My 5th grade class thinks the US is, in their words, ‘Huge!’ Even though China is about the same as far as land mass…and the fact that they have way more people, I don’t think that they realize this fact. The cities are over populated but the villages and outskirts of the city have room for the people, however, the fact that a lot of the population still does not own vehicles requires them to live close to public transportation. Most of the available jobs are in the cities, the reason for the over population in the cities, they need more infrastructure in the outlying areas and then the cities wouldn’t be so crowded, or maybe they would be. Shanghai’s population is roughly 24 million and Beijing is about 22 million, which is over double of Wenzhou…thus the appeal, I don’t think that I could live in those cities. I already get lost, so Wenzhou is large enough for me to get lost on a daily basis. A girl that I was teaching over the New Year holiday actually lives in Shanghai during the school year and only gets to come home during the holidays. She doesn’t like Shanghai either, says it’s too big too many people. So it’s not just me (or rather us) that are thinking it overcrowded, pfew that’s a relief.
I’m having a difficult time this week; I’ve had a lot of classes and no assistance. One of the assistance that I had, quit to go back to school and the other assistant is on vacation…rough week to not have any assistance. I seem to be getting the classes with multiple discipline challenging boys, plus, they don’t have a large grasp of the English language so it makes it a little bit more difficult. But I know they know what I’m saying; they just choose not to listen. Today’s class was the worst one, they have 0 English level and today I was to teach them colors…guess who didn’t want to listen 3-6 kids (a class of all boys). Of the 3 others, 2 were a bit shy or scared of the big American. The other one, I’d met before and is actually very disciplined and towards the end of class ended up yelling at the boys, in Chinese of course…telling them No and Stop in English. It was very cute, him trying to help me. At the end of class, he discovered that his mom and dad got to watch the entire class via video feed from the next room...let's just say there was some stern talking to and an apology.
Glad to have a day off tomorrow…what kind of things will I discover…stay tuned!
I’m having a difficult time this week; I’ve had a lot of classes and no assistance. One of the assistance that I had, quit to go back to school and the other assistant is on vacation…rough week to not have any assistance. I seem to be getting the classes with multiple discipline challenging boys, plus, they don’t have a large grasp of the English language so it makes it a little bit more difficult. But I know they know what I’m saying; they just choose not to listen. Today’s class was the worst one, they have 0 English level and today I was to teach them colors…guess who didn’t want to listen 3-6 kids (a class of all boys). Of the 3 others, 2 were a bit shy or scared of the big American. The other one, I’d met before and is actually very disciplined and towards the end of class ended up yelling at the boys, in Chinese of course…telling them No and Stop in English. It was very cute, him trying to help me. At the end of class, he discovered that his mom and dad got to watch the entire class via video feed from the next room...let's just say there was some stern talking to and an apology.
Glad to have a day off tomorrow…what kind of things will I discover…stay tuned!