Today was my first day of classes here. Since the freshmen are having their military training, I only have two classes this week – my sophomore writing classes. The day was fairly non-descript. I introduced myself to the students and had them introduce themselves to me to get a since of their English skills and also had them write a self-introduction to assess their writing skills.
This time of year is usually my favorite. The first day of school is filled with promise and possibility! Plus, I get really excited about going back to school shopping. This year, however, was different. I did not go back to school shopping and the day seemed to pass by without any sort of pomp or flair like it usually does back home. Perhaps the difference is that now I am teaching at a university, but before I was teaching at high/middle school.
I was a little surprised by my students. Growing up we had always heard about how diligent the Asian students were in their studies and how eager they were to learn. (I think this was usually told to us by our teachers to motivate us to behave and study harder.) Anyway, most of my students told me that they were lazy and had poor English. They were at least honest, but a bit disappointing, because it didn’t seem like they cared to do much to improve their English. I realized today that many (not all, but some) of my students are not so different from my students in America.
After my class, I met two of the other foreign teachers here. They have both been at the school for a while, so it was nice to talk with them and to get some insight into their experiences teaching here. There are only two female teachers on campus this year (a lady from Canada – I’ll call her “Mo” – and me), so it was nice to meet her and get to know a little about her. We went out to eat for dinner with one of her students and met some other students that are from here, but are studying in other provinces.
Continue to meditate on relationships that might be built between my students and me.
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