new school year!

just started the new school year last week. i have 2 new schools and 2 old schools, so its a good mix of new and old students. a few of my old students must have been taking english classes all summer because now some of their spoken english is rockin! it's nice to see the improvement. also, one of my very naughty students in one of my worst classes from last year decided to become the teacher's pet this semester which was a pleasant surprise, although i don't really trust his motivations. we were playing hangman, and he insisted on clearing the board for me after each round, although that also meant that i couldn't get him to sit back in his seat afterwards and stop shouting letters at me. i guess not that much has changed...

my new school today was a refreshing experience- the classes are SMALL, like 25-30 kids each and the kids were most behaved i have ever seen here. part of the reason they were so well-behaved is probably because i am a major resource for them. according to the chinese english teacher there, the school is not a 'priority school' as decided by the local dalian government, so they are allocated less foreign english teachers (my company is part of this government program). some schools i teach at have foreign english teachers in grades 2-6, but this school only has an english teacher for grade 6. by priority school, i think they basically mean a school with rich parents :( it's unfortunate, because the english level at this small school is definitely low and the kids are less confident with their oral english. it's funny how in america our idea of a priority school would be the complete opposite...

the teacher was woefully comparing the small school to another school i teach at down the street which is a priority school but the funny thing is that i really dislike that other school. the teachers are unfriendly and unhelpful, the kids are the worst behaved, and the english teachers have sub-par english! the teacher i met today at this 'bad school' had far better english than any other english teacher i've encountered so far. she also attended my classes and was genuinely helpful.

although, sometimes when people are paying too much special attention to you it can be strange as well. upon meeting my students for the first time at the small school, the english teacher informed me that one of the students was an excellent singer and was very famous in dalian. i was just like oh that's great! chinese people seem to like to brag that things close/related/associated with them are famous in china so i never know what to think. however, she proceeded to make him stand up in front of his class and sing a song for me. i don't know how he felt about that (he didn't really have a choice but to comply so he didn't complain) but it seemed a little much to make him do that on his first class ever with a foreign teacher! after he was done, i heard her tell him to then re-sing the song in english, which definitely made his eyes widen a little, but lucky for him the bell rang. he did have a very nice voice though :)

my takeaway- they take these school rankings and such really seriously here. although there are many, many, outliers, as a whole, i think it really changes the student and teacher psyche for the worse.