What a wonderful week
I had a wonderful week! It was busy but rewarding.
I had never thought that my presentation could turn out to be such a success. The city club of Ithaca is a men's social club. The club members are all retired professors, doctors,lawyers , engineers, etc. and what amazed me was that the average age for this group of people is 82. Though they are old, they are humorous, curious and most of them are energetic. During my presentation, they asked me a lot of questions. And I asked them questions, too. I also taught them the 2 Chinese characters of Sichuan, the name of my province, which means 4 rivers and they could clearly see on the map there are 4 rivers flowing through Sichuan. They collaborated so well that my presentation was going on in laughter and claps. And the end of the presentation, I had many nice conversations with some of the seniors. They gave me a bottle of maple syrup as a little gift and VP also said that he would like me to come again as a speaker. I was really happy that they liked my presentation.
And another piece of news about the Halloween Party. More that 30 students from Chinese Club, French Club and the International came and some of them even wore their costumes. Some students brought delicious dessert and drinks. Claudia and I bought 3 big pumpkins and on each of that we carved one Chinese character for Halloween. We also bought 20 little pumpkins and I encouraged the kids to paint the Beijing opera masks on them. You see, it was quite a combination of Chinese and American culture. It was really a great party and the carved and painted pumpkins were so cute.
Today, I taught for the first time at the elementary school. It was a great experience to work with kids who are 7 or 8 years old. I had 65 kids which reminded me of my class size in China. I taught them to use the chopsticks and in order to make things easier for them to pick up, I chose popcorn. They felt a sense of achievement when the picked up the popcorn with their chopsticks. I also taught them how to count from 1 to 8 while doing the very traditional morning exercises. The kids even invited me to their Halloween party tomorrow. It was kind of them.
Chinese Club
We had the Chinese Club for the first time yesterday and it was great. I never thought that it would be so successful.
We prepared some Chinese food for the students who came. I was so excited that one student decided to stay for the club even though she hadn't planned on it. We also had one student who couldn't speak Chinese at all,but guess what, all of us played a Chinese card game to practice numbers. After one hour, the girl could count from 1 to 99. Isn't that amazing? Of course we had some native speakers come to help us. We tried to speak Chinese and helped the Chinese learners to learn more. It was of great fun.
I hope we can do even better next week.
First full school week
This is the first full school week and I think it works out pretty well. I like all my students from both high school and middle school.
Today I gave the students the first Chinese exam. They all did very well and what amazed me was that one of them even got a full score.
After the exam I taught the kids how to play the Chinese hacky sack and I have decided that every Friday after the exam, I would like to teach the kids something really Chinese, for example how to use chopsticks.
It is a nice week and I am enjoying everything.
Teaching the 6th and 7th Graders
I began to teach the students from the 6th and 7th grades during their lunch period yesterday. I had quite different experiences.
Since the 6th graders wouldn't take a language course until they are in 7th grade so only one girl came during the lunch time. She is nice girl with Indian background and she is able to speak a few Chinese words. She told me that she wanted to be fluent in Chinese. I had a great time teaching one student face to face and it worked out very well.
And for the 7th graders, they were so enthusiastic in class. They all had very clear goals for why they would like to take Chinese. Some wanted to travel to China, some think it is really to be able to speak such a difficult language and one boy said he wanted to learn 4 languages before he died. These are all nice kids. I was really of great fun working with them.
Teaching in Boynton Middle School
I went to Boynton Middle School to teach the 8th graders Chinese during their lunch period. I was so happy that the students could come and learn Chinese. Even though they were having their lunch, they all very well participated. They were all excellent students from the school and they really learned things quickly. What amazed me was that they were so curious about China and the Chinese language that they kept asking me questions after we had a little quiz on how much you know about China and Chinese. And so did the French teacher who is in charge of these kids who are taking Chinese. I am really grateful for her help and offering me the chance to teach there. She learned Chinese with all the kids, which encouraged the kids in turn. And she also helped me get all the things set.
I had a nice time with the kids from the middle school.
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