We tried to make the most of the 10 days that we had
the company of the Matthews; I obviously had absolutely nothing prepared due to
the sneaky nature of my friends. Thankfully, Jayne had thought ahead and gotten
us all tickets to a Chinese opera! The online site had given us the impression
that this would be done in English – it was not. It did, however, give us a new
and interesting insight into another aspect of Chinese culture and allowed us
to practice our newfound Mandarin skills! The show was, to the best of my
knowledge, a comedy…if not, it is quite possible that my laughing offended a
full opera house of Chinese people.
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| Looking sharp at the opera |
Other activities included lots of coffee, catch ups
and culture shocks as well as the Matts taking a solo adventure to Beijing and
Xian. After a weekend spent catching up with my friends from back home, it was
finally time to begin our teaching practice in China!
With our timetables in hand and dressed to impress,
we set off at staggered times during the day to teach our first classes in the
Affiliated Primary School of SCNU. Are lessons were all to feature Northern
Ireland and some form of self introduction but from what I gather, we all have
very different teaching styles and approaches.
When I first entered my class, I was greeted by a
wave of “Oohs” and “Ahhs” from roughly 50, very excited 10 year olds. 50.
Needless to say, I felt a little overwhelmed. I am a Technology and Design
teacher and my biggest class to date had been about 26 pupils! The initial
worry was greatly reduced when I was informed that I was taking half of the
class today and the other half next week to help ease me in – ok, back towards the norm, now just for the slight point of me having never taught English
before.
As it turns out, I had very little to worry about,
the class were great - attentive, polite and, most importantly, engaged. I
spent the first party of the lesson introducing myself and giving a background
about Northern Ireland and where I had been in China before moving onto sports
and music discussions – I think that this was my favourite part. Music is a
massive part of my life but it is not part of my degree and I have had very
little opportunity to use it within the teaching of Technology and Design. In
China, however, the children often listen to a song at the start or end of the
class as part of their English listening. Instead of this, I was able to teach
them Irish songs using my ukulele – bringing one of my passions to the class
was very rewarding and really engaged the kids.
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| Break time exercise |
So much to say and so little space! The other few
lessons this week followed a similar structure, needless to say – I cannot wait
for next week
,Thanks for reading,
Adam!
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