I was asked to write about the joys and challenges
of my first few weeks in Lanzhou to my site director. I’ve been meaning to
write about the campus life, how teaching is going, and who I work with. Since
they asked to write about those experiences I just copy and pasted what I wrote
to my site director. I did change and add a few things though. So here it is…
Adjusting to the life on a Chinese
university campus wasn’t as hard as I thought it to be. I’ve befriended
students, my counterpart, other faculty members in the English department, the
waiban and the deans who are willing to help in any which way possible. I’ve
noticed that the shuttle bus from the school back to the apartment only waits
for 10 minutes after class is over, leaving no time to interact with the
students. Some teachers even have secretarial work as well as teach. They rush
to go home any chance they get. It seems as though they have the same minimum
hours as I do, and it baffles me because in America a teacher’s hours are 40
hours a week, not included their office hours. I haven’t had a chance yet to
observe their classes, and it is on my to-do list because I would love to see
how they interact with the students within the classroom. My relationship with the
waiban can be described as this:
Me: Hi zhou, how are you?
Zhou: Fine.
Me:
uhh well I’m calling to let you know that my internet doesn’t work. Can you
come look at it when you are free?
Zhou:
Ok. I can come tomorrow. Maybe after 12.
Me: do you know the exact time?
Zhou: NO
Me: Ok. See you tomorrow, after 12
He
is only 26 years old and it is a huge responsibility to take on two girls and insure
their safety and satisfaction while staying in China, no doubt. He does not work for the English department,
so I rarely see him unless my hot plate broke again, my internet isn’t working,
my toilet isn’t working, or if he needs my visa. My site mate and I are always
saying how it would be nice to grab dinner with him and just have a decent
conversation because he is so close to age with us, that it seems absurd not to
have a good relationships outside of him being “mister fix it”. I don’t live on
campus, but I spend most of my time there between classes, lunch and activities
at night. There are four major cafeterias serving different types of food. One
serves free drinks with it, so it is the most crowded. Before it became a
university it was a regular community with apartment buildings and so there are
a lot of little shops and restaurants left surrounding the campus. My favorite
to eat is huo lo mian, just noodles and some meat. All the boys go there
because it is bigger proportion and cheap. Every morning I have to take the elevator to
the 8th floor walk down the hallway to the left and go down the
stairs to the 6th floor. A
lot of doors are locked because they try to get the students to use the stairs
so that the elevators will be vacant for the teachers. No common sense of
course, because what student who has class on the 8th floor is gonna
use the stairs? So if I need to get to my Waiban’s office (in the hallway that
has locked doors on both sides) I have to go up the stairs again to the 8th
floor, walk down the hallway and just go down one more floor. It’s quite the
maze, but once you know all the doors around the building, it’s just second
nature. Thanks to the help of a
wonderful student, I now know where to get keys for my classes. Erin and I keyed the term “key shifu” (the
key boss) and befriended the man. We have nicknames and inside jokes about
people in the school to help us remember who they are.
The main dean’s name is
similar to 3 other deans’ names, so it got super confusing! I decided to have him known as “Arthur”,
because I believe he looks like the 90’s aardvark cartoon character. I
know it sounds bad, but really it isn’t. I though Arthur was the cutest thing ever on
TV. I used to love that show and had a lot of respect for him, so it’s really
flattering. He just got his book published from translating a Chinese text to
English- pretty impressive! Many teachers who work at the school also live in
the same building as us. Therefore, in the morning we would see most of them on
the way to the shuttle bus and have small talk. Every new person we see in the
building we just say “Ni hao” to let them know who we are. We also have some
favorite local dishes restaurants that we go to that is literally across the
street from us. The overall environment of the students and teachers I am very
much comfortable with, and I’m very happy with the site placement and I think I
have a good fit within the community. Most importantly, I feel needed. I enjoy
spending time during lunch with my students and going on day trips with them.
I’m learning a lot about Chinese culture and I can see myself staying committed
for two years.
What
came as a shock was the way the students acted in the class. Requesting
“leaves” every time and the cheating is the most frustrating aspects of being a
teacher. Three of my classes are juniors, since it is a 3 year college they
leave at the end of October to start practicals/internships/jobs. I think most
of them have senioritis (the act of being a jerk and not caring anymore about
school), and so sometimes I felt like I came into class to teach students who
did not care anymore and received a huge middle finger to my face. I think what
upset me the most was that I felt disrespected as a teacher. I didn’t know
whether or not they acted like this because I was a foreign teacher and they
thought they could just walk all over me or it was because they were stressed
out and nervous. I’ve vented out my anger with other fellow volunteers, and I
was told that during their Chinese classes, they also do this. Now what angered
me the most is the lack of discipline and carelessness on the part of the
Chinese teachers to not have said anything. It’s just like, if you give in to a
child’s tantrums, they will continue doing it until they get their way. I knew
I was here to teach English and focus on what I could change so I’ve learned to
deal with this and focus my energy and time on those who did care. I changed up
some of the class material to be more active, so that the students wouldn’t have
a chance to just sit around and play on their phones or chat with other
students. I’ve also remembered that the TEFL trainers have said not to give
them an opportunity to cheat. Therefore, after one test I learned my lesson,
although now the dean requires a written test for the final. In order to avoid
another horrible cheating escapade, I brain stormed a way that no book or cell
phone dictionary could help them. One simple question on a blank piece of
paper: What have you learned in my class?
Another frustrating aspect is that we’ve
been told that most of the time, if not all the time we will be getting the
“last minute treatment”. I’ve experienced that several times already, including
a whole new schedule and classes in the mid semester and taking over another
teacher’s classes and changing my hours to fit those classes. Luckily, I was
able to knock some sense into the dean and let him know that I will be
finishing classes in two weeks, so after that I wouldn’t mind taking over. There
just comes a point where you can’t stand feeling like you are being pushed
around all the time. For a while I felt like an American dummy, being pulled
every direction by an upper hand that wanted to squeeze every ounce of my
native English abilities to good use. Book nook, English corner, English club,
topic night, speech competition, knowledge competition… these are just a few
responsibilities we had to take over or help lead within our FIRST MONTH, and
did I mention that I was also teaching 14 hours and grading 130 students’
writing activities? I really don’t mind being busy but sometimes I feel like
all these competitions and events are for the reputation of the school as
opposed to the benefit of the students. It really hit me this past Friday when
I was asked to judge and give constructive criticism to the students after they
have given a prepared speech for the upcoming competition in November. Everyone
was silent and the dean would point to me to start speaking, since I’m native
and all. It was evident, even with a blind eye, who was better or what they
needed to work on. The students were chosen from non- English departments and
English departments. It just seemed incredibly unfair to the students to put
themselves down in front of the dean and the Chinese English teachers and then
have me, the native English bitch criticize them. I mean once I started, it was
like word vomit. I knew after the second or third student, I had three more to
go so I just ripped the Band-Aid. I felt incredibly low after that, and I could
see the look on the students’ faces that they didn’t want to part take in any
of it.
I’m trying my best to organize events
that can really help them improve their English as opposed to always having
them be against each other and crown the winner of who has the best English. I
took this as a beginning of my aggravated ambition for my secondary project.
Peer Leaderships. The concept is to work together to build positive
relationships within every grade and help motivate each other to do
better. It is obviously still a work in
progress but I spoke to some juniors who are heavily involved with the school
and the English department, and they loved the idea and even offered to help
start it. I think every day I am discovering how to turn negative or
frustrating situations into positive possibilities. Like I mentioned earlier, I
feel that I am needed here and that is why I am willing to work out my
challenges into something more meaningful. It might not be an instant change, I
might not even get to see how they improved their English, but I do know that
for the English majors, the level they achieve is heavily based on the future
they will have. Knowing this gives me the motivation to create opportunities
for them to learn on a daily basis, whether it being during class or during
lunch.
