tuesday after lunch

I just had lunch with Shelley and my TA (teaching assistant) I think that the bill was about 20 yuan, which equals about $3.00. I finished with an ice cream and spent the whooping amount of $.24 US. Oops! I forgot that it included a bottle of water. The weather is quite hot in Wuhan and humid but there is a small breeze. OUr hotel and my classroom is airconditined but neither place has the same cooling efficiency as in America. After my morning class, we walked to the student hall, (one of about many), had lunch and, s Shelley went back to the hotel to meet another non-teacher, I walked back to my classroom where I am now sitting at the computer that is in every classroom. This is my classroom for the next three weeks.

This morning we had a fine session and the students, who were so quiet yesterday, became very active and talkative. They are all quite polite with excellent senses of humor. Today they demonstrated that their English is not as limited as I thought it would be based upon the quiet session yesterday. For the first hour and a half, I worked on articulation, the letters L and R. After a break I put all the students in pairs and gave each two students two different American proverbs. Explanations of the proverbs were also given. I then gave them all about 15 minutes to develop a story that end with the proverb. I then split the pair and and had them tell their story to someone from another pair. This way, they developed a story with one partner and then told the story to a different partner. The new partner then returned the favor and told his story. After another 15 minutes, I visited each group and they told me the story and I added some comment. by the way, Shelley was very active and assisted me all morning. Finally, I asked about 5 students to come to the front of the class and tell their story to the whole group. This works real well, expecially for the very quiet and low spoken girls because the room is equipped with a microphone.

My homework assignment to them was to give them each 3 different US idiom. But no explanations were included. Each student must stand in front of the class for 1 to 2 minutes and explain the idiom. This should be great fun and I expect the whole class will have a good laugh when I explain how the idiom is really used. Imagine what a student will as about "a frog in the throat" or "cat got your tongue." I'm sure you can see the fun.

In addition, I divided the groups into pairs and gave each pair an example of American money, i.e., a penny, a nickel, ..... a 50 dollar bill, a one hundred dollar bill, (the paper monies are xeroxed and enlarged copies so that they cannot be confused as counterfeit. Their homework assignment is to comback tomorrow and tell me who is on one side and what is on the other. Two groups were asked to do the same for the Chinese paper money and coins.

It is now 1:45 and I will close and rest before my second class begins at 2:30. It will be the same lesson as the morning class but I am sure that I will have different responses.

If anybody is reading this stuff, please add to the blog and, if you have any questions, please ask.