You're the teacher now

I had my first class today! A section of thirteen sophomore English majors. I wanted to focus mainly on introductions so they could get to know me and me them. With this in mind, I had a bunch of fun group games and activities lined up.

For the first, I explained to them what “pulling your leg” is. (One of many idioms the textbook wants me to teach.) I then told them they could ask me a question and I would answer with the truth or a lie. They then had to guess in groups whether I was “pulling their leg” or not. Every time they guessed correctly, their team got a point. They seemed to enjoy this, and one of the first questions I got was, “Are you married?” The next was (not quite in question form), “Well, you must have a boyfriend!” When I said,”I do!” they quickly decided, “That’s true!” and would not be convinced otherwise. They also thought I was 26, which I have decided to take as a compliment. The game wound down when one of the boys figured out he could get his team easy points and started asking me things like, “What is your name?” I may have some trouble with this one...

I quickly regained their attention with a PowerPoint with pictures of my house, school, family, etc. I have never, ever, held such rapturous attention from a group, and doubt I ever will again. I used it to explain all of the great things that come from Chicago (some of which I hadn’t even known until I looked it up the night before): Walt Disney, McDonald’s, the Ferris wheel, etc. Watch out New York, the conversion of China into Chicago-lovers has commenced.

Next I asked them to do an activity that involved interviewing a partner to find out three things they had in common and then presenting their interview to the class. I had already learned at this point to assign partners so they wouldn’t chat with their friends in Chinese. It turns out the learning curve for teaching ESL is very quick. Some groups used this activity to show off their senses of humor (or their sarcastic sides, it was hard to tell). One conversation went:

Student A: “Hello, where are you from?”

Student B: “I am from Anhui, where are you from?”

Student A: “Oh, I am not from Anhui, I am from Jiaxing. Look, we are both from China!”

Another pair went through several questions, answering with comically opposite answers until finally one asked, “What is your favorite fruit?”, and before his partner could answer shouted, “Mine too!” Not quite the intention of the activity, but bonus points for creativity.

As a final small group project, an idea from my dad that went really well and I hope to repeat everyday, I showed them a unique photograph and asked them to come up with a story behind it to present to the class. Here is today’s photo:

Many stories were simple, involving a man who wanted to learn to fly. One hilarious version included a tiger chasing a man at a picnic who had to jump over hay to save his family. I was impressed that this particular group even memorized their lines. There was an especially insightful description that made this activity particularly worthwhile and went beyond what I was expecting:

“The man named A’Gan, he is a little foolish but he has a wonderful goal. He practices running fast day by day and hopes one day he could become a spiderman to save the world. He lives in a not so peaceful world, where has lots of wars, fires, drugs and so on. Good for him.”

Here’s to a (mostly) successful first class!