First day of school

Wow, what a day. The first day of teaching. This is just to prepare us for our full teaching load, but what was supposed to be a mock teaching experience turned into a real class when we were assigned to teaching a group of Junitors at Sichuan Teachers College. How to describe it? Like being thrown into the water and learning how to swim. Sure, we prepared a practice lesson plan and sure I've been teaching for nearly twenty yearss--but nothing like this. A classload of students who do not speak your language as their primary language and who expect you to help them speak better. That at least is the class, Oral English, and it is about the most basic class you can be given to teach. Also about the furthest thing from anything I have taught in the past. Twenty students--most of them girls. I started by telling them a little about me and then getting their information. They all have been given English names at this stage in their college careers. Some standard like Wendy, Yolanda and Eileeen and some not so standard likeKoala (like the bear), Ameko and Moon. And one male studeent is named Valient. The class did not start off so well as I went around trying to get them to tell me their names and something about myself. Most of them spoke so softly I could hardly hear them but when I went down to talk to them one on one the other students started talking. We were warned that this could be a real problem in the classroom, alhtough I think I handled it pretty well. That took up most of the first 45 minute session. For the second 45 minute session I put on the board a top 5 list I got from a web site which stated the top 5 things for a westerner to do before coming over here to learn english. After giving them the list which included things like learn to eat with chopsticks and watch some chinese movies, i asked them to add to the list. Here are some of their answers: 'learn the language,' 'learn something about the city in which you will live,' 'learn something about the culture and simple greeting sentences,' 'learn to eat local dishes and don't always go to KFC.' Well, discussion that took up most of the second session. And though it might not sound like it, it was pretty exhausting work. And I've no idea what I will do tomorrow. Please feel free to e-mail me any suggestions.