Legal

So it's been almost a month since I posted here, I just got preoccupied and sidetracked in various orders.

So here's a breakdown:
My paperwork is through, I'm officially allowed to stay til the end of August 2009, then I'm gonna get kicked out.

School is fine, things are jsut routine, weeks go by quite fast. I really only have 1 sometimes 2 classes a week that take any significant prep time.

I need to work on my classroom management but the truth is I'm hesitant to do that because it changes the energy of my classes. I mean yes a lot of my classes are noisier than they are with their chinese teachers and I know it's just cause I'm the foreign teacher. As soon as a chinese teacher walks into my class they shut up...but then they turn to zombies. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground. It's either they are noisy and whatever but I can get really reactions from them or they switch to being almost insanely quiet but turn to robots.

My weekly grammar class for the other teachers is by far my most challenging intellectially and preparation wise. But I learn a heap of theoretical grammar during the prep for that class. I literally prepare in the morning, learning the stuff as I compile the lesson and then walk into school and teach what I've just learnt. Maybe not the best way to do it but eh.

My internet is back and this time it is officially mine which is nice. I had to go out and buy a bunch of blank dvds just cause my hard drives are running out of room. I could have bought another hard drive but dvds seemed easier.

My Chinese ability is slowly on the up, I am better at understanding conversations that go on around me although my vocab is still pitifully small. I'm starting to figure out sentences. In some ways Chinese is easier to learn to speak than English although I think maybe English is easier to learn to read.

This weekend is being spent in JhuShan. David is coming down to enjoy some 'country' living. I found a great botanical garden about 5 minutes from my apartment last weekend which is cool which I'm looking forward to showing him as he's more of a nature freak than I am, how he survives in Taichung is beyond me.

So that's pretty much it from me for the time being.

Oh last week I went ten pin bowling for the second or third time in my life. It was comical. I started out guttering every ball but managed to come back and even win the second game. Game playing is big over here, like arcade games and stuff. Night markets are full of both adults and children playing such games and there are quite a few game places around even in JhuShan.

Actually last weekend was impressive, I'm getting much better at navigating Taichung and JhuShan. I haven't been lost in a few weeks. Which means I probably should explore further out.

Highs and Lows and Inbetweens

So overall today was actually not so bad. Yes I dragged myself out of bed at stupid o'clock. Yes the Taichung meeting was almost all in Chinese however this time instead of sitting through the whole thing I sat through 1 hour. After I was convinced things weren't gonna change I left with Amy's blessing. Amazingly enough she actually sat in on this lecture which isn't something she's done before. The lecturer was actually very sweet however as I was the only foreign teacher stupid enough to attend she really had no choice but to focus on the masses which in this case were the native Chinese teachers. She did apologise for this and I really don't blame her.

So then I wandered a bit around Taichung, it was an area that I'm not familiar with so I didn't wander far, then I just sat around and read and stole some random person's internet to look up grammar points.

Back at school my schedule got altered so I now have 4 classes on Thursdays and as things stand only 1 class Friday (my lowest level got moved to Thursday). Again not a bad thing and as it turns out I'm likely to have 3 hours eventually Friday so whatever I can handle only having one class on Friday especially when that class is my Level 9 terrors from Hell ;) Ok not that bad they're mostly good kids just combined they make me want to strangle them occassionally.

It also turns out that grammar thing on Tuesdays may not be as bad as I thought. So that's cool. Apparently next week it's back to relying on the patterns guide book. Easy.

I did say I'd work more on setting up the projector for powerpoint tomorrow but as I really have nothing else to do I don't mind.

So that's it,there's a new episode of Fringe calling my name.

Oh yeah I dunno what to do this weekend. Technically this is my Taichung weekend but I just don't know if I feel like doing that especially as I've only just got over a cold and thus I don't think I should go to the orphanage for at least another week just to be really safe.

I may jsut go on an extended bike ride around JhuShan and hope I don't get lost....or maybe jump a bus to somewhere other than Taichung. I know there is more to Taiwan than Taichung and JhuShan.

Anyway that's still two days away. Right now Fringe and bed.

Here comes the Grammar Nazi

Ok let me just say that this job is pretty cushy. I mean yes it is sometimes hard to keep the kids interested and it is often boring to sit around doing nothing for a good portion of the day. But on the other hand a lot of the classes require only basic english knowledge and a lot of the lessons write themselves.

So with the new teacher's arrival I was asked to start teaching the two novice teachers things like basic patterns and pronouciation etc. That was fine, we followed the books the structures were easy....today it got turned up a notch or 10. Now I'm to teach all the teachers for 1 hours a week and this time we're doing intermediate grammar...err crap.

Ok let me just tell you my grammar theory is well not great...ok it's borderline horrible. Today I survived by bullshiting and doing basic things but now it seems as this is going to be a regular thing I'm gonna have to start learning proper grammar. Ok so it's not the end of the world, it will do me good to learn this stuff and yes it will probably make me a better teacher....it will also mean that I will have to spend a good portion of my free time at school preparing for this 1 stupid hour a week.

Today we went though verb tenses. Of course without a grammar book I couldn't even name the stupid tenses and of course I left my grammar books at home so I was teaching from Amy's which wasn't particularly great for me.

As far as teaching English to the Taiwanese there are many challenges faced. The first being that the Chinese don't have an alphabet so even to start with that is a major hurdle to overcome.

The one that I face most commonly is the fact the Chinese language doesn't do past tense. They also don't do the whole hers his etc at least they don't have different words for it. At the present many of my levels are dealing with past tense. I'm actually good at past tense so that's cool.

The differences don't stop there. But anyway back to this teaching the teachers thing. I also put my foot in it and mentioned that I had a lot of grammar stuff on computer. This translated to Amy as I want to teach using powerpoint....so now I need to figure out how to set up the projector etc and also prepare powerpoint presentations. Yes yes foot meet mouth.

So now I'm going to skulk off and learn me some grammar...or watch a movie (hey my next teacher class isn't for a week I have heaps of time....)

I've been warned there's another meeting in Taichung this Thursday (so much for once a month), I'm gonna try and get out of it, hell at this stage I may not even be expected to go...at least I hope that is the case!