Carrying on with the theme of having no expectations, I was thrown in the deep end with no training, orientation of students’ levels, textbooks, or other preparation for the 50 to 65 students I would have in each class. 4000 students and not a clue where to begin.
The school told our liaisons, Cindy and Lisa, that the timetable they gave us on Friday at the staff meeting has been changed yet again, so I was originally supposed to start at 9 AM for 2nd period, but then it suddenly got pushed to 3rd period that morning. The other Chinese teachers were mistaken because of these changes and I ended up not teaching until 4th period. At least this delay and mixup gave me time to familiarize myself with these confusing building numbers that were not at all intuitive to me or my new colleagues. There were between 5-7 floors in each of the buildings: A, B, C, and M, but with no building map it was a matter of sheer memorization.
Day 1: September 4, 2017
My only instructions or advice on how to control the large crowd of kids singlehandedly was to be mean, as the boys could get extremely “naughty.” My first class of 7th graders were in utter shock when Lisa introduced me as their foreign teacher; the room was filled with sounds of gasping, shouting, “Huuuhh? That’s the foreign teacher? It can’t be ( 那是外交嗎不可能)！” Though I can speak fluent Mandarin, I was not to disclose this fact to any of my students, lest they not speak in English anymore.
The third class was charming and the most attentive one. The boys were helpful and ran out to get another teacher when the screen would not turn on. These were students whom Cindy and Lisa were referring to when they said, “Grade 7 is when they are still adorable kids.” The students even helped with noise control – shushing the other students when I needed them to be quiet, and when I tripped over the awkward uneven “stage” or desk island in front of the board they all screamed, “TEACHER ARE YOU OKAY?”
Highlights
One key moment for me was when Jacky (who later changed his name to “Dale”), wrote his name on a scratch piece of paper and drew a tiny red heart and gave it to me after class. A lot chattered incessantly and kept pestering me about whether or not I could understand Chinese, so keeping this secret for 10 months was going to be more difficult than I imagined.
“You’re beautiful!” said a 7th grade student (girl) to me. She even came up to me after class said, “I love you, teacher!” as she hugged me. That took me by surprise, especially just wrapping my head around the fact that it’s socially acceptable for teachers to be having this much physical contact with their students without fear of accusations of abuse (they are allowed to hit children, but I’ll touch on this later).
After class, the kids crowded around my desk and behind me, so much so that I was the nucleus of this bubble of 7th graders. They asked to see my phone, pictures, and when they saw my text message thread they shouted (in Mandarin), “WOW it’s all in English! The teacher really doesn’t understand Chinese!” It has still been challenging to find ways to teach them in only English and not fully utilize the advantages of being able to explain instructions in Mandarin, but it makes my experience as a foreign teacher truly authentic—plus, I can ignore their questions if I want to because I simply pretend I don’t know what they’re saying.
Things I learned in the first week
- Simon says doesn’t work well when you speed up the instructions and speak too quickly
- Students speak out more when the task is given in the form of a competition or a game (although very difficult to set up in a class with 60 students and no room to move)
- Repetition, repetition, repetition
- SLOW DOWN- normal speaking pace is too quick for non native English learners
MELODY TIENYUN 
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