Today is Tuesday. Yesterday we didn’t really do anything. I watched tv on my laptop and Sarah and I watched youtube and youku videos. Youku is the asian version of youtube and we get American stuff too. It’s nice. We also went to the market. Boring day.
Today we woke up at 7 and it was pouring. Between breakfast and lunch we hung out in the apartment. After lunch Sarah and I cleaned and reorganized our room and then all of us went down to our office. We planned the first lesson and pulled out all of our supplies. We stopped for dinner and then went back to the office. We organized and cleaned the office. We have so many supplies. But now its way more organized and it feels way better then it did today.
We found out that some maintainance men messed up one of our hallways plugs. So we didn’t have filtered water, lights in the shower room and WIFI. We fixed everything but the WIFI so when you read this it’s because we have WIFI again. So Sarah and finished our cleaning and now we are hanging out till shower time. We only have hot water between 5-6pm, 8-8:30pm, and 8:50-9:20pm. So ya.
The kids are here now and it’s fun to see them. They all yell TEACHER! TEACHER! all the time. They older ones sometimes will come up and say hi and we will ask them their names and stuff. They are so cute! I can’t wait to teach them. I’m also nervous cause we are just starting.
I really want to explain as much as I can for future students here. Because we got a lot of misinformation before we came.
Well I can’t think anything else to tell everyone.
Love ya’ll
Okay so now its Wednesday. We still don’t have WIFI in the apartment. Apparently someone came in and messed up our connection like the actual cords. No one knows who did it. So they said it will be fixed as soon as possible which means it could be today or next week. At least we get WIFI in the office. Its so cold in there though.
We met our kids today and they are so cute. I am teaching basic reading with 8-9 year olds, regular ilp class with kindergarden age kids, and an ele class and I don’t know there ages yet. Pretty much its like 4 hours a day. They kids are so funny and cute! I can tell who will be troublesome and who is more shy. Planning the lessons is kinda hard, especially with basic reading because we don’t have any books or lesson examples or anything, plus we don’t know how much they know. It will be trial and error the first week. I think the kids will have fun though no matter what.
The kids get so excited to see us. They will yell Teacher! Teacher! and will crowd around us and hugs us and high five us and one came me candy. They love us and they haven’t really met us. It’s really cool. But its also because they miss their families and from experiences from past teachers they know that we will love them and love being around them so they are not as sad. The older kids, like the high schoool age kids, are interesting. I feel like they look eay older then they are. The little ones look super young and the high school age looks way older. Its so strange. They just stare at us.
Today is now Friday. The WIFI is still broken in our apartment. We can use the WIFI in the office but its pouring and freezing outside. We like staying in our rooms.
Yesterday was the first day we actually taught. I am in the basic reading group and so we didn’t teach until 4pm. We spent most of the day preparing and making things that we would need. It was so nice and sunny yesterday. It was the first time we saw blue sky. It was realivitly warm and it felt so good. Too bad we had to spend most of the preparing. We had an ELE class first. Which is where we go to a classroom with older kids, around 12 years old, and talk to them and help them with their English. When I got to the classroom the teacher that was there waved at me and left. I know scary right. I stood in front of the kids and had them each stand up and tell me their name. They asked me some questions and then we played some word games and at the end we played Down by the banks. If you guys don’t know or remember that game, its the one were you sit or stand in a circle and have your hands palm up on the other kids hands and you go and slap the hands in a circle while sing a little song and the one who gets is slapped last is out.
Next we had our basic reading class. It is about two hours and we are teaching 8-9 year olds. They are quite a handful. We start out all together and talk about the weather and the dates and sing songs and then we move into groups and go to individual classrooms. We then play word games and make crafts and stuff. I have never felt so exhausted in my life.
Today we woke up and had another ELE class at 8:50. This one was a group of younger kids, the same age as my basic reading. Sasha and I took one classroom together and it had 35 kids. It was chaotic, but kind of fun. They almost behaved as well as they do when there is a Chinese teacher in the room, but I don’t think they will ever give us that respect while we are here. (It’s not really respect as much as it is fear ha ha) We had our basic reading group again right after ELE and it was only and hour and a half this time which I think is better because they have such short attention spans.
We are just chilling in our rooms now. It’s almost 2pm. Sarah is taking a nap right now. We just feel tired all the time. I also have gained a cough. I hate coughing. Hopefully it will go away soon and hopefully the rain will too.
