are girls out there that do it. Tights are big right now because its getting cold but definitely not everyday. I would say most are just in jeans….or in my case- scrubs! I feel like I live in scrubs ha. The girls are all so pretty! I love their straight black hair. My favorite is the “too cool for school” picture. No matter where you go in the world, you are going to have the kids that think their so cool. Lol

        1. alyson Avatar
          alyson

          I remember living in scrubs! You forget how to dress up and wear normal clothes, I would go from scrubs to pajamas pretty much every day haha. I’m so interested to get home and see the new styles. I’ve forgotten what Americans dress like. They do have beautiful hair here! They all get it chemically straightened to make it look so nice…so don’t feel too bad because it’s not all natural :)

  5. Brady Gardner Avatar
    Brady Gardner

    Tomorrow for my class, I am going to take the kids outside and play red rover. I’ll return back tomorrow night and let you know how it went. Just to clarify something from your post…the 20 year olds in my class (girls and boys) are also very awkward around each other. Too much home schooling with those Mormons if you know what I mean! So realistically, BYU-I is not that different.

    1. alyson Avatar
      alyson

      You have a good point Brady…. oh! and for my slang lesson I had them vote on who is hotter: Edward or Jacob (like you used to do haha) They all chose Edward! (They love Twilight here) They love fair white skin, in fact- a lot of their beauty products have bleach in them to make their skin whiter. It’s funny because American beauty products make you look more tan!
      Good luck with Red Rover. We had a few casualties because they would clothesline each other- so be careful!

  6. Stacy Moss Avatar
    Stacy Moss

    Alyson! I just found your blog and I am so happy I did. I love your writing and reading all about your adventures in China. This post was too funny about the students. I absolutely love it. Write more so I can have something to do at work….:)

    1. alyson Avatar
      alyson

      So good to hear from you Stace! How are you doing? I miss going to the gym with you! Hope your baby cows are doing well :)