Performance Mode

This semester has been flying by and I can’t believe midterms have come and gone. It’s so encouraging to see progress- nearly all of my students, even the lower-level English students, improved on their midterm exam from the last test we took! Their behavior has also improved in the last couple of weeks, so 8 weeks to go and we are in a wonderful place. In addition to my own classes, recently the school has been ramping up recruitment for next year, so there are many kindergartens from different places in Beijing that come to have a “field trip” with their parents to see what our school has to offer. I have now probably taught at least 300 Chinese children “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” over the past few weeks in these open classes. I co-teach the lesson with a Chinese-English teacher and often feel like a prop as the parents are flashing their cameras at me, the foreign teacher, but it’s part of teaching in China!

This week, as we approached the celebration of Easter, my teammates and I had an Easter lunch for our Chinese co-teachers, complete with an Easter Egg hunt. We placed a piece of candy and a sentence from the Easter story in each egg. Before we enjoyed our spaghetti and meatball lunch, not exactly traditional I know, but easy and well-liked by Chinese people, we had the teachers read their sentences in chronological order so we could explain why we celebrate this holiday and the reason for our Hope. What an opportunity and delight to share this story with them and my students!

One interesting problem I have run into this past week was that we got a new student from Japan. Apparently he was born in America, so everyone expects he can speak English, but he moved to Japan when he was two and just moved to China. His parents are Chinese, but yet the student can’t speak Chinese or English, just Japanese, so we have no current way to communicate with him. The little that I’ve been able to understand about his situation is that he may have been displaced from Japan from the earthquake. My heart has gone out to him as he may have experienced some trauma and he has gone through this week without being able to express himself. The only thing he has been able or willing to tell me is his name. I think something from his story is missing and hopefully the Chinese teachers got to talk to his parents when they came to pick him up on Friday. My next approach to teaching him might just have to be through drawing pictures.

Many end of the year activities are going on such as a field trip, Sport’s Day, and Children’s Day. This week we will be going to a forest park somewhere in Beijing and I look forward to taking lots of pictures and hanging out with my students. I’m sure a picnic will happen just like last semester’s field trip with packaged chicken drumsticks, seaweed, and other foreign foods- at least this time I will be prepared! Sport’s day is kind of the equivalent of field day in America, except Chinese people really love to perform, more than showing their strength through sports, so each class is a different country and will be performing an aerobic style dance to music of that country. I have seen some of the classes practicing, including the 2nd graders dancing to a mega mix of Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack music and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” and my 4th graders dancing to Justin Beiber’s “Baby.” All I can say is there are going to be a lot of cute Chinese children shaking their booties- I will be sure to catch it all on video! Children’s Day is highly celebrated here on June 1st and there will be another round of performances, including a hip hop routine put on by the foreign and Chinese English teachers. I really appreciate the value of performing in Chinese culture, as I get to relive my dance company days. I have to say this performance is going to be a little bit cooler than last semester’s High School Musical performance of “We’re All in This Together.” We have already begun dance rehearsals and in fact I felt like one of my students this past Friday as I went from teaching open classes, to dance rehearsal, to Chinese lessons, and then to Tai Chi lessons. The Kung Fu teacher at our school offered to teach Tai Chi to the foreign teachers so I learned the first few steps in this first lesson- it was a little more difficult than I expected and his advice was to “relax and try to feel the essence of Tai Chi.”

I think this season has definitely been my favorite from my year here so far, as I am thoroughly enjoying these beautiful spring days, deepening relationships, and really feeling a part of the school!

Beijing in Bloom

Spring has arrived in Beijing and I am thoroughly enjoying the warmer weather and beautiful cherry blossoms blooming across the city. I continue to be amazed at how hard the students work here at our school, even at the primary level. There are things about their work ethic that are admirable, but when I ask my students "what did you do this weekend?" and all they can say is "I did my homework and played computer games," I just want to take them outside to enjoy the weather and focus on something else besides school. If only I could have class outside! I can't believe I only have one more unit to teach before my year of living in China is up- we have a lot to do before then, including midterm and final exams, but some fun things like a field trip and a Children's Day performance and day of fun as this is a big holiday in China.
I am sure more unexpected things will happen as well, such as this past week when I got asked to teach "open classes" with one of the Chinese english teachers. As the school is recruiting new students, they allow kindergartners and their parents from different parts of the city to come for visits so they can experience classes and life at our school. I was told I would be teaching these classes the night before the lessons would take place, but last minute decisions no longer phase me after living here for 9 months! We taught "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" along with other body parts in fast-paced 25-minute lessons to about 120 kindergartners in the past two days. The parents and grandparents were in the classroom as well, snapping pictures the whole time, so I am sure I will be in some of these families photo albums for years to come!
Next week I get to teach about Easter! We will be following up from our Christmas lesson and look more at His life and the hope he has given us. I am excited for this opportunity, especially for one of my students that I just found out has a parent that is very sick. He is one of my higher level students and I just started a written conversation journal with him. I hope to be able to encourage him through this.
One funny story from this week was that I found out I've been saying something wrong in Chinese this whole year. To ask someone for help, you should say "Ni kiye ban wo ma?" and I often have my students help me set things up when I arrive to the classroom so I will ask them in Chinese. However, I've been pronouncing it "Ni kiye bao wo ma?" which means "Can I hold/hug you?" Of course they are so adorable and I love giving them hugs anyways, but my students have been gracious with me in my language learning endeavor. They get very excited whenever I speak Chinese in class and I love to shock and awe them with the little Chinese I know. Zai jian goodbye)!