Tales From The Classroom 4

So this is the latest in my long running series 'tales from the classroom', if four can be considered 'long running'... As ever, this blog will feature some (hopefully) funny stories and the ever popular section on student names!

My third semester as a foreign English teacher would see me teaching grade 5's! A prospect that I wasn't looking forward to. Grade 5 students are aged between 10 and 11 years old, and as you can imagine as pre-teens they are a little harder to deal with than the younger grades. Although one thing that I did like about teaching them was that with their English being at a higher level (having been learning it for 5 years) they were better equipped to hold conversations with me.

Teaching Grade Five provided a new challenge as well as many laughs

With a more extensive vocabulary mixed with preadolescence, swearing was inevitably going to play a role in my lessons, for some reason though my own 'effing and jeffing' didn't go down well with the Chinese teachers. Only joking of course, it was the kids that would swear, not me and this would generally happen when my back was turned and of course with a class of 40+ students, it would be impossible to hone in on who had uttered the profanity! The most popular words would appear to have been 'sh*t' and 'f*ck', often 'slipping out' whenever a student got the wrong answer to one of my questions or lost points in a game we were playing. For those unlucky few I did manage to catch swearing, I would attempt to find a way to embarrass them in from of their mates. Embarrassing a kid is not that hard really, you can make it simple by reminding them you are in charge and getting them to 'stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down' etc a few times or you can try asking their name and calling them a girls name, in the case of a boy. For example - "whats your name?" "my name is Alan", "ok, Ellen, stop swearing and sit down", ok so it might seem like immature humour to you or I, but kids are immature by nature so they'd often find it hilarious!

As always, I had my favourites. One such student was a girl called Cici, the reason for her becoming a favourite was that despite her class were perhaps the worst behaved in the grade, she would always pay attention. While no-one in her class would listen to anything I had to say, most preferring to do homework, read a comic or chat amongst themselves amongst other hi-jinx! Cici would be sat listening to my every word and attempting to answer every question posed. Almost every week she would make me laugh with some comment or other, here are a couple that stand out. One week, just as the lesson was due to start one boy in her class started to have a temper tantrum, throwing books, pens and chair around the classroom before throwing his desk at an unsuspecting classmate. The school counselor and a Chinese English teacher were on hand to defuse the situation but while all this chaos was going on, Cici called me over to her desk and said to me "teacher, that boy is different to the rest of the class, he is like Ralph Wiggum from The Simpsons" Haha, a great reference I thought. Another time, she called me over just before class and asked me what my favourite colour was, "black, brown maybe" I answered, "what's yours?", "I like blue she said", I laughed as she was sat there wearing a pink t-shirt, jeans with pink patches and trim plus pink trainers, even her pencil case was pink! "I think you like pink Cici!" I said, "No! Its my mother, she always buys me pink" she replied through gritted teeth.

Another favourite was a girl called Ive, who I would often call upon to give answers during classes as she would almost always have her hand up. But one day, I decided to only pick on students who didn't have their hand up. Ive seemed quite perplexed as to why I was constantly overlooking her, and perhaps in her frustration decided to try and win favour with me by shouting, "why? Why won't you pick me? Please pick me Daniel, you are so handsome, you are such a handsome man, please pick me!" but flattery got her no where and I continued to ignore her, well until the next question when the narcissist in me let her have a go.

Me and Ive, the student who called me a 'handome man', she has good taste

As ever, some of the names I came across this semester made me laugh. One of my favourite names had to be Snoopy! Though all of his classmates referred to him as Stupid. I had two students called Happy, one male and one female. In one class, I had a couple of boys, one called Somebody, the other was Someone. Last year, I taught a lad called Harry Potter, you may remember me mentioning him, well this time I had a girl called Hermione Granger! In another class, I taught a boy called KFC and his mate, who had named himself after national TV channel, CCTV. One of the grade 3 students I taught went by the name Smart, which was quite ironic as he really wasn't. I taught one girl called Panda, which I am surprised I have not come across more often, considering they are a national symbol and the kids love them! I also taught a boy known as Egg and his best mate, Vegetable. And one kid I taught for the whole semester and referred to as Robert, turned out to actually be called Robot!

Me with Egg and Vegetable, two of the most 'interesting' names in Grade Five

You may remember from my last blog post that during the semester, I had my wisdom tooth extracted. As fate would have it, that week the school had me teaching the kids about dentists and teeth! It was during these classes that I noticed something that Chinese English students say, in the absence of vocabulary, I assume. I wanted to get a discussion going with the grade 5 students on going to the dentist, I posed the question "Do you like or dislike going to the dentist?", for those who didn't like the dentist, they had no problems providing a satisfactory reason as to why - 'its scary', 'he will hurt me' and 'it smells funny' were all popular answers. However, a common sentence for those who are favour of visits to the dentist was "I like going to the dentist because it is interesting". Not something you'd expect a native speaker to say, though I would love to hear someone tell me that they like eating pizza, 'because it is interesting'.

So as previously mentioned in this blog, I taught a student called Somebody. Somebody was something of a know it all, often putting his hand up to correct me on different topics, that was until one day when he decided to ask the question 'why?'. The topic up for discussion that day was the differences between the northern and southern hemisphere. I explained that during the summer months in northern hemisphere countries such as China, USA and Great Britain, it is hot, whereas in the southern hemisphere it is their winter and it is cold. Somebody's hand went straight up, "Why?" he asked. "Good question" I answered and not being too sure of the actual answer offered up a possible explanation, "maybe the northern hemisphere is slightly closer to the Sun, but I don't know". "Why don't you know?" he asked, "well I went to school a long time ago..." was my reply, "Why?" he asked again, "Why what?" I said, attempting to control my increasing frustration at his repetitive questioning. "Why don't you remember?" he rephrased his question, "Because I just don't, OK?" I told him before turning back to the class to ask for more differences they might know of. Somebody is one of the most annoying students I have come across, though this particular incident aside, he does actually know everything there is to know about the world, which I am sure makes him very popular with his classmates!

Another 'interesting' young man, was a student who went by the name Julian. Although a little odd, he loved all the foreign teachers and luckily for him, his classroom was located right next to the 'Foreign Teacher's Office' and more often than not he would be stood in the corridor as me and my colleagues walked to and from classes. He would always say, "Hi Sir!" often following his greeting with either, "I have missed you!" or "give me a high five!" to which I never have! Nice enough lad, just a little odd...

Me and Julian, the boy determined to get a 'high five' from me

From time to time I will be shown up by one of my students. During a game in which I list all the letters A-Z on the board and give the class a subject to which they then have to think of something that starts with each letter. In this particular lesson the topic was countries. The first letter was A, a kid popped up their hand and suggested America, to which I replied, "Sorry, there is no country called America, you mean the United States of America, that starts with a U!" after my pedantic over-ruling, we agreed on Australia, Brazil was chose for B and then someone offered up China for C. As I was writing it up on the board, a student shouted "But teacher, there is no country called China! You mean the People's Republic of China, which starts with a P!" In the end, we agreed that I was right and China was accepted as a correct answer - he who holds the chalk, holds the power. Chinese proverb? No, but it should be.

In the final week with the Grade 5's, I wanted to have a fun lesson with them as they would not have any foreign teacher classes in Grade 6 so I felt a slight responsibility to deliver a class they'd remember. We played games and I handed out some Chupa Chups (other lollipops are available) and at the end of the lesson, I had some photos taken with the students. What happened next though in a few of the classes, took me by surprise, some of the students asked me for my autograph, either on a piece of paper or in their English books, though one student asked me to sign his badminton racket cover. Though I was happy to oblige most of their requests, when asked for my personal phone number I just simply said "Oh sorry, I don't have a phone.." Yes that's right, I lie to children, how do I sleep at night? Quite comfortably as I don't have dozens of phone calls of random Chinese kids keeping me up!

I enjoyed teaching Grade 5 in the end, there were some real characters and I am sure I'll bump into a few of them around the school during the next couple of semesters, maybe I'll even give in to Julian and agreed to the 'high five' he always asked for....