A few weeks ago we took a trip to Maiji Mountain, a large cliff that has many hollowed out sections with buddha statues and paintings (up to 7000). Over the years, a staircase was built up the cliff, so that people could see all of the buddhas, and they are also now all protected from birds with metal mesh doors. The doors make it hard to see sometimes, but the toxic bird poop doesn't degrade the clay or the paint. Nick, for one, had a great time taking pictures of me looking scared of walking on thin staircases up the side of a cliff. In the end, it was definitely worth it! The buddhas are beautiful and varied, having been added by different dynasties, with quite a few in the 6th century (AD).Shortly after we arrived home from Maiji Shan, I was hit with a round of food poisoning for 3 days that left me with fever and no appetite. I had some good advice from the medical office in Chengdu, so the illness was gone rather quickly.
During the illness was a visit from our programming assistant, Ms. Liang. In an ideal world we would have had some meetings, gone out to dinner, and she would have observed both of us teach. Instead, Nick did most of those things and represented me because I was stuck at home. We found out one thing that we really had forgotten to do, which is educate the students about Peace Corps, and what we do. We have been too focused on course content such as speaking and writing, I guess.
Speaking of classes, I realized that we don't post very much of what we actually do with the students - I do apologize. Our work here is quite interesting, and takes into consideration both TEFL teaching and methods, as well as cultural awareness. So, for example, a speaking class (Oral English) might go like this:
We follow the units of the textbook, so for each lesson, there are four dialogues provided, with pertinent vocabulary. One of last week's units was "Suggestions and Advice." First we read through the given dialogues and I explain any rare words or weird constructions. We also stop if there are glaring pronunciation errors such as "zis" instead of "this" and "urually" instead of "usually." After that we begin various activities to reinforce the dialogue, and attempt to move away from looking at the book while speaking. One of the activities for this unit was to look over a supermarket flyer from the U.S. (meanwhile learning some new vocabulary and cultural things), then work in a group to create a dialogue giving advice about what to make for a large supper. Then we might have some groups perform for the class to reinforce the lesson visually, and also to increase the confidence of the students while speaking English. Each week I try to introduce some slang, which is a big part of spoken English. Some additional things we might do are pronunciation drills related to the lesson, poetry readings, short cultural lectures, etc.
Last week, we were conscripted to judge this semester's English Recitation Competition. Each of 40 students had 2-3 minutes to give us their best short essay, read with accuracy, correct intonation, etc. It started out with some pre-speech entertainment by our language tutor Harry, who also happens to be English Club guru and emcee extraordinaire. He and another girl alternated in a dramatic reading of Frost's "The Road Not Taken," complete with a backdrop of dramatic music. It was a little distracting, but we were somewhat impressed. Little did we know that the dramatic music backdrop would be a fixture of the competition. Each student got up and did a good job, using practiced intonation and overall good pronunciation (an example piece is "Youth" by Samuel Ullman), but always with this music in the background. Some students actually leaned on the music, pausing for too long in too many places, and taking cues that their intonation should be that of a cheesy coffee shop poetry reading rather than an official speaking competition. These were the non-stellar parts, but the students all performed admirably. This round was rehearsed speeches only, but the next round this Thursday includes some impromptu speech and a short Q/A with each student. Should be great! Also, I was very impressed that students from other departments besides ours chose to participate; some were from business, chemistry, and Chinese. (The reason that their English is good, and sometimes better than English majors is that the college entrance exam includes English. The better a student does overall, the better the major they can have. So, all science majors have decent English because you must get a much higher score on the exam to be a science major.)
Last night we wandered around town looking for a new restaurant when we came upon the Ma Da Huzi, literally "Horse Big Beard." There was a waitress eager to usher us in, and it looked like some other people were there, so we headed in and upstairs. It turned out to be a mutton restaurant, so we ordered some dry (likely roasted) mutton and potatoes, which were both amazing. Then we came home and watched a few more episodes of "The Office," British version. The characters on that show are painful to watch, but hilarious.
Next weekend we are off to Lanzhou to celebrate Thanksgiving with our American compadres of Peace Corps. The main dish: KFC! I'll be sure to take some pictures. So enjoy your Thanksgiving dinners for us! We miss you all!
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