Nthing new has really happened in the past couple weeks. I went to Jining for a ribbon cutting ceremony for a Foreign Experts lounge, which is nice and available to us for parties. It was ok and I got to talk to other foreigners in the Jining/Qufu area.
This past week, I was offered a job at a weekend school, teaching English. The kids there are between 6 and 13 years old. Over the weekend, I met over 200 kids and we did "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," which all of the kids enjoyed. Jason went with me, and we team-taught one class, which was fun. He taught the kids the hokey-pokey. I still have to discuss payment, but if this job pays well, I will have some extra spending money for Spring Festival. I would be working six hours on the weekend.
I was also offered a private tutoring position for a twelve year old. I am meeting her and her father to discuss the final details, but this job would be two hours on the weekends and is a decent paying job.
A couple says ago, I defraged my computer and turned it off to restart it. However, it would not start again and the disk repair cannot fix the hardware problem. So,, basically, my hard drive is corrupt. I have to wait until I return home to get someone to fix it and retrieve my files. That computer has all of my college work, so hundreds of hours of work, as well as the past six years in pictures, many of which I do not have backed up on other devices. I could live without the documents, since I have hard copies of most of the important ones, but the pictures are less replaceable. Oh well.
This week is mid-terms for my students. The speaking classes have to do 10 minute skits and most of them have been really well done. I am looking forward to Friday's classes. Yesterday and today were my writing classes. I made what I thought to be a very easy test, but as it turns out, it is not so easy for my students. For example, I taught them that the question that must be answered in the conclusion of an essay is, "so what?" So what, being what is the point or the purpose of this essay? Why did I as the writer spend the time to write this, what do I want the reader to learn or gain from my essay? Anyway, the question was:
What is the question that must be answered in the conclusion paragraph of an essay?
a) "What is the meaning of life?"
b) "Will my teacher like my essay?"
c) "What grade will I get on this essay?"
d) "So what?"
The answer is d, but for some reason, I have had at least a dozen students write that "a" is the correct answer. I have no idea why.
So now I have a stack of papers to grade and midterms. Worst part of being a teacher.
This past week, I was offered a job at a weekend school, teaching English. The kids there are between 6 and 13 years old. Over the weekend, I met over 200 kids and we did "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," which all of the kids enjoyed. Jason went with me, and we team-taught one class, which was fun. He taught the kids the hokey-pokey. I still have to discuss payment, but if this job pays well, I will have some extra spending money for Spring Festival. I would be working six hours on the weekend.
I was also offered a private tutoring position for a twelve year old. I am meeting her and her father to discuss the final details, but this job would be two hours on the weekends and is a decent paying job.
A couple says ago, I defraged my computer and turned it off to restart it. However, it would not start again and the disk repair cannot fix the hardware problem. So,, basically, my hard drive is corrupt. I have to wait until I return home to get someone to fix it and retrieve my files. That computer has all of my college work, so hundreds of hours of work, as well as the past six years in pictures, many of which I do not have backed up on other devices. I could live without the documents, since I have hard copies of most of the important ones, but the pictures are less replaceable. Oh well.
This week is mid-terms for my students. The speaking classes have to do 10 minute skits and most of them have been really well done. I am looking forward to Friday's classes. Yesterday and today were my writing classes. I made what I thought to be a very easy test, but as it turns out, it is not so easy for my students. For example, I taught them that the question that must be answered in the conclusion of an essay is, "so what?" So what, being what is the point or the purpose of this essay? Why did I as the writer spend the time to write this, what do I want the reader to learn or gain from my essay? Anyway, the question was:
What is the question that must be answered in the conclusion paragraph of an essay?
a) "What is the meaning of life?"
b) "Will my teacher like my essay?"
c) "What grade will I get on this essay?"
d) "So what?"
The answer is d, but for some reason, I have had at least a dozen students write that "a" is the correct answer. I have no idea why.
So now I have a stack of papers to grade and midterms. Worst part of being a teacher.