I just absolutely love my students so much. Spent the night talking with a couple of them and had a wonderful time. The first gave me the wonderfully thought out present of a small piano music box, with a photo of my mom and me inside and a small engraving “With Love” from her. Isn’t that wonderful? She knew I loved Piano and hunted two days to buy it for me. I just adore her. ❤ The other was a wonderful young man I’m teaching now. He has traveled to all but one of the Chinese provinces with his friends and just got a passport to check out Russia. 🙂 He has a new idea about how to create green energy that sounds fascinating and I really wish him the best! His health isn’t great though (His heart is bad), so I would ask that you all pray for him. We spoke about his hopes, dreams, and how he is trying so hard to do his best for his family. A real encouragement and just inspiration for me. ❤
Oh, and did I mention that another girl brought my COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM! Honest-to-God Cookie Dough Ice Cream. REAL AMERICAN ICE CREAM. Since apparently many of the Chinese are lactose intolerant, they make their ice cream from water instead of milk. Meaning it lacks the good old flavor. Now I have some actually delicious ice cream! I am so wonderfully blessed by God. Best Job Ever!!
During my stint as a teacher here in China, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in several different campus activities with the students. One of the clubs I have worked with a lot is called the “Flying English Club.” Filled with a mixture of Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors, the club has a great collection of students from all around. Even some of the international students join in as a chance to meet Chinese students!
Last night, they invited me to a BBQ at one of their teacher’s buildings, so I went out for a night of fun and food. We had such a wonderful time! The students cooked delicious food including sweet potatoes, grilled meat (pork, beef, squid, chicken, mutton), broccoli, mushrooms, green beans, lettuce / grilled greens, tofu, and more. They had also prepared some delicious fruit trays with apples, pineapple, dragon fruit, banana, oranges, tomatoes, and other yummy snacks. So good!
If you have the chance to go out with your students and play, you should take it! It’s not every day that people can have so much fun 🙂
It is seriously unfair to other teachers that I got the best students in the world. 🙂 Remember I love each of you and I believe in you! You deserve the best this world has to offer, thank you for being so amazing!
Had a rather hilarious ESL fail / miscommunication error with one of my Ethics students this past semester.
One of the chapters in our textbook covers the professional approach to ethics taken by various religions including Hinduism and Islam. Consequently, we spend part of a class discussing the fact that Islam is based upon the Koran and that it is very important to Muslims and effects how they approach Business (some of my students will be working in Dubai so this is a good lesson for them to learn!).
The day before the final, one of my students came to see me. This girl is adorable, brilliant, and a good friend of mine, but her ESL is not perfect and she has some trouble understanding all of the content.
She said she had a problem with the whole “Koran” thing because “you [the teacher] kept saying it was Islam, but I always thought the Koran was Christian.”
0_0 ? I could understand them not knowing what the Koran was – many of my students don’t know the name of the religious book. But how did we come to the conclusion that the Koran was Christian?
Then she added: “you know, the higher Koran are atheist and the bottom, South Koran are Christian. I don’t think there is a lot of Islam in Koran.”
😛 Aha! The light went one!
“Korea? Do you mean North and South Korea?”
Hahaha! Once I understood the mix-up it was easy to see the problem. Because of the accent here in Henan, “Korean” often sounds a lot like “Koran.” That long E sound is extremely important. And they look similar too, not helping.
Once we went over the fact in simpler terms that the Koran was a book and not a country, it was much easier. 🙂
Sigh! The little things you think are so easy to teach only to find out were an epic fail later.
“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city” ~ Roman Payne
Language Translation
Deceptively Blonde 