This is the lateral thinking puzzle I started my advanced high school student class with on Thursday night. The class was absolutely incredible. I could speak normal English and the students understood most everything! After explaining what a mattress is, the students solved this puzzle. Incredible!!!! I wish this class could be mine but unfortunately this will be the only time I teach it. Since I was speaking normally, I accidentally threw out a "y'all" and the class stopped. Ha! I'll give the answer to the puzzle in the next blog just to drive everyone crazy unless someone can post the answer before then :) Also, I asked the students what day today is in America (this was on July 4th). One student knew the answer, so I gave his team 100 points!
On Sunday evening, we rewarded ourselves with visiting Big City for finishing our lesson planning and chores. It's a huge mall in downtown Hsinchu. The place has 11 floors (If I remember correctly). The three basement floors are a grocery store and an appliance place. The other floors are themed. You have a floor for electronics, clothes stores, hiking stores, food court, etc. Then, the top floors are crazy! There is a movie theater that includes IMAX and 3-D, a roller skating area, an ice skating rink, an arcade, a bowling alley, a World Gym with a pool, and probably more stuff I have already forgotten about. You could spend a whole day and a lot of money at this mall!!!!
We started Chinese lessons this week. My mouth hurts after class. I've never tried to pronounce so many sounds so awkwardly! We started with phonics and tones. Overall, the class is great for a free class and the people are nice. James and I thought after the first class most of the people in the class were at our beginner level. However, most of the people in the class have actually lived in Taiwan for at least 1 year. We were supposed to learn how to count to 5 in the second class. Everyone else in the class could count to 100 except James and I. I felt like such a dummy! I know how my students feel that are placed in a class too high for their English level. I feel their pain! James is awesome at Chinese pronunciation unlike me. I feel like I am speech therapy again like in my childhood. We actually keep running into people from the class at our favorite vegan restaurant (where we eat lunch every weekday...no exaggeration) so we are getting to know a few people a bit better over delicious lunches.
On Tuesday, we drove the scooter out to the country to explore the 100 Year Old Hiking Trail. It was a bit short since we refused to walk on the overgrown part of the trail but was enjoyable none the less. I suppose after 100 years a trail might become overgrown. We ended up doing hill repeats on the main climb to get an intense workout!
Are these bananas free on the trail?
The view from the top of the hill overlooking fields and Hsinchu City in the distance
The week of teaching was intense and busy but it went well. Most days I was at the school for 8.5 to 9.5 hours. My time at the school is very intense and fast paced. I must admit I am enjoying that environment the majority of the time. It sure beats sitting in a dark cubicle and staring at a computer screen all day! I leave work exhausted and typically smiling rather than scrunched. "Scrunched" is how James and I used to describe how we felt after sitting for a full day. Basically you want to go run around to stretch your tight legs but instead you kind of want to lie down and you are a bit cranky. I'm learning how to work better with the students that I am getting to know. A few of the students are taking a more personal interest in me and asking where I am from, why I want to live in Taiwan, etc. This makes me feel good :) Also this week I learned that I am not a lame teacher in the junior high class. The junior high students are just lame. I also learned junior high students like pictionary with vocabulary words.
James and I are enjoying repeating a few of our favorite things the students say to each other on a regular basis. I constantly hear the following: : "Teacha (meaning Teacher in their accent) so hot", "Teacha not fair", "Teacha so hard". By the way, my name is just Teacher. Not Teacher Rachel but just Teacher. Another good story is I was practicing blending with phonics in my younger class. Two students threw a sticky ball on the whiteboard, each landing on a consonant. They had to say the word out loud with "a" in the middle, mostly making non-existent words. For example, "cah", "tam", "hap". Well, I will think my letter choices out better next time. The whole classroom had to say "dam" a few times. I felt incredible awkward listening to a classroom of 1st graders say dam. It makes for a good laugh now though!
Through teaching English, a Teacha will quickly learn if they have "filler" words while teaching. Mine is "OK" and "Sooooo". Once the students start repeating these after you, you realize you must break this bad habit quickly!
I was hoping to have the chance to teach Kindergarten at some point while I was here, however, I changed my mind thinking it would be annoying to use an incredibly limited vocabulary for the class. Well, I shouldn't of changed my mind because next week I start teaching Phonics A for 3 days a week/4.5 hours total for 7 weeks. The students know absolutely NO English. I'll have to write some stories on how this class goes. It's the opposite end of the spectrum from my high school class I had on Thursday. From teaching at an established, large branch, I am receiving a much broader variety of ages and levels than most English teachers all within my first few weeks for that matter. Apparently, the sense of accomplishment in experiencing the students learning at an early level is incredible. I will look forward to that :) James is actually helping me with my basic phonics. I fear I will teach the children incorrectly since my English phonics is not the cream of the crop. Thankfully, the student book for this class is American English and not British. The British phonics are different so I would have to learn the differences before teaching. I might dream about the alphabet song from listening to it so much over the next 7 weeks!!!!
I don't believe I have emphasized how incredible the TAs (Teacher Assistants) are at my school. During summer camp, the teacher teaches a lesson for 1 hour. The second hour we do a craft related to the lesson. The TAs prepare the the craft and gather the supplies. For our lesson on police officers, we made handcuffs out of aluminum foil! The TAs also do the majority of the grading and administrative work. They are also the "mean" ones that take care of discipline issues. I am VERY thankful for that because I am not one to enforce discipline in the classroom unless absolutely necessary.
James and I have noticed how differently we have been feeling about this foreign land recently. James asked me yesterday, "Do you notice that everyone is Taiwanese anymore?" I replied that I often forget I am not Taiwanese. I don't feel like people stare at me anymore; but maybe it's because we don't cause a commotion everywhere we go now? After being here for over one month, we are finally overcoming culture shock. We had read to give it three months but I suppose our support for one another gave us the ability to adjust faster. The food seems normal and we know what to eat now. We know how to get from point A to point B (well at least the places we go regularly). Doing dishes in the bathroom doesn't even seem odd anymore. It's a huge relief to be in this mental spot now!
I was VERY VERY VERY brave today and got a much needed haircut. A Paul Mitchell salon opened a couple of shops down from our apartment. I went in and had a good feeling about the place. The stylist spoke no English so we went through some magazines and I picked out my hairstyle as well as made a lot of gestures. She took about 20 minutes to thoroughly wash my hair and give me a real head message. Then, she spent about one hour cutting and styling my hair while other employees brought me water, cookies and crackers. Next time I will bring a book to read or some lessons to plan because the hairdresser and I have nothing to talk about :) The haircut cost $16! As always, you don't tip in Taiwan so that was the final cost. I am pretty happy with the haircut. It's a little bit shorter than I had wanted but it's such a relief to have my sticky, sweaty hair off my neck!
James took a few glamour shots of my new do
After the restful morning, James and I headed out to the Little Ding Dong Science Amusement Park in hopes to find the Little Ding Dong hiking trail. Well, we found a trail that was great but it turned out it was the Lotus Temple Trail. We have been told by others that often times you can find trails behind temples. We did and we enjoyed the afternoon excursion.
My moped shot near the Lotus Temple. The ocean is in the distance.
There were fun obstacles on the trail
A random stage with hula-hoops. What is this place?!
A typical trail map we have learned to use...who really needs to know Chinese anyways?
Tomorrow we have hopes to explore the mountains again!
On another note, I want to think my dear friends JD and Lauren for loaning me the book "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers. Although it kept me up later than normal finishing the book this week, it was well worth reading the powerful ending. It's central theme is the redeeming love God has towards sinners. It retells the story of Hosea in an 1850's setting. I would highly recommend this book to others. Although the beginning of the story is somewhat disturbing from describing some of the evil in this world, the end of the novel is incredible when good wins over evil and people are freed by God's love.
Random pictures:
Our typical weeknight dinner. We normally don't arrive home from work until 9:30pm. All the Rockwell approved restaurants are closed so we must make our own dinner creations. Most of our "salads" include a pack of cold pre-cooked rice noodles, a variety of sprouts, a fun tofu (the store has quite the cheap tofu selection), cut fruit (mango is pictured here), frozen veggies (when available because these are harder to find), and peanuts when we have some at the house. It's delicious, somewhat cheap, and filling!
James' new hot sauce to add to his ramen noodles...he needs to be careful with this stuff!
Who needs a mini-van when you could have a scooter?
再见 zài jiàn - good bye!
Really enjoyed all the details of your entry.
ReplyDeleteMakes all of us at home feel like we are there talking to you and hearing your updates everyday.
PS-Love the new "do" biker chick...and the matching Rockwell face masks!