Yunnan Stories 云南故事

Three Lis are three students whose last names are Li. Have I mentioned before that there are extra many Li-surnamed people here in Honghe? Just in my class the Lis make up nearly half, most of whom belong to Hani(哈尼)ethnic group. Really, nine out of ten people you meet in the streets are surnamed Li. From the angle of history and georgraphy, it is not hard to explain given that Li in itself is popular family name and that Honghe is relatively of a backwater.

The three Lis I’ll talk about are from one place called Shitouzai or literally Stone Village, which is 2 hours on bus plus 4 hours on foot from the county town where they go to school. A great number of students here have to rent rooms either inside or outside of the compus because the school dorms are far from enough. The rooms, varying in monthly rent from 30-50 RMB per person, are basically very ridiculously small—–2 by 3 meters at the most, which squeezes at least 2 students with a desk between their beds. It is not unusual that 3-4 students share such a cramped room, with 2 bunk beds.

The Three Lis, living next to our courtyard, are three sunshine boys. Their given names are Zhengzhou(literally,integrated and considerable), Tianxiang(Literally, fly in the sky) and Yangguang(literally, sunshine)from senior grade two, one and Junior grade three respectively. I didn’t know they are living in compus until the other day I stumpled into Tianxian( my student)carrying a bucket to fetch water from the public water station 5 minutes away. Asked him why bother and he replied that there were no water pipes connected to his dorm. Needless to say , he with his mates have since then become our daily visitors, washing clothes or even taking showers in our courtyard. Besides, I keep an open house to them and vise versa. As their friend, I will share my goodies with them if there are and ask them to feel free to consult me over English. Yet, what they fancy most is the 2 hours I have promised them to play QQ on my labtop at weekends. At that point, I, dealing with a large pile of laundry or homework, could feel they are the happiest kids in the world. After all, they are in the most lively ages between 15 and 17. Unfortunately ,they are all forced and trained to act like bookworms, with little time to have fun except hitting the dull books. Only from their excitenment with the QQ do I find they don’t look like nerds any more, about which I don’t know I should be happy or sad.

I often visit their dorm, which is let by a teacher who has moved to a new flat in the town. The first time of seeing them was unforgetable, reminding me of 15 years back when I leased a room with another buddy during the Gaokao(高考) countdowns. The similarities: intense studing atmosphere with books after books everwhere. The defferences: more cramped with little room to turn around your body, two bunk beds with the fourth berth as a luggage rack, two small desks filling almost all the rest space, one of which is even shared by two kids sitting face to face. Without places for putting chairs, the kids have to sit on the bed edges and so has every guest unless he would rather stand. I noticed there were some jars under the beds and asked what were they used for. They looked a little embarrassed first and then said they were for storing pickles, which could save them a sum of money from meals. Later I also learnt that they normally stayed at school until a semester was over. Asked them why and was given two reasons—-#1,They didn’t want to waste the 10- yuan bus fair.#2, The going-home thing was too troublsome to them, one way alone would take 6 hours on the way AND the school has ONLY Sunday off AND the Sunday evening class must be attended.

That is only the story from my first vist to their dorm, and in the following days, I just find there are too many things worthy of writing about the three Lis. Here I name only one example. Last Monday evening, Tianxiang was absent from the class and someone said he was ill. I headed to his place as soon as the 9:30 Pm- ring went off, which was finishing time of the evening study. His door half open and the light on, I found he was sitting at desk doing maths problems with a cap on his head. Turned out, he had a bad fall the day before and his eyelid was swollen plus he happened to catch a cold so he didn’t go to the classroom. Later his two mates came and said they had took him to the clinic and the doctor said there was nothing serious and more rest was suggested. I fetched some cold pills for Tianxiang and asked him to rest early. Probably around 12 pm, awoken with a start by a nature call, I jumped from my bed into the courtyard and found their window was still bright. Only then did I know they meant serious when they said in the past that they never hit the sack before 12 pm. I know there are too many resons why they have to study excessively such as endless homework and eagerness to get rid of the humble fate.Good luck, three Lis and the like.

By the way, the three Lis mentioned last time to me that how beautiful their hometown was and warmly invited me to have a look in person some day. Since then I have been looking forward to the day but have no idea when I could eventually make it. Maybe I will have to wait until summer holidays. And I really wanna experience ,just as what the three Lis said ,what it would be like running along the mountain ranges&paths in 4 straight hours just in order to make it to home or bus station before sunset!

Today I observed another fellow’s lesson. A newbie as he is,his passion and vitality is what I pretty much envy. Counting him in, I have sitted in on no less than 10 teachers’classes up to now.It is beyond doubt that I have learnt a lot from these observations.

In gerneral, you need make a special appointment with the teacher you wanna observe. It’s also ok you go to his or her office during the break between 2 classes—-Normally, they agree on the spot.These teachers are just so amiable,easy-going and confident－－－more than glad to show their authentic and natrual teaching styles. Nevertheless, they are rather modest,insisting you should leave some advice after the class ended. Through this blog,I wanna make a review of the lessons observerd in the past 3 months.

The fellows I observed were more than meticulous in imparting their knowledge, not only orally but also on the chalkbord. Occasionally,they cracked a reserved joke to liven up the tedious class. Most of them had the relaxing expressions and soft eye contacts with the students. "Any questions?" is the sentence I heard the most in the observations.

The students. Yes, the students were the most attentive in the world. Especially the girls. Hitting the books means almost everything to them. According what I saw, these lovely and honest kids kept joting and joting for fear they would miss any single word.Infrequently, sporadic responses were heard, which was probably the only interaction.

Yes, it was far from an interactive or dinamic classroom, bringing me to 20 years back—–shockingly familiar. Basically,there is no communication in classes between teachers and students, nor was there  among the students themselves. Maybe the teaching pattern was suitble for the local situation.That’s why in such atmosphere, I didn’t see the expected boredom but their hunger for learning.They were just so easy to please—–All too often,a silght digression from teachers was enough to relax or stimulate these lovely kids.

To top that off, I made a rough estimation about TWO TIMES in the clasrooms—one is the speaking-english time and the other is student-speaking time in a 40-minute class. The former was around 10 minutes,of which 99% was spent in reading aloud the materials. The latter was miserablely little 5 minutes or so, of which nearly zero was speaking English in the real sense. To be a teacher-centered class or a student-centerd class, that’s a question.The both are hard.

That said, I am by no means targeting something or somebody in this post cause I DO have the same problem here. Instead, I respect my fellow teachers and their teaching strategies. I like the local kids and their never-ending fighting moral. I only wanna seek a possibillty on how to hit two birds with a stone. That is, can we make our students smarter in learning English, in a more efficient way?

At last,Li(the student mentioned in the previous post) came over at noon and we had a good talk.

To break the ice, I expressed my apprieciation to his wishes of helping share his family’s burden by wishing to work early at the expense of dropping out of school.  Once anxiety relieved, he was more willing to accept my explanation that he was not truly responsible neither for his family nor himself because quiting school is as much as killing the goose that lays the golden egg, abasolutely a foolish act.

As for the diploma thing, my analysis goes like this: The whole nation and society would be in disorder if diplomas could be issued irresponsiblly as what he imagined. Such certificates would be two a penny and such practice would be a grave crime. After hearing that, Li felt embarrassed for his requirement was purely ludicrous.

Anyway, Li is a poor kid whose situation is worth pitying. So I assure him that he just feels free to ask me for help to catch up with the class. And it’s beyond question that I will give him special favor on his schoolwork. Lastly, I sent him 200yuan,asking him to buy a mp3 to practise English listening because in my computer is stored a lot useful materials.

Li was silent throughout the talk except nodding once in a while but it was definetely a successful heart-to-heart communication. His smile of contentment said all itself. I just felt he was quite another man when he left my dorm.

Today, I recieved a strange letter after class. No sooner I was to leave the classroom than Li (better not reveal his identity here)ran over and handed me this sheet of paper. Astonished and rather upset at the moment of reading it and I am now still in denial. Mainly two unexpected things. One is that he wanna quit school, the other is more ridiculous—–he wishes me to get him a graduate certificate!

Here are Li’s reasons: 1)He together with his younger-and-brighter brother comes from a one-parent family and wants to reduce his mom’s unbearable financial burden. His mom, without steady income, just finds it too hard to support two kids’education at the same time and agrees to his idea of dropping out. 2)He finds it too tough to catch up with the class because of his too weak foundation in the junior stage. Therefore, he concludes it is just a waste of time and money to continue staying in school since there is almost no hope of going to college. 3)He thinks a high school diploma will help land a job, and assumes that a deploma is easily obtainable even the student in question doesn’t go to school at all as long there is some connection with the ups. 4)He thinks the principal will issue a diploma if I put in some words since the principal is also from Shanghai.

Li’s letter, started with a compliment to my teaching, puts me in an awkward predicament. One thing for sure, I won’t support his idea of quiting school at any cost, and I won’t be naive enough to report his case to the principal,either, becauce the diploma thing is simply out of the question. I know the kid’s practice is too juvenile despite his commendable motivation, but something should be done to save the boy———His family’s burdon should not be his burdon and his confidence in study should be rebuilt. I know it’s easier said than done but what do you think I shall do. Poor kid.( By the way, it’s only the very beginning of Grade One, some two years away from the graduation. )

The student-hit-teacher incident I heard the day before yesterday was proved last night  by Longxing,  who came to my dorm for a shower and  then we chatted for a while. Naturally, our chitchat is never short of the topic of class teaching. He wanted to be the best teacher, buiding the most interactive class. He proceeded and expressed his appreciation to some collegues including Miss Gao for her rapport with the students. I noticed that his eyes twinkled and his face lit up when taking about his students, without a single negative comment. During our chat, an intersting"pressure cooker phenominon"was also touched, related to aforementioned news. It was concerning some inexperienced teachers, who expect too much of their students and turn the class to be a pressure cooker unwittingly. Tragically, the teachers in question , who undertake the thankless task, put all the blames on the students. It’s too late when it explodes.

Young and laid-back as he is, Long possesses all the passions and gets a kick out of being a teacher.  Enlightened and moved from time to time by Longxing, I’ve striken some inspirations which will be useful to English teaching, not harmful to say at the least. In a word, I should continue the student-centered approach, making the class a happy place with more smiles and encouragement. Can’t be careful enough even though there is slim chance of "turning into a pressure cooker". After all, that’s only a bottom line, which  is far far away from your pursuit.

My students have been performing much better than before these days. Nothing else can make me feel happier than that, I suppose.

Just returned from class,grabbed a bread and I began to recollec some details which I think were worth writing. To activate their enthusiam, I made up loads of mini tests. To take the class for example, I wrote some new words on the chalkboard and erazed them very soon, requring my students to spell them correctly. I said, "You are on the best stage for instant memories. I am gonna to test how fast you can memorize a new word."  Their sense of competion being aroused, the class immediatly turned active and productive.  Following generous applause was my timely praises to those winners, and so the whole class lit up. Zhanghua, who rarely listened in the past, was happy as hell when I said, " wow, you are so great! Will you share us some secret to your magic instant memories?". 

Another example was also related to instant memories. I asked them to number each line of a long text shortly after we learnt it. Then they were asked to point out which line contained the several words I said. All this was to further practise their listening and reading in a more amusing mode. The fastest was the winner. These improvisational minitests proved very popular among my students.

I will make up more mini-tests or mini games in the future as long as they are helpful to teaching and learning. And more importantly for me, I like the feel that my students take me not only as a teacher but also a friend.
 

Today, I bought 10 ball-point pens. Guess what I would do. You’ll never figure it out, for I gave them to my students who failed in the English examination they took 4 days ago. I think I have done something meaningful, of which I am proud .   

For the last 2-day weekend, we 6 English teachers worked our butts off  over the a large pile of testpapers, grading, counting, and documenting and so forth. What we got repaid was a depressing  result—the whole 10-class grade’s average was only 55 of the full mark150. You can imagine how poor their Enlish are. In fact, I was told early before that English is the worst subject in Honghe No.1 School. A lot of pressure and I must try my best to live up to their expectation.

The average mark for the class I teach was 58.8, ranking the second place with the margin of 0.5. Like all the other 9 classes, some students show little interest in this course and almost give up because they find it very tough to catch up due to their too weak foundation in the junior stage.

Could see the obvious panic written on their faces when handing out the papers yesterday.  Instead of exerting any more presssure , I underplayed the influnce of the marks by directly analizing the papers in a calm and relaxing mode. I still felt something different should be done immediatly though the two sessions went smooth. The following is what I did today.

Put the pens on the teacher’s desk and said I would reward some students. Guess what? The students with the top marks didn’t seem to pretty much care, let alone the rest. Perhaps they were too used to such situations and the prize was no more than a crappy 5-jiao pen, anyway. What’s the big deal? 

But things didn’t stop there when I said: "This is only 5-jiao but it doesn’t matter only if it writes well. Right?"  I got the first yes.

Next is "I will use it as a gift to those who failed in this exam". They began to wonder.

Third sentence : " This gift is to show my sorry to my flunked students because you have since long ingnored by me, therefore it’s my fault that you didn’t pass this time. "  My flunked students became a little moved.

Fourth : " I will lower the benchmark for pass to 40 given that this exam is too tough because only 30 students out of 500 got the mark 90 or more. "   Those "still flunked yesterday" couldn’t get more excited  because they "passed" the exam maybe for the first time.  They lost a pen but they have found confidence!  

Last word is to those all who " have passed" : "Do you mind my rewarding my flunked students?"  I got the happy and the only "NO" with the loudest from those who were still failures yesterday.

The next 1 minute was a brief rewarding ceremony taking place in the aplause.

This works like a charm, at least temporally. I like to see my students’s confidence to be boosted rather than undermined.

This is a park-alike compus, really gorgeous. Eveyone I suppose would suspect they must have entered a senic resort when coming here for the first time. Really fantastic, with big trees, huge mountains all around, exquisite pavolion,and the MOST magic feel–like you are amounting the highest peak.

The first sentence I said to my first class here is " wow, you have got the most jealous seneries " . It was just from my bottom heart. You’ll see my feeling when standing in my classroom. Outside of the windows are huge emerant mountains covered by huge wifting clouds–absolutely a natural living Chinese painting.

In fact, the seneries here are ubiquitous, contantly changing on every turn. Our school is situated on a hilltop, which enables us look very far. On top of that, the air quality is unbelievably perfect and the sky is intoxicatingly blue. The other day, I asked a local about the distance from the opposite mountain and was told it would be a half day by bus. So unimmaginable cause I could see the villages!

Just imagine the feel of being surrounded by the oncoming clouds when stepping outdoors, the feel of strolling around the compus at the dawn, and the feel of enjoying the birds’ singing when lying on your dorm’s bed. No wonder I always suspect if I am here on vacation or at work. It’s just so amazing

Time flies! Half semester has unnoticably slipped away before I realize that it’s now high time to blog some stuff for future’s memories. The past 2 months is , after all, way too busy and eventful to me,who had been dreaming of stepping onto this magic soil of Yunnan one day. 

Now I am in a classsroom, watching the students sitting their first full-scale exams of their senior high school stage. They, aged around 16, are mostly from poverty-stricken areas, which could be easily told from their plain clothes, swarthy compexion and especially how they value the  tests.  Basically,these good-as-gold kids would all sit out every 2-hour-long exam,wasting no time and trying their best to achieve every single possible score. They wanna live up to their hard-earned tuition fee and opportunity of further study.

Seeing this, I, as a volunteer from the relatively-developed coastal cosmopolitan city , cannot help but recalling my Shanghai students and sharing some views here. you’ll never know what a spoiled and previleged life you are living .However, it is saddening that many of you ,addicted to net games, are not in the slightest awarenese of the fact there are still considerable number of your peers here in Yunnan who don’t even know how to use computers. Ironically, you spare no effort indulging yourselves in the other extreme– virtual cyber space. In actuality,I like to "monitor“(or "acompany", more actually) these Yunnan kids during their exams, for there is almost no bother worring if they copy or cheat .Cheating here is still a rarity and regarded as a shame rather than a "pride" somewhere else.

So what i am doing during the two hour is nothing but handing out papers on time and then  awaiting them to hand in on time. In between is just my apprieciation of their hard work and accasionally the outwindow’s beautiful seneries ,which are mainly made up by the lavishly green rolling mountains. Therefore,invigilation here is no longer a gut-wrenching close watch but simply one of my alternative relaxations .