I'm a teacher

These are some of the nicest people I have met. They are courteous and kind to us all the time. Students on campus help us order food in the cafeteria. At a store in the city, I bought a Sprite. One of the ladies in the store came out to me shortly after I left and gave me a COLD Sprite: she didn’t want me to have a warm one! It’s fantastic.

My bed is stiff as a board, the heat is overwhelming, everything is dirty, I can hardly see in my bathroom (maybe that is for the better), I have a blister on my foot that hurts, and I have to do my laundry in a bucket—but let me tell you this: I would trade none of it for anything. This is the greatest time.

This is an adapted form of the email I sent out, so it may be old news to some of you. I’ll try to write up more soon. I think it’s almost dinner time.

I am an English teacher now on a campus that is like a small city: Hebei Jing Mao Da Xue (huh-bay jing mow dah shway). My university has 1,400 students. This school has a building that can house 22,000 at once. There are supermarkets and restaurants, gyms and hotels. This project is unique and exciting. There are around 200 middle school English teachers from all over this province (Hebei). Now in China, they teach English—in Chinese. They focus strongly on grammar but not in oral English. Our jobs are to increase their listening abilities, speaking abilities, show them American culture, and show them better ways to teach. Most Chinese teachers walk into the classroom, set down a book, and proceed to read from that book. The students take vigorous notes and that is it. The most exciting thing in all of this is these teachers will return to their classrooms better equipped and with new ideas. In essence, we are not just affecting 200 people, but many many more.

Today was our opening ceremony. We tested our participants (they are not students because they are teachers. It’s a rank society) on their English skills and then placed them in one of our six classes. We then had a group photo in the blazing hot sun. From there we had a speech by the president, some guy from the province, and our own leader. At this point, it was strange, because all of us staff got to sit on a platform with the dignitaries. Because we are teachers, we are put into places of honor.

The Chinese have a 2 – 3 hour lunch/siesta, which is probably the greatest thing I have ever seen. After this wonderfully long break, we all met in a large room, introduced ourselves (My name is Tyler. Say it with me: Tyler... I come from the wonderful state of Alaska. Alaska), explained the goals, rules, and then played a game. I’ll tell you what, these people are quick even for not knowing very good English. We speak what is called “Special English,” that is, very slow and very simple. They love to repeat things and it really is engaging being in front of everyone. The game required them to ask different people if they liked certain things or could do certain things. When we stood up and turned around to interact with our participants, I looked out and saw a sea of Chinese faces (most of them were women. In fact, the majority of students here are women). It was then that I realized that this is probably the coolest thing I have ever done.

Tomorrow starts our first class. These people were all taking notes during our meeting: they took all of our names and everything we wrote on the board (they can read English better than most of us, but cannot speak it very well). They are very eager to learn, and this makes the prospect of classes very fun.