Days 2-6

Every morning, our alarm clock was set a little later each time. Our breakfast eaten by us decreased each time, as the novelty of waking up in a new hotel with a small buffet breakfast wore off.
We would make our way to the school in small groups.. most of the time normally....

But sometimes, when you're in a city full of people that don't know you... well its a chance to be a little silly.

In the morning, from 8.30 to 11.30, were the core lessons.
All the trainees (the English teachers we were training) were split into groups by the age of students they taught, and secondly their ability.
I was a teaching assistant in Class 2A, which were Junior high teachers, the half of higher ability. First half of the lesson would involve some sort of English game, such as build-a-word, or writing poems by filling out blanks....
Did I mention about the technology..?

You see that whiteboard thing.... and that computer thing I'm controlling . They are annoying. The little cursor thing likes to forget I'm supposed to be controlling it, and starts doing some stupid vibrating dance in random areas of the screen.
Oh, and you know most plugs have three 'teeth', the one behind me, which has all the power going to the computer system, has two teeth. And  it does not work if the plug is completely in the socket, there needs to be a gap of about 2mm.
So, every time I get all the powerpoints, or internet pages loaded up,  I lean on the plug, and *zoom*, the whole power turns off.
It is so frustrating.

There would be 10 minute break in the morning, where this woman in my class would go all the way down the stairs (silly, she would to climb up again), and stand in the middle of a basketball court to make a phone call. Most of the teachers just refilled their water bottles and chatted, and texted and made calls, although a lot of them just did that in class too.

The second half of the morning, our class were split into two. One half would be taken by Jacque, and the other half taken by Susana. I wandered around the two, 'helping', or I would sit the staffroom writing poetry. I am not a pretentious poet, in fact, I have no patience for poetry, unless I am forced to study it in class. I wrote the poems for future use in classes, with the help of an online rhyming dictionary.

At 11:30, everyone was dismissed for a lunch break. The trainers would go to a restaurant, which consisted of several rooms in a house-like home. (They did explain to me that the restaurant was located in a home, to save costs).

And if you're immature, you can play with the finished food.

The afternoon session started at 2pm, so at the beginning of the week most of us would go back to the hotel. Some took a nap, and some, well, sat about and read and killed time. By the third day I could not uphold not taking a nap any longer, and fell blissfully asleep while the Olympics was playing in the background.

In the end, instead of going back to the hotel, we just went back to the auditorium. And sang. Very very loudly.

Because we had access to microphones.... I'm pretty sure this is what I dreamed for when I was a little kid, having microphones...

According to the timetable... 2:00 to 2:15 was time for roll call.
Aaaaand, 2:15 to 2:45 was announcements & singing English songs... so basically singing!

The first song we sang was 500 miles. I liked that song. And in the first week we also sang Donna Donna (awfully dreary, rhythm is horrible, complicated, no likey), and Words ( which is a Bee Gees song, the only Bee Gees song I knew was Stayin' Alive, and I also thought they weren't that famous. This shows how much music knowledge I really don't have.)
I sang along, quite happily, though I cannot say the same for those who heard me sang.

On different days we did different activities in the afternoon.
On day 2, we started watching the movie 'Sound of Music'. But it was too bright, (the Sun is always shining in China, unlike Wales, except when there are clouds, or its raining, or it night), so the trainees could not see the projection clearly.
On day 3, there was a plenary led by Dorothy...

This is Dorothy on the left.
Her topic was 'Teachers speak less, students speak more.'
For example, the use of substitution or pattern drills.
You would begin with a sentence, with which the students will repeat, and then a single word or a phrase within that very sentence and be replaced or altered. This sentence can than be repeated as new sentence.

Afterwards there was a conversation session, in which each of the 19 teachers would be allocated a room in a unused building, which was once a school, and around 6-10 trainees.

This is the classroom I had... obviously, when I held the conversation session, there were people there. I moved the chairs and tables into a small circle at the front of the classroom. The first class I had was a group of female teachers, who really wanted to go home.
I wanted to play a simple game, which involved each teacher saying one sentence at a time, to string a short story together. Unfortunately, I don't think they understood the concept (I knew they didn't understand, I should have never told them I did not understand mandarin, they took to conferring with each other in their secret languages)
In the end we ended up with a story about a supermarket, with this guy who didn't know if he was stealing a wallet, or losing a wallet, or neither.
Oh, and I got bitten by lots of mosquitoes in that classroom.
And when I told them they could go home 5 minutes early only if they put away all the chairs and tables, they could not understand, even when I spoke the slowest. Which meant I ended up doing tai chi to demonstrate and mime the actions.

Day 4
Everyone watched the rest of the movie 'Sound of Music'. We had plastered bin bags over some of the windows, so you could actually watch the movie.
After the movie, the trainees were split into their classes again, for further discussion on the movie.
The announcement was made that if the headteacher of the individual classes chose to, the trainees could go home.
For our class, they voted on their favourite song, which would be the song to sing in the next day's morning lesson.

Day 5
The main part of the afternoon was a plenary led by Dr. Diana King.
It was about the phonology in English, which is a branch of linguistics all about the systematic organization of the sounds in a certain language. Which was very interesting to learn about how all the different sounds are made and grouped.

After that, there was another conversation session, which I actually enjoyed very much, as the group I had were the most advanced and could actually speak English well. We managed to have a conversation about things ranging from life in Britain to the Chinese government.

Day 6
On day 6 we started watching the movie 'Mr. Holland's Opus', everyone told me it was going to be a real tearjerker.
Thank heavens they stopped the movie halfway, before I could get too emotional. Though I did have tissues in my pocket just in case.

Aaaaand, at the midway of a beautiful movie, was the end of the first half of the program. With the next day an actual day off, a relief for all trainers and trainees.

Day 0. Part 2. Hello Guizhou.

After an hour and a half flight. we arrived in the capital city of Guizhou, a province in China. In the airport, I was reunited with my dear friend, Candy, who had I not met for around 4 years.
She ran up to me, and held my hands, then started talking excitedly in Mandarin Chinese.
Unfortunately, instead of gabbling back excitedly and happily to see her,
"I'm so sorry Candy, I still don't speak Mandarin..."
Which is a pity, ruins the novelty of seeing your good friend again after a long time.
There was also Lily, Candy's mother, who always looks ever so elegant.
Steely, who to me looked a little like a typical uncle you would find in a Japanese cartoon. Even though I don't actually watch much Japanese cartoons at all.
And Shawn, the one who I was told by my grandad was the 'tall and handsome' one. I can't say I disagree.
We took a smallish coach to Zunyi, which meant we had to sit with all our baggage. Which made passing peanuts and cakes around the bus a little harder. It was quite a long journey, over two hours. I tried to be touristy and take photos out of the windows. But I have a bad habit of bringing bad weather with me wherever I go, so of course it was pouring with rain.

The School in Zunyi we were teaching in.

We visited the school we were going to be teaching in for the next two weeks, and to my sarcastic pleasure, our main operational base was to be up six flights of stairs. Our main concern at that moment was dear Diana, but kind Candy led  her gently up all the stairs. I was not as kindhearted, nor as patient to help.
My grandad, looked at all the classrooms, and demanded all the technological equipment were to be in place.
Quite honestly, I missed the meeting in Hong Kong, because I had just got from my flight from Wales, so I didn't actually have a clue what to do. I stood about making conversations. (It gets better, honest, I actually become of some use later on.)
After hanging about (I hung about, adults did stuff), we finally went to supper.
We had food.
And Shawn brought buns and stuff from his hometown.

This is when my memory starts to fade away.

You know I'm tired when I cannot remember what food I had.

Zunyi.
The city was dirty, and busy, sides littered with beggars with deformities. Spitting casually, pushing rudely were the pavement walkers. Shops and buildings were lit up in fancy modern lights, broadcasting loud and unwanted music.
The roads and roundabout were invaded by cars with no concept of laws nor the ways of traffic lights.
At night, the city is lit up to illuminate the blackness of the sky.

Long time no speak... and better get complaining

Well hello, its been.. how long, a week and a bit?

Guess what?
I've been in school.

We had a lesson with an awesome substitute teacher, who everyone pretty much loves. It was a biology lesson and my friend was going to write that animal ditribution was affected by 'environmental stimuli'. I was unimpressed. Pretentious much. (In my English essay I only used simple words like 'effectual' and 'portraiture')
So being the mature student I am, I stole her work and gave it to another boy in our class to hide. It got a bit out of hand.
Lets just end it with that she wrote a withstraining order that she got the teacher to sign.
But its okay.
Because the teacher then mouthed behind his hand that he used his fake signature.

Argh. Brain freeze. There was something else I wanted to talk about.

Oh, I had to go see the headmaster. Basically the art teacher sent me and a friend to see him because he had an idea that need executing. Well another student had already been sent up for being naughty, so when I knocked on the door he shouted with a very angry voice to come in.But he lit up when he saw me and asked how I was, because he knows me for the mature student I am.
Anyway, his idea.
He went to the cinema recently to watch 'The Muppets' and wanted to design some posters based on the muppets to get year 11's to revise. Or as we have to draw it... 'Git Revizin'. Or as I can't spell incorrectly spelt words 'Revzin'. Git Revzin.

You know the M&M peanut ones? (Yeah, M&Ms again, I'm pretty surprised). Well in case you don't know, they're chocolate covered peanuts in different colours. Please don't think I'm being patronising, because my mum didn't know this.

So she ate quite a few of the M&Ms and after a few, she complained that they all tasted the same, and all had peanuts. She accused M&M company of tricking her that each M&M had a different flavour. No mummy, thats skittles. And the M&M packet did say 'peanut M&Ms'.
Now I am being patronising.

My parents, luckily, have a good sense of humour (well I say good but they don't laugh at half my jokes so maybe not), and suggested I write to M&M customer service to complain about it.


If anyone works in M&M or knows someone that does, tell them to have a look at this.

Au revoir.

Well, in a summary with some bullet points.

What I have been up to in school.

• Signed a form asking me about my future career aspiration with 'maybe something to do with science, or finance, or maybe language, and something creative, or something to do with maths'
• The next question was what skills you needed for your career aspiration. Oh dear.
• Had a special meeting with a medical 40 year-old consultant in which everyone was offered coffee.
• Attended a debate in which everyone was offered orange squash and stale biscuits.
• Tried to eat a chicken wing with fork and knife in a plastic salad box.
• Learnt about ionic bonding which will forever show my outstanding knowledge.
• Been a mentor to the new year 7's. Played hangman with them.
• Written an essay with complicated words such as - protagonists and ... more.
• Went to chemistry quiz practice in which some little kids thought 'cow' was the answer to 'What is a large compound.....'

Mentoring fail

So I'm going to be a year 10 next year and a few of us get the chance to be mentors for the new year 7 students coming up this year. And on Friday these students got the chance to come up to the secondary school for the day, getting to know their class and school.
One of the activities were getting into pairs and sharing a story of something that happened to you recently. I saw a boy sitting on him own so I decided to work with him.
And because I'm pretty stupid, and only heard the words 'story', I gave him a hell of an awesome fairytale.
While every one was talking about how they 'went to the cinema and tripped over' and 'falling off the bike'. My story went something like....
'Once upon a time, there was a boy who hunted animals everday, One day, the animals got really angry and started and animal army...."
Patronising much? Cringe much?

Games to play in class

Yes, its that boring maths lesson you've been dreading for the whole day...
But hurrah! Luck has turned around and you have a supply teacher.
New seating plan, no work to do....perfect.
And because you and your friend have talked about everything today the conversation turns slightly awkward.
Then your pen runs out :(
So you decide to make a mini funeral for him.
With his pencils family and sharpener cousins who all came to do a speech.
And because you have a warped mind the sharpener falls in love with the newly widowed wife pencil of the dead pen.
And they have an affair.
And the pen comes back alive.
And Harriet the highlighter takes drugs

You know it was the best maths lesson ever.