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Yesterday I gave my first English lesson. It was only an unofficial private lesson but I still feel it was an accomplishment and was told I was very good at teaching. Considering that after the lesson the same girl said I was very fat and need to play basket ball or buy a bike I think she can be trusted for being honest!
Yuri, as well as being a student is also what roughly translates as a Student Master (more like leader) and is therefore very busy because she is required to move in and acclimatise her students. As far as I can see this is a way of passing on responsibility to an unpaid party by the university and it would seem that she does not want but was given the job. I asked her if there were any benefits but it seems not! It hardly seems fair but I guess it works well in a University where money is tight and employees few and far between!
As I was bored in the afternoon I offered to help her move the students in which involved boxes, stairs and the meeting of many scared students leaving home for the first time. It was very, very familiar. However what was truly shocking was the accommodation!
The university employs no cleaners so the students move into dorms that have not been cleaned since the last lot of students left in June. An individual dorm has two solid wooden bunk beds opposite one another and two long desks that run the length of the dusty room. There is a bathroom but I did not go in. The bunk beds are made from large hunks of Pale untreated wood, mattresses are not provided. Also nobody seemed to bring matresses with them, only large rolls of fabric that reminded me of sleeping bags.
It would seem the student life in China is more akin to camping!
And yet they all seemed ecstatic to be here. There parents ran there fingers through the thick dust and laughed at the work their children must do. One mother even nodded approvingly, apparently impressed with the facilities.
To be honest I experienced some guilt when I returned to my comfortable, now obviously Western style flat and surveyed the simple amenities like a mattress and chair. I remembered how at Hillhead we had thought the people in Hector Boyce and the other less comfortable halls had it bad. Compared to these rooms Hector Boyce was a palace!
So I suddenly have more respect for my students and the fact that to them University is not a holiday camp, but a place for learning, spartan in it's luxuries!
I also somehow think less of myself knowing that if I had turned up to Aberdeen and found accommodation like this I would have turned around and left, education be damned!
- comments
Nicola Hogg I love your blog! So interesting and you write so well! X IAIN: Thank you Nicola you always were my favourite!
Rob Hardie Hey Iain, I agree with Nicola, this is all a very interesting read! Just wondering, when you give the English lessons, do those students already have a grasp of basic English, and if not, how do you teach them if you barely know any Chinese? Always wondered how these things work... Hey Bert editing your post seems to be the only way to respond to you directly and I cannot access Facebook over here! BOO! Anyway, the students have a very basic grasp of English, approximately the same as an average GCSE German/French student in the UK. It is my job to teach them how to use that in circumstances outside of the classroom. For example my first class (on the 6th) will be on introductions. I am going to do a part in person, phone and email. Basically it is all about drilling the information until it is second nature. It is easier than it sounds and according to the other teachers here they just wing it most of the time. I will teach approximately 18 hours a week, so not all that much! And the wages are very high for China! If you have the inclination it is surprisingly easy to do.