08 September 2007

1st Week of International Teaching

It has now been 1 week of classes at my new school I work for. We had a whole week of first-aid/CPR training last week and our exam last Friday. It isn't a requirement of my job to pass the exam, but I think the school has to have a certain percentage of qualified firt-aiders in order to qualify for some money from the government most likely, that's how things work here usually.

The practical part of the exam was easy and according to the examiner I was very good. I am now certified to revive a plastic dummy! The written exam was a bit of a joke. We counted at least 5 spelling errors, and 3 or 4 gramatical errors. This could obviously lead to certain answers being wrong when they were indeed supposed to be correct. Hopefully it won't matter and I will find out in 4 weeks that I passed. My school was offering $500 to anyone who passed the exam as an incentive. Did I mention we were also paid for the whole week of training?

Monday was the first official day of classes for all students in Hong Kong. It has been a long week in some ways and very quick in others. My daily schedule is a little confusing, but I don't have my own class until the afternoon. I teach the PM session for K1. In the mornings I assist with the AM session for 30 minutes, and then I work with the K3 class for another 90 minutes. Then I teach English to the Japanese section of the school as well as all the Chinese students in 3 - 20 minute sessions. Then it's lunchtime, and the PM I have my own class.

My class is really quite small. There is only 6 students for the PM session. 3 are Japanese, 2 Chinese, and 1 Phillipino. All instruction is done in English and the children understand a fair amount of what I say to them. Some of the things we do during the day are free play, gym time, arts and crafts, reading time, number work, phonics, tea time/snack time and singing and dancing. We also go on a # of field trips and outings thoughout the year. It mostly lots of fun and getting the children used to interacting with one another and encouraging English speaking.

Because my class is so small I have gotten to know the children quite well already. 2 children are still on vacation so the class has only been 4 kids the last week. They are all quite different but generally very funny little people. Some of the things they say make me laugh a lot. My favorite quote so far has been from Wai Wai:

"You can not come into my house!"

He said this when he was slightly angry at me. He seems to have a devilish mind as well when playing with toys. He likes to crash and fly toys into my shoulders and pretend they explode. He was playing with a tea set the other day and said,

"Hot tea, yum yum yum. Pouring water on you, hahaha. So hot, so hot, so funny so funny!"

That made me laugh pretty hard. Sometimes the children are a little nicer and will say things like,

"Mr. Jon, I like your face."

Most of the time they are all quite cute and happy. My class is much better than the AM session where the other teacher has her fair share of brats.

No comments: