China's got me good
My bowels are absolutely done here. The oils, the hygiene here... got me good.
NBA with my student
Literally spent the two hours watching NBA Game 3 with my kid - had no motivation to teach him anything. Had to prepare for this corporate class I had in the afternoon, which I needed to make a good impression on.
Stay true to myself.
So they've got me going to the sticks again for another corporate class. This is for a company called Jibao, they manufacture iPads and other electronics. Today, I would be teaching a bunch of workers who are in charge of foreign business trips to the factory - so they have to use English in their work. My colleagues told me that the corporate culture was quite strict and demanding and that they have this manager who sits in on the lessons to see if the teacher is doing a good job. Today, when I got there, I saw a crowd of people walking about the campus. At the security gate, I had to wear a yellow vest to get in too. When I got taken to the room, it was like one of those really nice conference rooms that you'd expect an executive board meeting would take place. I could already feel the tension. And it got even more tense when the students started coming in. I saw that everyone was older and they were all giving me weird faces. I tried to make conversation with them but no one really wanted to talk. I was expecting the manager to come in any second, look at me, then tell me to leave. Surprisingly, that didn't happen. I thought to myself: I have to stick true to my values as a teacher and not let the environment control how I teach - if they didn't like my style of teaching then bad luck. 做自己. They told me to stick closely to the textbook. They told me not to speak Chinese. Broke all the rules within the first hour. I tried to engage everyone with the topic but no one found it interesting. They told me that they didn't enjoy the textbook and would rather do something a bit more fun. So I spent the second half of the lesson, talking about something completely unrelated to business English. We talked about travelling and our favourite places to travel. I figured that these guys get smashed during the day and then they have to learn another two hours of English at the end of their day? I would also be tired and disengaged if I was forced to learn something about email structure and formality. There was a chick from HR who came in half way and took photos of the class - I only found out at the end of the class that she was there to keep tabs on me. This didn't concern me because I showed that I could keep the students engaged until the end. After class, I had a good conversation with the HR girl and felt like she had a good impression of me. That's when I knew that I had earned my place there next week. I can't get complacent though, I have to think of new and interesting topics to teach to earn my spot as a starter.
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