Teaching Demos

Went to a private school for teaching demo/interview this morning.

I prepared for this event for about 3 hours last night (sure I'd had a rough lesson plan in my mind earlier on).

• I pulled out a few authentic materials I think I can use on teaching numbers and asking for directions;
• Some chopsticks, as the counting sticks in ancient time which I got for free from supermarket;
• A map of Beijing for asking directions;
• A name tag with my name on it for asking names... etc..

Created a handout for each class. Then some props I've been using for the past 10 years. When I showed my husband the hour glass and a pair of click boards (castanets,响板), he was confused at first why on earth they have something to do with language teaching.

Anyway, after I thought I was well-prepared for the teaching demos, I still couldn't sleep well last night. I laid down in bed around 10 pm, and then I kept having all kinds teaching ideas/stories/activities popping in my poor little brain... And of course, those old scary "school nightmares" were once again coming back, haunting me...

Luckily I got up at 6:10 am. Only 10 mins behind my schedule. Since I've been training myself to get up at 7 am sharp for the past week (just for this super early interview this morning), I didn't suffer too much for getting ready in the morning. I took a hot shower, had bagels and a small cup of coffee, made tea into my to-go thermo mug... It feels like living a student life, or I'm working full-time again.

I taught 2 classes from 7:40 to 9:15 am, and then I had the interview (or sort of walking around the campus and talked) with the chair of Foreign Language Dept. for the next 40 minutes. The director gave me some very "fair and insightful" feedback to my teaching demos.

After living a comfortable married life for the past 2 years, some of my teaching skills are rusty now. Even though I know I should have

• jumped into the topics right away,
• listed all the key words/sentence patterns on the board before I started to teach the dialogue or activities,
• or even though I should have changed my strategy (or lesson plan A to B) right away when I found out the air in the class was kinda dead at one point....

I didn't manage to perform 100% this morning. For that, I loathed myself a lot while I was waiting for the bus to get home around 10 am (just an upset feeling that I could have done better than this... but not purely just sad, or almost-want-to-cry upset, so that's OK).

Here are things I have to work on before I have the chance to do a 2nd interview at the same school (if they contact me again for a 2nd interview) or doing another demo at other schools:

1. Work on my simplified characters: As a native speaker, a wanna-be Chinese teacher, and with the sense of competition, if that English-born director could manage to master both characters, there's no reason why I can't do it. And as he criticised on my teaching skills and claimed that "...You native speakers don't understand the pain we have to go through in learning Chinese..." (ha, it sounds so familiar... But now the role is reversed...)Oh, I do. As a native speaker of Chinese, I still have to learn different spelling and written systems on my own because of the stupid political scheme. And being a less privileged Taiwanese Chinese, we also have to learn the Northern Chinese linguistic usage. And don't mention that the equally painful process we had been through when we were learning English.
2. Polish my teaching skills by reading the lesson plans, reference books, and articles I've collected over the years. It always helps to generate some new ideas when you read something old or new. The key is to stimulate your stale-as-old-bread brain.
3. Research Chinese History materials: The director asked me to think about teaching a Chinese History class. Even though I have no idea what my audience will be, it will be fun to refresh my memory in Chinese history. And history is always something I'd like to teach, if I'm not teaching a language subject.
4. Practice my Chinese calligraphy: That's one extracurricular class my mom has always regretted for NOT letting me take when I was little (except for swimming, English and piano). "At least, you'll have a more beautiful penmanship...", she always said. Yeah... I don't know how I managed to survive as a teacher with a ugly handwriting for the past few years, how it would affect my future career or how much I could improve my penmanship at this old age. But, it's always good to upgrade things in your life, isn't it.

Eating is the most important thing! 吃饭皇帝大

One of my tutoring students sent me this comic strip from Germany (he's on a business trip) today: (I've tried to post the comic here, but didn't work...)

The dialogues between these 2 businessmen are:

• A: I've been very impressed by the Chinese approach to business...
• B: Yes, me too.
• A: I came here expecting to find a country whose traditional ways of doing things would hamper its aspirations to be a 21st century economy...
• B: (listening)
• A: But in fact, many aspects of ancient Chinese culture are fully in tune with modern business requirements...
• B: Yes... Chopsticks in particular.
• A: Quite. One doesn't have to waste valuable Blackberry time whilst one's eating...

Indeed. I find chopsticks super useful for me. I don't really need a fork or a spoon, all I need is a rice bowl and a pair of chopsticks, then you can have almost any kinds of food with them (mm, I even use chopsticks for eating French Toast or salad). You don't need tongs when you're cooking. And you can even use chopsticks as a knife when it comes to eating some tricky food (like steak). Or even better, if you have long hair, you can fix your hair with it, you can fight (or stick) your brothers with them at a dining table... Very useful...

So... I guess that's why ancient Chinese invented chopsticks and keep using them even now -- to force you focus on eating only, not reading or typing at the same time?! Haha (it's healthier for you to concentrate on eating anyway).

Speaking of health, here's some "Chinese way of living" for everyone.

An old Chinese saying: 吃饭皇帝大 (chifan huangdi da)

When one is eating, one is greater than the emperor.

Meaning: When someone is eating, even though he's only a peasant, we should treat him like an emperor and respect his basic human right of satisfying his tummy.

Underlined meaning: Food is the most important thing for commoners (or, for us middle class nowadays). We don't care who the emperor (or president) is, when we're hungry, we want food. If you bother me when I'm eating (or, can't even provide food for us, or can't 'SHOW ME THE 'FOOD'), I don't give a dxxn that even though you're a emperor (or president).

I attached 2 pix for you. One was my niece demonstrated how to use ONE chopstick to eat a cob of corn during the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. Another was my brother (my niece's Dad) showed you how to stick people with chopsticks (pls do not imitate, it's very dangerous.... haha).

The Story of Stuff

I'm not sure how China is doing on environmental issues these years. I heard they have been more aware of it, and have been improving on air pollutions, conserving woods... etc.

Anyway, I got an e-mail from my cousin A yesterday. And checked out this website she forwarded me right away.

www.Storyofstuff.com

To sum it all: We should all do our parts in saving the mother nature, so our kids (can't even think about "grand kids"... ) still have places to go fishing when they grow up!

As a "foreigner" in this country for the past 5 & half years, I'm pretty proud of myself doing almost everything very "environmentally".

1. I don't have a car. I take public transits (though I'm thinking about getting a Toyota Prius these days to survive in L.A....)
2. I don't shop/buy a lot of new outfits (of course I lost control sometimes, thank GxD, the U.S. has the greatest return policies in the world. Or you can always sell it to a 2nd hand store for a bit cash and some conscience back).
3. I don't have an i-pod, blackberry, i phone, updated new electronic equipment every year (however, I did finally "upgrade"my cell phone I had used for 5 years to a camera phone last month... Hahha. Very happy).
4. I recycle everything I can and encourage (or nag at) my husband to do so.
5. I turn off the light every time I leave the room, even though I know I'm coming back in a minute and encourage (or nag at) my husband to do so.
6. I don't buy or keep chemicals in the house (all my cleaning products were passed on from the previous apt. owner). You can simply find out a lot of alternatives we used before 1950's. Hot water and vinegar, hot water and newspaper, hot water and lemons... etc. And, yes, "Windex" is definitely not the most effective product when it comes to window cleaning or dealing with a pimple on your face (if you don't get this one, refer to the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding").
7. I don't use hair gel, mousse, perfume. I don't do manicure or pedicure. Because I'm allergic to any chemical or aerosol products (I do use deodorant though. And I think everyone who takes public transit should do so. You can be NOT pretty, but can't be stinky).
8. I try to bring the shopping bags every time I do grocery shopping (I admit sometimes I got lazy or forgot about it. And the U.S. didn't ban the plastic bags like Taiwan, San Francisco or Japan, so I don't have to pay for plastic bags. Yeah~).
9. I recently start doing compost, simply hoping my herb garden in my balcony would grow better. Sure, it smells sometimes. But you'll have "organic" herbs in your dining table. Yum yum.
10. The list goes on and on...Blah blah blah...

Sometimes I'll ask myself, do I do such things above for the sake of saving $$, for my allergy, or for the planet of earth. I guess it's more on the $$ side first. Then, after you get used to it, you'll find out your "happiness index" (plus health) actually raise higher when you semi-successfully escape from this evil capitalism-induced consuming propaganda. Even though my husband or I could have become millionaire some day (finger crossed, we'll never know...), I will still keep doing a better job on converse our resources in the world.

Why? It's simple. I just want my kids to have some places to go fishing when they grow up.

CLTA-SC Workshop (Integrated Chinese, 3rd edition)

Went to Pasadena City College for the CLTA-SC (Chinese Language Teacher Associate-Southern California) workshop yesterday afternoon. The association invited 2 authors of "Integrated Chinese" to present the 3rd edition of IC that is gonna publish this summer. They also invite a "Live ABC" sales representative to demo a set of interactive Chinese learning CD-Rums, which reminded me about ESL learning a lot. But, I'll definitely get them for my students if the budget allows me to do so.

I think the best part of this workshop for me is getting out there to see what kind of people are devoting themselves to this field. Of course most of the attendants are current Chinese teachers in different levels (K-12 @ public/private American schools, Heritage Chinese schools, community colleges, universities). I'll say 95% are native Chinese speakers. I only saw about 3 Caucasian, 2 African American teachers. And among these 95% Chinese speakers, I guess 1/3 of them are from Taiwan, 2/3 are from Mainland (only based on their make-up, outfits, behaviors and some overheard Chinese accents). Interesting enough.

Anyway, after attending this workshop, I finally have more faith in myself. It's overall not that different from ESL teaching. Just different subject, but same teaching theories, teaching philosophy plus tons of patiences+loving care for this job.

Why Chinese?

Read this blog entry from another Chinese teacher's blog
http://blog.huayuworld.org/shirleyc/109/2007/12/19/873, found it's interesting to me.

Maybe I've been tutoring very motivated, adult professionals for the past 5 years; I don't have to worry about this question at all. After all, when my students come to me, basically, they are all eager to learn. All I have to do is to show them the effective ways and tools to acquire Chinese language skills, so they can move on to do it on their own.

But, if I'm gonna teach 5th ~12th graders in private school next school year, I guess I have to come up with some very creative and inspiring ideas for those rich, spoiled kids (to quote the bus driver on Big Blue Bus 14, when he referred to the kids who went to private schools) to study Mandarin Chinese.

So, I personally add 3 more reasons to study Chinese outside the "normal" catagories.
(please read No. 1 to 11 from Teacher Shirley's blog entry)

12. So you can order food or talk to the servers at Chinese restaurants "in Chinese" to impress your friends or family!

13. You can understand a lot of "interesting" Chinese character tattoos on many people's body parts, or on many merchandise sold in stores.

14. You'll never know IF someday you are gonna meet a hot Chinese boy/girl, and make friend with him/her.

Haha. Just for fun. Maybe those kids would buy it!

Occupational Disease 职业病

One of the problems for being a teacher (except being under-paid, very time-consumed) is to get all kinds of occupational diseases.

1. Hoarse voice or callused vocal cord 声音沙哑+声带长茧
2. Lower back pain 腰痠背痛
3. Chronic bladders inflammation 慢性膀胱炎

Above should be the top 3 problems, I guess. I was lucky enough to have "only" the top 2 and 3. Haha.

Here are some suggestions to prevent them:

• Protect your vocal cord: I've been always very careful about using my voice. Try to use your diaphragm (丹田 dantian) than just the muscles around your throat. Always drink warm or hot water or any substitute drink to rinse your vocal cord is the best way to maintain your voice quality.

Another effective way is to let your students talk when you're tired or talk too much.

• Avoid lower back pain: Give up your heels! Even though my chiropractors have been warning me for years, I finally quit wearing heels in class 3 years ago. The reason is simple-- I just can't handle the pain anymore. Sure the idea is very glamours to be chic, tall and pretty in the class (any heels do help to lengthen your legs), but, after teaching for 10 years... It's better to quit wearing heels at work.

Yoga is another good way to prevent lower back pain. By bending your body, especially stretch and lengthen your back and spine, really help your body to relax.

Lift your legs high at the end of the day--like all the ballerinas will do after a long-day practice (晾腿）. Simply put your leg up high against the wall, will relax the muscles on your legs, so you don't end up having varicose veins (静脉曲张 jingmai quzhang). If you think that's too much trouble, just place a pillow underneath your leg (as long as it's higher than your heart) before you sleep, that will do.

• Deal with chronic bladder inflammation: When you have to teach back-to-back for 5 or 6 hours, it's hard to go when you have to go... The result is-- you have chronic bladder inflammation.

"No work (or school, students or $$) is worth your health!!" I have to remind myself all the time, or any other bank tellers, salesperson, flight attendants, fellow teachers, even my stpe-mom-in-law that. I guess many female teachers have the same like me.

2 tips: (without antibiotics!!)

• Pure, no sugar added cranberry juice: You can get them for $5,6 from Trader Joe's. It tastes very sour and tangy. But, it'll definitely wash out what ever cause the affection. And it's only juice, not medicine.




• Beets: Try NOT to eat it cold as in salad (or you can "de-ice" them into "room temperature" first). Making it into soup, or juice (only add room temperature water, not ice cubes) will also enhance your kidney function.

Regional Variety

I think the local TV station--LA 18-- must be run by Taiwanese Chinese.

Few reasons:
1. They use traditional characters in the show and on the website.
2. They anchors have Taiwanese Chinese accent.
3. The translation of many places and terms are also mainly used in Taiwan.

For example:
"Subprime Mortage Crisis"-- the problem which began last summer in Stockton, California and continues to ricochet through the economy and has led the U.S. edges closer towards a recession--has a few different translations along the Pacific Ocean.

• In China, they call it 次贷危机
• In the U.S. or at least on LA 18 TV channel, it's called 次级房贷风暴
• In Taiwan, 次級房屋信貸風波

I personally prefer the translation in the U.S. The word "风暴" feng (1) bao (4), the direct translation will be "storm", if you look up this word in the dictionary. Sure it's different from the original "crisis", but this "crisis" does bring a certain degree of "stormy" effects to people throughtout the U.S. and affect many economies outside of the U.S. So, I wouldn't say it's not perfect to translate "crisis" into "storm" in Chinese.