lecturing to middle age professionals

new experience for sure.


was I nervous?


heck yes.


Here I am, standing in front of a group of middle age school teachers and researchers giving them a lecture on my method of teaching: Learning English through Story Telling. I am nervous. They are staring at me wondering who I am.

This all started about a month ago when Ms. Jin asked us if we would give 2 lectures each, and in exchange we would each earn 1,000rmb ($145). We figured it would be fun and easy, and 1000rmb goes a long way here. Little did I know that I would be teaching middle age professionals who have been teaching longer than I've been alive!

I prepared a power point presentation, and guided the class through it easily. I presented 2 methods to my teaching theory, and told them a story for each method. The first method is to tell ESL students a story they are already familiar with, so I told Cinderella. (most of them know the story).

The second method requires a story the students do not know, so I told them the story of Victor (my little brother's birth) and the crazy day that led up to it. They all liked the story, especially the end when I told that our dog Freda ate all the food on the table, including the entire Bree. This led to discussion over celebrations that people have for a birth of a baby in China.

My presentation was well prepared, and I executed my teaching methods efficiently, but what these teachers were really interested in was me! I had an activity prepared for them to do, but they refused to do it because they said it was too difficult! The leader Mr. Jim Zhang, a drunken idiot who I met the night before at their dinner party, said, "Teachers in China are very stupid, but students are very clever!" Mr. Jim was quite belligerent the entire time asking me personal questions in front of the group like, "Tell us about your money," and "Tell us your love life," and he referred to a heavy woman in the front of the class as, "Hey fat!" I finished my lecture early, and from then on it was a free for all question and answer session with me in the hot seat. I once thought Chinese people to be polite and private people, but with me they wanted to know EVERYTHING about my life. When Ned met them this afternoon he told me they were uninterested in his lecture, and didn't laugh and ask questions like our students did. It's probably because they asked me EVERYTHING and already have all the information they need, also like many middle class Chinese, they go out to eat a big lunch with beer and liquor and spend the rest of the afternoon napping and snaking on sunflower seeds.

Last night we were invited to dinner with them at a nice restaurant. We showed up and there were about 40 people whispering and starring at us. I dislike so much attention, and prefer to stay low-key, but Ned is the opposite and glows in the attention. Mark me if I'm wrong, but I believe Chinese culture to be entirely sexist, and my frustration builds when I'm trapped in boring, superficial social situations.

These things happened about a dozen times:

• someone reaches out to shake Ned's hand, introduces themself, and completely ignores me.
• someone asks Ned a question about me instead of asking me directly.
• people assume Ned is the one who is teaching, and when he corrects them and tells them I'M the one who teaches, they completely ignore me.
• they offer Ned alcohol and cigarettes, but not me (it's impolite for ladies I'm told) hey! what's wrong with a lady lighting up or having a drink?

so last night I put on a good face and answered the same obnoxious questions all night (where are you from? do you like China? do you like Chinese food?) and gave Ned the eye to leave after dumplings were served, (dumplings are the last course). We left them drunk and merry at the restaurant, and I felt jipped of my Shabbat night of reading, writing and spending time with Ned.

I vow to myself that I will never become like them...too comfortable, sterotypically middle class, over eaters and over drinkers, and boring. I have another lecture to do tomorrow...on pronunciation and synonyms/antonyms... we'll see how that goes.