Sichuan Teachers College (East Campus)

Just so everyone is clear on the situation, there are a total of 60 PCVs (you should all know by now what those initials stand for) in Chengdu. This is the sum total of all the PCVs in China. Currently we are split into three different groups, with roughly 20 of us on each of three campuses in Chengdu. In about six weeks we will be sent out to universities throughout Western China. There, in groups of one or two, we will will teach a full load. One thing that I did not know is that our classes will meet only once a week for roughly two hours (two 50 minute sessions with a ten minute break) and that we will be teaching seven or eight courses a semester. Fortunately there should only bet 2 or 3 preps.

Anyway, I am at Chengdu University, which of course means nothing to you. But in order to prepare us to teach in a Chinese classroom, for the next three weeks we will teach a single class in the afternoons (in addition to 4 hours language study in the afternoons). Originally, they were just going to recruit Chinese students to study with us in sort of mock classes. But it turns out one of the other campuses has some actual classes going on during this time and so wants us to teach some regular Chinese students in real Chinese classrooms. So half of us will be taking a bus in the afternoon to Sichuan Teachers College (East Campus). We were brought over there today--about a 10 minute ride in a small van--in order to get to know the campus and to see our classrooms. We were also scheduled to meet with an assistant dean in the program we were teaching in. The visit seemed to be going fine. We'd had lunch, toured the campus, got another briefing from Peace Corps folks on teaching and then the 10 of us were brought into an adademic meeting room. I expected the meeting to be pro forma and that the assistant dean was going to thank us for coming to his college and disrupting our normal schedule. Instead he proceeded to drill us on what we were going to teach while we there. His students needed instruction in speaking English, and he wanted specifics: what topics we were going to go into and how we were going to go about improving their speaking. He seemed a little taken aback by the y0uth of the group, I think, and wanted some reassurance (at least that was my read). It took a few minutes for everyone ro realize what was going on and then I think we were all taken aback. I mean, we had been asked to prepare one lesson plan, and I don't think that fact would have satisfied him. As someone whose been in his share of academic meetings, I spoke up first. I said I had taught at universities for 20 years, had published two text books, and I was going to draw on material from my critical thinking textbook and apply the elements of critical thinking to the art of conversation. I think he was satisfied, or perhaps he simply did not understand what I said. In any case, he proceeded to press the rest of the room on this topic without getting anything like the answer he was looking for. It was my understanding when we left that he did not even want us assigning his students grades, which is probably fine with everyone here. And I wouldn't even be surprised to find our performance at Sichuan Teaches College (East Campus) cut short. I guess we'll find out Monday.