Do it yourself

That's what the general attitude towards showing someone how to do their job is in Hong Kong. You would think that they might help out a bloke who's only been here a month, but not really. For the most part, and I've been told this is common at most jobs here, the employer really doesn't show you how to do your job. In some ways this really really sucks, and can frustrate the hell out of me, but I'm getting used to it. I just wish someone would have told me this so I would know that I can pretty much do things how and when I want. That's not to say that I haven't been given a little bit of guidance from the learning centre and the schools I work at. After the first week, I was given an outline, so now I know when I'm supposed to teach what to the kids. It's still a little dodgy, because I really still hadn't had much of an idea until today where I picked up the right teaching supplies. Did the school have them? Or do I have to get them from the learning centre. No one really told me, I was just supposed to know I guess. Now I do. I found out today that certain things I get from the centre, and certain things they have at the school. But as previous readers will know, the school didn't bother to tell me where my big bundle of supplies was until after 2 weeks. grrrr. Also today I got my big pack of flashcards! Wooohoo for flashcards! Now I can stop drawing terrible depictions of apples and cats on the board. This was slightly entertaining for me though. One of my kids was being naughty today, so I drew a picture of him on the board, it was awesome. All the kids laughed. He didn't seem offended at all, but he shut up, haha.

So a new lesson learned, do everything myself while pretending to know what I'm doing. I really actually do like this for the most part, because it gives me control of my situation, I just wish I could have maybe had a little more help with a fews things. Oh and just when you thought I was out of petpeeves here's another!

Let the ENGLISH teacher teach ENGLISH!

I'm all for the non-native english teachers assisting me, but there is a reason all the schools are in really high need of NATIVE ENGLISH speakers and pay a lot of money for them. I don't mind accents, but when I'm trying to teach a new word to the kids, pleeeeeease don't say it wrong! Usually it's not a problem, but if the word you say sounds like a totally different word in English, you're going to totally confuse the kids! For instance, a doll is not a door. This is even more true when I'm teaching them 'door' and 'doll' at the same time! grrrrrr. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just saying how it is. The reason young kids are given native speakers to learn from so much, is because they have the opportunity to learn the language easier because they absorb different sounds better than adults. So please, don't tell me to do it myself, and then help me by not helping me, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.