Just another Saturday night

So I had my last two GEPT classes today at least for this round. Next weekend they have their tests. I'm not sure how many of them will succeed.

All in all my classes today weren't bad. My first class Saturday morning is level 6 they are quite bright but being early Saturday morning I'm not at my perkiest nor are the kids so quite often the class suffers from lack of energy and lack of prep on my part (I tend to get the lesson plan late on Friday night just before leaving around 9.30 pm and I have a 9am start Saturday and the class starts at 10 so needless to say that class often isn't as fun as other classes.) Today was the exception. I find different classes like different things. In this case they wanted to try and get the sticky ball to stick to the top most of the whiteboard wall instead of trying to hit the target I'd drawn out. So instead of fighting it I went with it assigning different points to different parts of the wall and the kids loved it. There was probably more participation and learning going on than in past classes.

My next class is Level 7 and while they are quite bright their ability to elicit information that isn't read and copy isn't anywhere near as good as it should be. Which I guess shows while there memory is good their comprehension isn't nearly as good.

My GEPT oral class got moved from the usual 4.30-5.30 slot to 1.30-2.30 which was fine by me as it means I could actually leave on time (in theory in practice I actually left later than usual). I've said it before and I'll say it again I really love that class and I'm sorry to see it end. This time round it was just a major review. I feel quite confident in their ability to pass the oral section of their test.

My next class is book 5 and it's not too bad. Their major problem is using things in context, once again while their memory is good their comprehension is borderline. I think that just has to do with the amount of drilling and memorising they are expected to do.

Here it seems as long as a kid can pass the test it doesn't seem overly important whether they actually understand what it is they are doing. Of course it is my job to try and force context on them in the 1 hour a week I spend with each class.

That being said I do like the class, it also contains my boss' son who while he can be slightly rowdy at times he's a decent kid at heart. I've also seen the pressure put on him by his parents to do well so I am always happy to let him use my class to blow off some steam. The same goes for all the kids. Education is stupidly important here. It's not just important to get a good education it is important to be the best. Competition is a way of life here and while I take advantage of it in my classrooms I honestly don't know if I agree with the idea of pushing kids to always be the best.

My final class of the day was my GEPT vocab class. With the huge amount of stuff I have to go through with them I honestly don't get the chance to play games with them which really sucks as they are a bright bunch for the most part.

So that was my Saturday as a teacher.

Away from school the air con in my apartment apparently got damaged in the typhoon so today Alan asked for my keys so the maintainence man could fix it. Of course my apartment was a mess with clothes thrown around the place and various other things but eh I can live with it they can live with seeing it. So anyway that all got done and I got my keys back and everything was good. I finished school got some dinner, went and treated myself to an icecream, got to my apartment and turned my lock only to discover it was still locked. The thing is I have two locks and one of my locks has two mechanisms. One of the mechanisms I've never used as when I was first shown the apartment Alan had trouble unlocking it when he triggered it so I never bothered. Until today. So there I was icecream in hand after a long week fiddling with my lock cursing my luck. After 5 minutes I was fed up and decided to go downstairs to get the security guard to unlock my building. Now while my Lonely Planet phrasebook has served me well it doesn't seem to have the word unlock in it at all. So I rang my boss and asked if she could as the guard in Chinese to go and open my door. The guard looked quite puzzled when I thrust the phone towards him but in the end he came willingly. Even he had difficulty with it and for a few minutes I thought i may have to call Amy back again and tell her she needed to come fix my lock but finally the lock opened. Yay for the security guard. Of course then he tried explaining in Chinese what I needed to do, none of which I understood obviously but still I am extremely grateful to him.

So that was my big adventure. Tonight I think I'll snuggle in and watch a movie or two and tomorrow I'll head to Taichung as I don't think I can stand spending another full weekend in JhuShan (as lovely as it is I need retail therapy).