First few days of teaching

Yesterday was our first day getting to meet our students. It was pretty interesting to see the level that they were at compared to back home. My first class was extremely painful, and it was Drama, and the first block of the first day of school. I’m hoping that when I have them in the afternoon today they will open up a little more. My English 11 and 10 classes were a little better. They are all so quiet at the moment, which is way different than when I did my practicum back home. I would compare their English skills between grade 5-8 back home. So they’re pretty low. The worst part of yesterday was our opening ceremonies. They had to play the anthem for China, raise the flag, Canada, and then the school anthem. We were outside in the heat for 50min, which was awful. I was wearing a dress, but the guys all have to wear a suit and tie. People were literally dripping with sweat. I was uncomfortable, I can’t even imagine how the boys were feeling. Everyone had some amazing sweat stains on them coming back into the school.
We went grocery shopping yesterday, and we’ve started trying different snacks that they have here. So far my favourite is these mini waffles, and candy. I’ll probably do the opposite I did on the way here and bring back a bunch of China candy to Canada 
Today was our first full day of classes. I like to get to know my students a little better so we did a get to know you type of activity. So they could get to know me more I answered the same questions I was asking them with a powerpoint slideshow. The best was the opening picture. I put up a picture of mom, dad, dawn and I in front of the Olympic flame. When I explained that this was my family, they had no reaction, then I pointed, this is my sister, my mom and my Dad…then they were all shocked. All three classes that I showed were in awe at the fact that the tall while guy was my father. It was funny. Then there were tons of conversations happening around the class, and I had no idea what any of them were saying. I think this is going to be one of my biggest issues, not being able to understand all of the side conversations that are happening around me in the classroom.

It was a long day today. School starts at 7:40am every morning and the last class ends at 3:40pm. It’s 5:15pm and the office is still full. I think it’s going to be like this a lot. Now I’m happy that we are staying on campus because then we can just walk across the courtyard and plop ourselves on the couch at the end of the day.

Anywho, that is all for now. The weekend is coming up, I’m sure I’ll have more to report on after that.