Teaching, Moon Festival and Cigu

Wow! This week has flown by. Monday started my days of teaching every day. I am no longer going to recount what happened every day. Instead, I will try to hit the high points of each week along with the funny stories.

First of all I teach 18 classes a week including an English Conversation Club that meets once every two weeks. I have classes of 7^th, 8^th, 10^th and 11^th Taiwanese students. Taiwanese schools are very different so I will give the short list of how Taiwanese schools are the same as American schools. The biggest similarity is that children are the same all over the world. They are intensely interested in anything that is strange or different. There are trouble makers, the loud students who keep the teacher on her toes, and the quiet students, the ones that you have to practically force to speak in front of everyone else.

Here are some ways they are different. First of all, at least at my school, the teachers don’t all have classrooms. The students are in classrooms that they stay in all day and the teachers travel to them. I have a cubicle in an office and this is where I spend any time I am not teaching. The students also do not have an adult with them at all times. They seem to be fairly well behaved and can be in rooms alone without constant supervision. This is very nice and SO different from America. Each class is around 45 minutes long. As with every group of students, there are different levels of ability. Some students speak very good English and some struggle. Most students whose parents have any kind of money go to Cram Schools at night. They have very little time for extracurricular activities. In fact, most parents discourage sports or other activities because they focus on school. Good education gets them into a good university and a good university degree gets them a good job and they make money, which is their view of success. They do have PE classes which are comprised of students who are not as academically advanced or are very good at sports. These students have classes in the morning and practice their sport in the afternoon. The school sports are Archery, Rowing, Canoeing, and girls Softball. Another awesome way they are different is that the students are responsible for the clean-up of the school. Every morning and afternoon, they sweep, mop, pick up trash, etc… They also come to the teacher before class and ask what they need for the next class – a projector, TV, etc… That way it is all set up in the room when you get there.

Every day this week, I have basically done an introduction day. I made a short video that introduced myself, my family, my friends, where I am from and some of my interests. After that I took questions. Some of these kids have had some interesting questions. Most of the typical ones include: how old are you, do you have a boyfriend, do you like Taiwan, what food do you like… They are so respectful though and are genuinely interested in me. I feel kind of like a rock star. Any time I am walking around on campus, they wave at me and yell “Hello teacher!” They get a really big kick out of saying hello as many times as they can.  After a time of questions, I teach them how to introduce themselves and then they introduce themselves and tell me something they like to do.

“Hello. My name is _____ and I like to ______.”

If we still have time, we then played a game of Shark hangman with their vocabulary words. It is quite fun when they don’t do well and the shark has to bite the man’s leg off. They get a big kick when I use red chalk to make him bleed.

Wednesday I baked two batches of cookies! I made peanut butter and chocolate chip. Cooking is something I had really missed, so it was fun to be able to pull that off. I only burned the first batch, and that was only because I wasn’t sure about the oven temperature. The instructions are in Chinese and the oven uses Celcius, so it was a lot of guesswork.

I also had my first Chinese lesson this week. I basically learned the four/five tones that the Chinese language uses. The way you say a word can change the meaning of the word. I have a lot of trouble with the fourth tone which goes from high to low… grr… but overall I think the lesson went well. I learned a few words and can’t wait to learn some more. I did say a few words of Chinese to my classes and they laughed at me… oh well…

Saturday Joy and her family came to see me! I was so excited to see her. Joy and I clicked pretty much immediately at orientation. Her parents livein Chaiyi which is only about an hour car ride from Tainan. And Tainan has a brand new… COSTCO! So her parents wanted to come to Costco. They came and picked me up at my dorm and then we went to eat. We ate at this place called Little Chen’s Spring Rolls. It was really really good. It was nice to finally be introduced to some of the food that Tainan is famous for. Even though I have been here for a month, I have been pretty much left on my own when it comes to food. No one has really introduced me to new restaurants and such. I would just go alone, but I don’t read Chinese and most places don’t have English menus, so it is more trouble than it is worth most of the time. After lunch we went to Costco. Costco is a huge warehouse full of bulk goods. It is always packed full of Taiwanese people and today was no exception. We had a good time though and I got bagels. I am pretty excited about those bagels.

Sunday was church. I went to eat lunch with one of the other foreigners, Evie. Evie’s family moved here almost a year ago and she just graduated from high school. She is from Normal, Illinois. What a great name right? Normal! Anyways, after church and lunch, I went to this mall that she told me about. It was so cool. It wasn’t just like America, but it was pretty close. They even have a Clinique counter… random.  I got some ice cream from the Coldstone Creamery and just explored. It was lots of fun. I found the movie theatre and hopefully I will go to the movies soon! I really want to see One Day with Anne Hathaway!

This weekend was the Moon Festival. It is a time when everyone goes to be with their families. They barbeque together and watch the moon. They also eat Moon cakes. I will admit, I wasn’t very crazy about the texture and flavor of Moon cakes. So we had Monday off. I spent the morning chilling, then rode my scooter to Cigu where there is a salt mine. The salt “mountain” itself was pretty cool, but the museum itself was a bust. I have never been so bored in my life. Note to self: you don’t like museums so don’t go to them.

I am now at Bus-7. I am about to walk down the street and indulge in another Tainan delicacy- some kind of Mango ice cream thing. It is supposed to be delicious and as I really really like Mangos, I am sure I will love it.

I can’t believe that I have been here a full month. God has blessed me beyond belief. I have talked to other Foreign English Teachers that arrived here at the same time as I did and I honestly believe that my transition has been much easier than most of theirs. For one, I was provided a scooter right away which allows me much more freedom as far as transportation goes.

First week of school

Tuesday began my days of teaching… or so I thought. I arrived on Tuesday terrified but ready to get started. Around 9ish, we went to an assembly of all the students. The teacher introduced me, but that is all that was required of me. There have been several large hangups with the scheduling so none of the teachers have schedules. So basically I am required to come to work, but I don’t really have anything to do.

Wednesday I did go with Amanda to two of our classes to introduce myself, but I wasn’t actually supposed to do anything. Also on Wednesday I met Joe, a foreigner at a local university who is from… Dothan, Alabama, for dinner. We went to this place called the Narrow Alley, because you literally get to it through a narrow alley. Apparently, it is a very popular tourist spot. 

Friday there was a meeting between myself and all the Jr. High English teachers. I left the meeting so stressed and confused. They are not very clear with what they want from me. Apparently the last FET (foreign English teacher) before had been in Taiwan for several years so he did not need much help. For one, they expect me to know stuff without being told, but it doesn’t really work that way. I also received most of my books but no one told me specifics of what they want me to teach except Amanda. So I guess we will see what happens. 

By the way if I haven’t mentioned it before, I love my church. It is called Living Water Christian Church. They have a café downstairs called Bus-7 and everything about the church is awesome.