First Day of Class

Hey everyone,

Well Josh and I had our first day of class yesterday. All of my classes were grade 3. The grade 3 kids were so cute!!! My first class started at 10.00am and Josh's first class didn't start until 10:45am, so Josh sat in on my first class. All I have to say is kudos to teachers, this job is not in the least bit easy. I brought my laptop to class to show all the children pictures of Canada and complete chaos errupted. All the kids were soo interested they came running up to the front and crowded around the computer. They were pushing and shoving each other and it was a complete mess. The Chinese teachers got control of them and all was good afterward. There were oohs and awwws for all the pictures, so I was happy. They actually were all familiar with the song that I wanted to teach them, head and shoulders, so that was a complete bust. Mr. Song prepared us by telling us that the first week was going to be very difficult so I wasn't too down with the fact that my first class didn't go so well.

The next period I had off and Josh was teaching, so I got to sit in on his class. He was teaching grade 6. It started off ok with his brief introduction of Canada. He then tried to play a game with the class called traffic jam. That was a complete bust because he was unable to get the rules across to them. He wanted them to get into pairs, and they were not comprehending it at all. It was a good thing I was there because I was able to help Josh demonstrate what to do and they finally understood. The next thing is that they were supposed to be playing in English but they ended up saying everything in Chinese. Then to pass the time Josh wanted to use my computer to show some of my pictures but there weren't any plugs. So we ended up basically with nothing to do for the last ten minutes of class.

After our first classes it was lunch so we went up to our apartment to regroup. We were wondering what the hell did we get ourselves into! LOL. Josh had two classes after lunch and I had four so there was no way we could have what happened during our first class happen for the rest of the day! We revamped our lesson plans and critiqued our teaching strategies. Well let me tell you the rest of our classes that day were amazing!!! For my first class after lunch (Josh had a class at the same time, so we were on our own) the kids sat on the floor and looked at the pictures and I had them repeat everything that was in them. They were also very interested in the pictures but this time everything was more orderly. I gave the lesson about Canada and the kids loved it. They were smiling from ear to ear and even told me thank you when I was done :). That class gave me the momentum to complete the rest of the day and I must say that the rest of the classes were the same, completely awesome. We played games, and they got to practice their English. When I saw Josh for my last class he was just as happy as I was with his afternoon classes. Overall the day started with a slight hiccup but the rest of the day was awesome!!! I now know that Josh and I are going to be able to do this.

One thing that I should mention is that Josh and I are very fortunate to be teaching and living here at Liyang Experimental Primary School. When Josh and I went to get our physical examinations I was talking to some foreign teachers. They were not getting even half the treatment we were getting. They were basically picked up from the airport and dropped off to their apartment without a word being spoken to them for 5 hours. They also do not even have running water...now that is roughing it.

Don't worry a picture of Josh is coming soon! Talk to you all later.