My Life as A Substitute English Teacher

As some of you may know, I decided this past semester to focus on studying Mandarin thereby cutting my teaching hours down to afternoons when my company needs a substitute. My company, BSK, *shudder*, has about 50 teachers spread out in public schools throughout Shanghai, and at least 3 or 4 times a week I’m called in to sub somewhere. The beauty of the situation lies pretty much in the fact that I never see the same kids twice, thus eliminating any need to make any sort of preparations or plans ahead of time. I have my staple of games, activities, and sing-a-long songs that I rotate through, but mostly it’s all about me.

For the first half of the class or so, I divide the class into teams, and tell them they can ask me any question they’d like. Chinese students will do anything if there is competition involved, and if I mention the word “stickers” or “prizes” I open myself up to the possibility that kids will literally pee their pants in excitement. The first question is invariably, “What’s your name?” to which I reply, “Chinese name or English name?” They perk up a bit, and I write my Chinese name in characters on the board. The students are not used to their English teachers knowing any Chinese whatsoever, so simply writing my name, 龙海, generally elicits fits of applause. I take a bow, and have them eating out of my hand in the first five minutes of class. This usually makes the next 30 minutes much less painful. Usually.

Then, depending on the grade, we move on to other activities. If it is a fourth or fifth grade class I usually put a writing prompt on the board. This gives me a bit of quiet time while they write, and then another 15 or 20 minutes of class used up by having the kids present what they wrote up front, all for points of course. My standard prompts are, “If I had all the money in the world, I would…” and “If I had no money at all, I could still…” It’s fun to see how creative the kids are, but usually its mostly the same, “I would buy the school” “Help the poor” “Buy many delicious KFC!” Yes, if I had unlimited funds, you’d find me whiling away my time eating a bucket of wings, too. The no money responses lean towards, “Still happy everyday” “Eat from rubbish bin” “Sleep all day.” But every now and then I get a class with a weird dynamic to it. Last week it centered around one boy Norman, who was absent that day. The first boy stood up and said, “If I had all the money in the world, I would buy AK-47, kill Norman.” Everyone is laughing, and I glance nervously at the Chinese teaching assistant who is also laughing heartily. I suppose in China this is indeed a fanciful and far-fetched idea, so a zero-tolerance policy is not needed. Moving on. The next girl says, “If I had no money at all, I could still make Norman go to girl’s toilet.” I find this kind of funny, and true, so she gets two point. I tell the class to please refrain from any more Norman jokes, but no one listens, and the next boy stands up and is sending Norman to Mars with all his money. One by one they diss on him, and eventually they have me hating Norman as well, and we find the rest of class has sped by. Teaching is fun.

For younger kids, I tend to play the “Opposites Game,” which isn’t really a game at all, I just award points and they get confused. All I do is say and write a word on the board, and the first person to tell me the opposite gets a point. Pretty simple, until afterwards I give two points for making a sentence using both words. This usually leads to some entertaining responses. The first kid will invariably say, “I am thin, but [insert token chubby kid's name here {usually Tony}] is fat!” The kids are laughing, and no one seems to take offense. Next, someone will usually follow up, “I eat healthy food like rice, but Tony eat unhealthy food like McDonalds and KFC.” Tony is laughing too, so I just let things continue because a substitute teacher means a goofing off fun day, right?

Then if I have a few minutes to spare, we’ll play another simple game where I put a long word up on the board like “Chocolate,” and see how many other words kids can find using those letters. I used to classify this as only mildly entertaining as the students rarely are able to see beyond “tea,” but every now and then I get a surprise. Like last week when one fourth-grader found “anal” in “California,” and I found myself conflicted between scolding him and awarding bonus points.

Teaching is funny.

Xiao Zhao, AKA Jerry

It has come to my attention that I have posted very little information on here about my host sister, Jerry.

I’ll start out by mentioning that I came to live with the Chinese host family on the pretense of teaching her more English, and giving her and the family a chance to interact with a real-life foreigner. Too bad for her, this meant giving up her room to said foreigner.

I guess this is just a sacrifice the whole family is willing to make though, as anyone with above average English in China is destined to a much better than average job (read: not making Nikes for 12 hours a day).

So in I moved into her little room with a bunk bed, Mickey Mouse (I smell an IPR infringement) mattress, giant pencil-shaped coat rack, and just-noticed-yesterday light pink walls. There’s also a moon shaped night light, and a generally 70’s orange theme. Needless to say I love it.

Since the apartment is only two bedrooms, that means she currently sleeps in her parents bed, though I think during the summertime she rolled out a little bed roll and slept on the floor. Needless to say, I feel obligated, if not guilted into providing some quality English time.

Much to my dismay, she has picked up on a few of my horrible -isms, such as saying “No Prob,” which she has further shortened to “No Pra.” Also, my tendency to answer “Pretty good” to things I frequently don’t like, in order to appear polite. Things such as “How is that marrow?” (sucked from a straw) in that pig bone and Turnip soup. “Mmm, pretty good,” I say, along with a grimace trying desperately to hold back my dissatisfaction. This has also been duly noted and copied to a tee.

Anyways, Jerry, named after the Tom and Jerry cartoon, also loves to come into her old room and look dismayed a the disorder I have created. I try to keep it somewhat clean, but sometimes it’s a lost cause. I heard one day, “My mother says all boys your age are like this.” Score, mess justified!

She also loves to come in when I’m lounging around and get my opinion on the latest stickers she has acquired. I am subjected to an endless barrage of questioning regarding whether “this fairy princess is pretty,” or “this ridiculous, bug eyed, no-nosed, white faced, poofy dress Anime character is prettier.” (my words, not hers). This provides hours of entertainment.

But all in all, her English is quite excellent. It makes me feel a bit defeated knowing that there truly are going to be a few hundred million people in no time that will speak better English than I speak Chinese. Makes getting up at 7:30 for Chinese class that much harder.

All in all though, I feel a little bit sorry for her childhood. Every day she comes home from school around 4:30, and goes straight to her spot on the kitchen table and pound out hours of homework. Some days she comes home at about 5:00 PM, because the smart kids get extra classes some days. Seems like it should be the other way around. She usually goes to bed around 10:30, only breaking for dinner. Saturdays are filled with Drawing and extra math lessons (shockingly titled “Olympic Maths”) and Sundays with Piano and English. Punctuated by more homework. There really is no social life, activities, sports practices, clubs, scouts, or anything at all.

In reality though, she has it good considering the alternatives. Being born into an upper class family, where she is able to study, go to good schools, and stay far, far away from the harsh Chinese countryside.

Maybe one day she’ll even get a bed again.

Back At It

Today marked the start of another semester, and gasp! back to the “grind.” I put this in quotes, because people always seem to think my “grind” seems more leisurely than theirs, but dammit, working part time is enough in my book.

Quickly, here’s whats new before I go into further detail:

-We had a much needed month long break from teaching (read: being a white clown), while the students went of holiday for Chinese New Years. A friend of mine, and fellow teacher did a Google search “cheap flights from Shanghai,” came up with the Philippines for about $100, so that’s where we went. Much more on that later.

-Then the parents came, and we had a great 2 weeks traveling through the 3 Gorges Area and seeing the Shanghai sights.

-I have a new part time gig freelance writing for a website called www.bizcult.com – Basically there are about 5 posts a day from me and the guy who started it, dealing with doing business in China, and how it is related with cultural and current affairs. It is quick, snappy writing, so even if you don’t personally have an interest in the business climate of China, you may find it interesting as well. Check it out!

-I’ll be teaching again just part time in the afternoons now, and also taking Chinese lessons every morning for about 3 hours. I have found that I must somehow subconsciously miss the structure that school provides, because I have been looking forward to this for a while now. Who knows, maybe the ARMY is next?

So that’s the basic gist of my life, not that it affects you in any way probably. Anyways, when I pulled out my old book of lesson plans this morning, I came across something that I had meant to post earlier.

On the last day of class last semester, I was told to give a written test to my 5th graders. No guidelines or anything, they just wanted me to assign some sort of letter grade to these kids who saw me I’d say on average 30 minutes every two weeks. Needless to say, I didn’t feel very vested in their actual progress, so I thought I’d at least try to entertain myself during the test.

Here are some of my favorite responses. And don’t take this as me mocking, well, belittling their abilities, because they are half my age, and speak English twice as well as I do Chinese. Really I just found them to be creative, if not downright crafty. Case in point:

Question 6) Define “reflection”

Jimmy: “‘Reflection’. This word is in our book”

Question 10) Write a few nice things about me.

Favorite responses: “Kyle Long is very handsome, he has golden hair.” Ok, shameless ego boost, but I’ll take it where I can get it.

Rudy went in a different direction with this one, and took it a little bit more literally. “Kyle Long lives in the USA. You eat breakfast everyday. You eat dinner everyday.” Cut to me bringing my red pen out for this one.

Question 9) What types of food are healthy for you? Cindy: “I like the fish. Eat the fish are comfortable. They are nice but I usually eat them.” GOD I love Chinglish.

Last Question) If you had all the money in the world, what would you do? Ralph started down on the right path, but probably should have used an eraser, as this is what he literally wrote: “I will give Kyle Long eighty fifty thirty percent. I will give my parents 40%. I will only give me 30%” Thanks Ralph, your grade is now an A, B, D.

Alright, more posts to follow shortly. Must go study for my Chinese placement exam tomorrow.

Shame

In a country where “keeping face,” aka, maintaining your status, and not looking bad in front of your peers is crucial, I guess it makes sense that ’shaming’ a student would work as a behavior control technique. However, the process of shaming a student that you cannot really rough up (as tempting as it is sometimes), much less communicate with effectively using words, becomes much more complicated. The Chinese teachers have the edge here. There is no hesitation in berating a first grader for a few minutes in the middle of class to stop the unwanted behavior. Top offenses include:

1) Incessant touching of desk mate. Some kids just cannot keep their hands off of each other. Sure, it’s cute, it’s puppy love, but it’s clear they are not paying attention to my melodic rendition of 3 Little Monkeys, and its pissing me off.

2) Stealing the “Hello Kitty” pencil pouch of the girl behind you, or the “Toy Story 2″ rocket ship pencil box of the boy in front. It never gets old, trust me.

3) When repeating as a class, there is always the one kid who has to say it first, throwing off the whole synch of things. I realize that when the most stressful part of your day is having to glare really menacingly at the kid who says ‘B’ right when you say it, instead of immediately after like everyone else, really your job/life isn’t all that tough. But I can’t even begin to explain how I want to rip their vocal cords out.

Today, I figured it out though. The kids here go absolutely insane for a sticker (preferably a red, for communism, star) as a reward. I’m pretty sure I could get them fluent in French too, if I had enough stickers. So when I first started giving them out I was a little bit confused, because instead of holding out their hands for them, they look straight up at you like a lost puppy might. I learned eventually that this was the cue to put them right on the middle of their forehead. The more stickers they get in a day, the cooler they are. Status clearly isn’t lost on them.

So today after my little star student got his sticker, I suppose he realized that odds were he wouldn’t get another one, and he could just goof off the rest of the day. I went over to his desk, tapped him on the shoulder, and made sure everyone saw me rip the sticker right off his head.

Making children cry isn’t always my goal. I just consider it a perk of the job.

Opposites

I finally broke down the other day and asked how to say “opposite” in Chinese. I promptly forgot it, but that’s not that point. Something like fan mian I think. It just seems like every day there is something that strikes me as perfectly counterbalancing the way I am used to thinking about things. Some are simple- instead of calling “911,” you dial “119″ in China, or instead of saying “Emergency Exit Only,”saying “No Entry on Peacetime,” to more profound things like accepting herbs as a treatment as opposed to powdery white stuff. I find a simple question of “why” usually elicits an entertaining response when faced with an odd explanation. For example: I asked my host family why they don’t have an oven. They explained that they are not “healthy for the body.” I obviously couldn’t leave it at that, so I pushed further and found that they supposedly think that they should only have foods like that once per week, because too much hot food is not good for the health. I laughed, and explained that Americans tend to think that eating at least half of your food in fried form isn’t the picture of health, but then again, they are not a nation of morbidly obese people, so who am I to judge?

More differences if not opposites:

1) People will wait in line to eat at Pizza Hut (ok, I think that does actually qualify as an opposite

2) It’s acceptable for women well into their 30’s to have Hello Kitty or other cartoon-ish apparel.

3) Stumps vs. Holes. This is actually a term my mother coined when visiting Beijing, and wanting to know if she would be forced to squat over a porcelain hole in the bathroom, or if she could rest easy on a stump of a Western toilet.

4) Happy Hours are actually during times when people are out drinking anyways (like 6 pm-6 am). Nothing wrong with that.

5) Monkeys boxing on TV

Obviously I can’t think of anything since I’m trying to write them down now, but I will keep them coming.

And, in more entertaining Chinglish news, here is the new chant that I taught my 5th graders today. Normally, I would make an executive decision, and just skip certain things, but the authorities told me that the students will be tested on the material that we were given. And when you have to compete with a billion other students to get into college, I don’t really want to harm anyone’s future. It’s called the “Weekend song,” and I decided just not to explain it to them at all. Not that I could if I wanted to.

Monday morning is not Monday morning

‘Till Taylor has his coffee

Friday night is not Friday night

‘Till Jessie leaves the room sweaty

Tuesday morning is not Tuesday morning

“till Nick has his talk with his son

Thursday night is not Thursday night

‘Till Chris has played with his Bass

Come on to the weekend

’cause the weekend I’ll get high [seriously]

Hold off ’till the weekend

’cause there’s too much time to think

And there will be nice skies

I thought that was bad until I turned the page to find we’d be learning Scarborough Fair. Yes, let me look up the herbs that they don’t use in China for a really valuable lesson. And also figure out what a “cambric shirt” is. And also that they can’t actually say “Remember me to one who lives there,” because its a lyric in the song, and actual grammar doesn’t work like that.

Those in Wine Often Make Gaffe

Chinglish is funny. Most of the time the translations are funny, but they don’t really affect your life other then to provide you with a little laugh as you’re walking down the street. It becomes less funny however, when you are given 20 minutes to answer 100 “psychological” questions in an online test and your work visa depends on it.

In their infinite wisdom, the Chinese government created an agency to screen anyone coming over to teach English, and I presume other jobs, who don’t have some sort of certificate with an official looking red stamp that proclaims you an expert in the subject. Because I was never formally trained in teaching, I had to go through the system to make sure I’m not a wacko or something. The first part consisted of an online test of two parts- psychological questions and informational. I can’t really do the test justice, other than to highlight some of my favorite questions I copied down.
These were in the “agree,” “no opinion,” “disagree” style.

#6) Facing with the every days work is the root of my pain and baldness
#47) Those in wine, often make gaffe
#33) As a game putting forwards person, it is difficult for me to motivate others’ enthusiasm
#34) If I considering with the self absorbtion, I cant give the heart to the thing which is totally not related to mine.

They were literally all that ridiculous. I mean, they’re making all of the English teachers who enter the country take this test, and they didn’t think to have just one of them look over the test and correct it?

Moving on to the informational questions, which were just about as bad, but not nearly as much fun… At one point I had to decide how to classify Asian people’s skin a)white b)black c)brown, or d)yellow. I really had no idea what they were looking for on that one. Most of it was simple enough though, like “where are the 2008 Olympics going to be held,” and “If it is now 2006, how many years ago did 9/11 happen,” and also “What is the smallest continent;” only all the answers were oceans.

The second part of the test involved a 3-on-1 interview which basically consisted of informal chatting, peppered with inquiries over how I felt about physically punishing the children, and my teaching styles. They were clearly trying to get information about the company that hired me as well, and there were questions asked about how they decided which age I would teach. As far as I could tell this process was absolutely random, so I made something up about how I told them I had experience volunteering with young children.

I’m really not sure how I fared, but hopefully I won’t be deported. Or executed for having this blog.