Stephen

Ramblings of a seriously bored person in Hainan, China

Chinese-English mistakes..

The other day my mom and dad were watching some inter-collegiate basketball games here at our college. Nearing the end of the 1st quarter, they started to hear some strange chants, one was the cheerleaders from the foreign language department. They were yelling out full blast, "WAI YU Xi"... To someone who knows Chinese, they wouldn't have had a second thought about what he was saying, (foreign language department) but to my parent's ears.. it sounded a little bit different.. something along the lines of.. why are you #2ing on the basketball court?!! My mom was thinking, SURELY that's not what they're saying... she asked a few of her students and they told her what they were really saying... but she still is in doubt.  wai yu xi.. why you........ you know

Wasn't too long ago I was out with a few friends who had just arrived here from the States when we walked by a shoe store that was near McDonald's. The name of this store is "Shi Tou Yu" or, rock fish.. in Chinese. On their sign though, it reads more along the lines of .. SHI T O YOU" One of my friends who was walking by, just stopped in the middle of the street, and yelled out, "WHAT THE... WHAT KIND OF STORE IS THIS"!!! Even after I explained it to her.. she was still.. like my mother, in extreme doubt. 

Summer is back here... and with that.. means the heat and humidity I have for so long NOT looked forward too.

Words can not describe how excited Chinese people are now that the Rockets won game 2 of the series against the Mavericks. There must be something wrong with the teams I like, because so far the Mavs and the Kings are 0-2.. this isn't good.. AAAHHH

Enough for now, i'll write more later.

Stephen

posted by: stephenthegreat at 15:40 | link | comments (3) |

Campus Tour

 Mr. "P"

So here's the Campus Tour update. I gave my students a handout of a dialogue that I wrote hoping that this would make it easier for them to act as a tour guide. We went over the dialogue a few times and then I decided to split the students up into four groups. I picked a tour guide for each group and then asked them to begin the tour. Unfortunately that didn't work out the way I had hoped it would.  Why? I can't monitor four groups at the same time, especially when they take off in four different directions! I regrouped and then decided that I would be the tour guide. What I decided to do was to break the tour into segments - I would talk - stop - then pick several students to do the same thing. Go - stop - talk, etc.

That seemed to work out fairly well. They did a great job in speaking and asking me questions about how do say this or that in English. I also pointed at several things like the pavillion and the ATM machine and asked them what it was. Out of the 28 students, I would have to say that 60 percent of them really tried to participate in this outdoor activity. At least it got them out of the classroom!

One thing I am really grateful for is that the students are really opening up and shedding some of their inhibitions of trying to speak English.

Next class and next blog - hotel English

posted by: stephenthegreat at 02:54 | link | comments |

UFO'S in Haikou City!

 Mista "P":

It's been awhile, so let me catch you up a little on my Oral English class.

My Oral English class is a tourism class. Basically, when the students graduate, they will become tour guides. Hopefully! So for the past three weeks, we have been talking about tourism and how to lead a group of tourists. I have been trying to help them effectively use adjectives to describe things outside of the classroom. For example, the track and field area, the library, etc. I have also gotten the students to work in groups to formulate a very simple tour of their hometown or a famous place near their home. I then ask each group to present their "tour" to the class. So far, both of these endeavours are paying off; both orally and in their ability to use adjectives.

My goal is to get them prepared to take me on a tour of our college campus. Them being the tour guides of course and me being the one and only foreigner htat can't speak Chinese. The other good thing about this practice run is that we won't be wearing the same T-shirts and ball caps, carrying the same tote bags and following behind the tour guide with his or her flag!

I received permission this morning from the English Department to do this so I'm really excited to see if I can instill some courage and confidence acting as a tour guide. The tour practice begins next week.

This leads me to the UFO'S in Haikou City!

This morning, I asked the students to describe their dormitory rooms. I got a lot responses and the class was really buzzing; thank goodness!

Here are just a few of their  responses:

1. 6 students to a room
2. Yellow walls
3. 3 ceiling fans (needed help with this one)
4. 1 very small bathroom (first come - first serve)
5. 1 very small closet per student
6. 3 to 5 study desks
7. Brightly lit room
8. Things are always breaking and slow to repair (8,000 students on campus!)
9. No heater, air conditioner or refrigerator
10. Winter time - they use the campus showers - 6 mao per, 30 to 40 students at a time, showers have stalls

The reason behind this was to then take these tidbits of facts and then use them to orally (in the classroom) take me on a tour.

Anyway, then several of the students tell me they have a lot of flies and mosquitos and

UFO'S!

I was really got off guard with that one so I asked  them if they see these in the sky (me thinking flying saucers or alien space ships of course. I guess I'm watching to many X-Files episodes)

S's: YES

Me: When?

S's: Every night!

Me: I'm thinking, man, I gotta get out at night and see if I can see one.

S's: They're everywhere in our room because it is too hot to shut the windows.

Me: Aliens in your room?

S's: No, flying bugs we do not know how to say in English!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Me: 笨蛋

posted by: stephenthegreat at 20:23 | link | comments (2) |

Bravo to NC

After a very unlikely win over #1 Illinois. I must say, go Sean Mays. Twenty or so years ago his father won the NCAA tournament with a game-high 26 points. Yesterday, with 26 points, Sean May led them to the NCAA championship with 26, and even better, on his birthday. Bravo to Sean, *claps*.

One of my mothers students told her a joke, (this is a classic example of a chinese joke.) Here it goes... Two jiao zi's (dumplings) just got married. They make it back to their honeymoon... and then the husband jiao zi walks into their room.. to his utter dismay and disgust, there's this horrendous meatball lying on their bed!! He yells out, WHO AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" The meatball answers, "Why dear, can't you recognize me without my clothes on?!"

Ha.. you know you wanna laugh. :)

I'm still teaching at the kindergarden. It's getting better now that i'm getting readjusted to the students. They're starting to get more open now around me, so it's much easier to teach them.  To make it easier, a lot of these kids actually LIKE learning English.

Besides that, it's still Chinese class and school all day.

 

--Stephen

 

 

posted by: stephenthegreat at 16:55 | link | comments (10) |