Stephen

Ramblings of a seriously bored person in Hainan, China

Teacher Stephen.. what a joke!

Apart from teaching in the kindergarden, as you have read before, it seems to be that I now have a job for this summer. My dad has a English workshop ever summer for Chinese English teachers on the island to come and learn more English, and I am going to be in charge of the kids lessons. Well, not only me, it will be me and another girl.. so.. that will be interesting, and it's only one month away! (Someone come and save me)

China is definitely a play to see interesting things. As we were driving home from a supermarket yesterday, on one of the busiest streets on the island, a young man is pushing his old father in a wheelchair right through the middle of traffic.. I can see the news headlines now, "Son shows father a 'new dimension' of going out for a walk.' I can hear the father, "Watch out son, it seems to be a hill up ahead!"  It just makes me wonder, what WAS that man thinking?

There was a provincial 3 on 3 basketball competition this weekend. Using my supernatural skills in baketball, a couple of my friends and I decided to join. We lost our first game, but massacred the second team we played. That poor team, they couldn't have had a soul over 5 foot 5 .. it made me feel like I was playing little kids. One game lasts ten minutes.. and we play by ones and twos, meaning that a regular 2 pointer counts as one.. and a 3 pointer counts as 2.. i alone had 9 points .... and i believe the other two people on my team weren't too far off. The other team mustered up a total of 6 points.. it wasn't a very pretty game..

It seems that we're about to go eat pizza now, so i'll have to cut this one short. I was going to write more... but i'll bore ya later.

 

--Stephen

posted by: stephenthegreat at 12:56 | link | comments |

Catchin Up

 Mista "P"

Let's begin with my English Class. I've amazingly been able to encourage the students to participate in some more role plays. They were "problems with a hotel room" and "going to the bank".

The hotel - I used 3 students: a desk clerk, manager and customer.  We reviewed some basic problems that can occur like the phone and a.c. not working, no t.v. remote control, no towels, etc. Then I asked the customer to first call the front desk and notify the clerk of the specific problem. Then after a few seconds (because of class time) to go to the front desk and confront the desk clerk that no one has come to remedy the situation.  Depending on how the clerk and customer interacted, the clerk could then call the manager to deal with the customer.  Overall, it was fun and the students seemed to deal with the language and the situation very well. So well, that one female student got so into the part, she reached over and slapped (pretending to that is) the  desk clerk. The clerk then called the manager. The manager gave her money back and told her to leave! They did good and everybody was laughing.

The bank - I used 9 tellers and 9 customers. I gave them a simple dialogue to follow. The customers, I gave fake money, bills to pay, an I.D. and bank card and some checks to cash. Each teller and customer performed 9 tasks - 1 task at each teller. After reviewing the dialogue they went to work. This too went well. One of the bank tellers kept telling her customer to give me the money. She did good! Yes! I got the idea from a web site so this is not an original idea.

It's been a little difficult for me in trying to find the right balance for the students because of the varying levels or degrees of their Oral English abilities. If it's too easy, well, you know. Too hard....you know as well. I want to challenge them but keep it within some boundaries of their abilities. For a two hour class, it's hard to keep them going so I'm finding out that role plays seem to work fairly well. It does get all of the students involved talking and not listening to me for two hours.

Another thing I'm finding out; if the students like you.....your job will be so much easier. They know if you've come to class prepared and are at least trying to teach them and I believe they respect that. I know of some teachers here that go in to class with no idea or plan and stand up and say, "Ok, what do you want to talk about?" That will come back to bite you! How? When you ask yourself, "Why didn't they renew my contract?" DUH!!!!!!!!  

Remember - You DO NOT want the students complaining about you! At least come prepared.

Went swimming on Sat. I was in the pool for  11/2 hours - got burnt. It's hot! You can go to some of the apartment complexs here and pay 120 RMB a month or for 30 times to use the pool. The one we're going to is nearby and fairly nice and quiet. The hours are from 10 a.m. to noon and after 2 p.m. I went to the one across the street to check on using it. Same price but you can't go until after 5 p.m. So I had a choice -  get a tan and burnt or go late in the day. Ummmm - get burnt!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 18:52 | link | comments (2) |

X-File: Hainan Tails

Mista P

Hainan people have tails! Sounds like an X-File of the weird and the bizarre. I mean....Hainan people don't really have tails do they? Well, according to a few of my Hainanese friends, the people from the mainland say they do have tails.

So what's up with that?

Apparently, mainlanders accuse the locals here of having tails because of what they say are strange bathing habits. Strange bathing habits....come on now. How strange can it get taking a bath? Turn on the water, use soap (I hope), wash your hair, dry off, put on your clothes and you're finished.

What's weird about that?

Here's the tale of the tail.

Mainlanders, because of the cold weather, bath once a week and use public bathhouses. They also help bath each other. Cozy huh! Now I've never been in a public bathouse on the mainland, so I can't personally confirm nor deny this tale. Locals here (I'm giving everyone here the benefit of the doubt) bath every day and do not use public facilities.

Now the tails! Local's here do not like group bathing, mainlanders do. Because of this, they say Hainan people must have something to hide. It might be called modesty.

So what are they hiding?

Why won't they group bath?They won't do it because they have tails! You know like an animal tail.

Now my friends here tell me this a lie, a myth, a way to make fun of them and they absolutely do not have tails.

What a tale....tail!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 01:20 | link | comments |