Consider yourself at home

One of the songs we use in the first days is “Consider yourself at home” from the musical, Oliver. One line says, “consider yourself part of the furniture.” This afternoon as I sat drinking ice coffee with a fine arts teacher, she said, “I’m feeling like part of the furniture.” That’s our goal. Ease and comfort so they will learn to speak without fear.

There is the sound of a big lawn mower outside my window as maintenance men trim the grass on the campus as I sit at my desk in an air conditioned dorm room. I’ve just returned from a walk around the community with a group of non-English professors, working on using English outside of class. They took me to a pharmacy to purchase some adhesive tape and gauze for one of our teachers who has an infected toe to dress, and then we stopped at KFC for a cold drink. Three were fine arts teachers, one information technology, and another teaches automation. It’s 4:45 in the afternoon on Wednesday, and we’ve finished the third day of classes.

The first day, Monday, is always crazy. Even though the foreign teachers – our team – know what to expect, there is much we cannot anticipate. The learners, both professors and students, come for the most part with no idea of what to expect. Every Chinese program begins with a formal opening ceremony. All of our team, plus four administrators, and two Chinese retired university professors are seated at tables on the platform. In front of each of us are a name tag and a bottle of water. The auditorium fills with learners and we begin. There are speeches by the administration and speeches by the EESI team. We hand gifts to the administrators as we come, and they will give us gifts at the end of the program. It is predictable, and for the most part, rather boring. But it is the custom and the way all programs are launched. The administrator beside me, Pang, was texting in her lap during most of the ceremony!

Once the formalities are done, we removed the tables from the platform and begin our first plenary session. The EESI team sings a welcome song and then each foreign teacher is introduced with pictures and a US/Canada map on the screen. We teach a few very simple English songs, all with power point so they can read the words. Songs are a huge part of the program because when you have an auditorium of about 120 people singing together, they all forget they can’t speak English. No one is listening to them as an individual and if they make a mistake, no one cares. It is relaxing and as the days pass, the smiles get wider and wider during the song time. We finish the plenary that first day with a simple exercise of everyone standing and telling the person next to them why they are taking the course. The foreign teachers mingle and ask questions when they see someone not talking.

Immediately after the plenary, all the EESI teachers sit at desks in the back of the auditorium while the students are in clusters in the front. The professors sit with the students and we provide some word games for them to play. One by one the students come back and sit with a foreign teacher for a simple English level assessment. It’s a test, really, but we call it an interview. They are terrified, but once they start and find the foreign teacher is friendly, they relax. When we finish all 80+ student interviews, they take off for lunch and we scramble to sort the score sheets and make up the classes. We had a Chinese professor friend and our student assistant working with us, and by 12:45, we had sorted out six classes of students ranging from beginner to high intermediate. We try to put students in classes with others of similar ability so they can learn together. Each class is from 11-14 learners.

At one o’clock they all reassemble for afternoon plenary, get their class assignments, and head off to class for the first time. Our teachers try to get their names and get the first activities done before they leave at 3:30. Then we all breathe a huge sigh and head out of the classroom building, more dead than alive.

Now we’ve finished the third day. Classes are running smoothly. We’ve shifted some teachers around, making all the student classes a team teaching situation due to numbers in the class. The curriculum works better with over ten, but if each student is to get individual attention and talk time, it is good to have two teachers. Plus, the preparation time is a little easier for the team. In the first few days we’re getting the curriculum up and running, making sure we have copies of everything each team of teachers need, and helping the learners feel at home.

Tomorrow we go to a huge park in the middle of the city and each class walks the park with their teachers, conversing, asking questions, learning from each other. The cultural exchange is a large part of this program, but also the opportunity for each learner to use English in places outside the classroom where they typically only speak Chinese. As we finished this afternoon at KFC, another teacher pulled out a second line from the Oliver song. As Eric, another of the teachers, paid the bill, she said, “Oh, see, Eric is the one who ‘footed the bill’.”

After tomorrow’s long walk, we’ll all “sleep like logs.” Must be over jet lag!!