Teaching, day two

So even though I've been here for two weeks (!), today was only my second day of teaching. I had the same two classes today that I had last Wednesday, which meant I had something familiar, but it also meant I had to come up with more stuff to do in class (makes sense, I am the teacher after all).

Today is China's National Teacher's Day, so all the students brought flowers and gifts for their teachers. Pretty nice it fell on a Wednesday, the only day of the week I teach right now :) I got a mug with a chinese design on it from my first class, and a necklace with a couple red crystal-ish bells on it from the second class. The second class also gave me a notebook that they had all written nice things about me in... It was very thoughtful of them, they've only known me a week! It made me feel a lil bit loved, even if most of it wasn't based on anything they actually know about me:)

Teaching-wise, the class actually went well. I a tongue twister I got online (Betty bought a bit of butter...) as the basis for the first 45 minutes. It was actually a really good exercise for them, since the different vowel sounds kinda tended to all sound the same when they started. By the end it sounded much better. The second half of class I went off some suggestions they had for words that sound weird, and wht happens when you put two words together and the sounds change ('won't you' actually sounds like 'won'tchyou', etc.). One girl took a nap. I figure, in a class of 35 students, only one taking a nap isn't terrible.

Earlier I talked to Stephanie about how many times a day we both kinda stop and realize 'oh man, i'm a teacher...what?!' Its somewhere around 6 or 7 times we figure. It is kinda scary, that their education is in my hands. Sometime down the road when they meet an english-speaking person or travel somewhere, their ability to be understood will partially be of my influence. Weeird. Did I mention the only class I ever failed in high school or college was that one quarter of english in 10th grade? Aren't I the one who made andy that sign that said 'Get gooder soon!' when he was in the hospital? I know most of what I know about teaching english comes from my having taken so many foreign language classes... from Senora Leavitt in high school spanish all the way through Bai Di's chinese, I have enough experience learning it that teaching it is a lot easier. Like when I taught swimming... I had to work so hard to learn it, it made it easier to teach.

The previous paragraph is there for myself to be able to talk reason back into myself when I get scared that I don't know what I'm doing... because some part of me knows I do know what I'm doing :)

I'm starting to learn some more chinese words, most of them revolve around food....