You say potato, I say Yeruhly

I only teach like, 4 hours a week. I had been told that it would be 8 hours, but that's China. Since I'm teaching this class from scratch, and since this is my 1st time teaching, I've had to put a lot of work into it, despite the few paid hours. So I've talked a lot about my class here, though realistically it's not that much of my day-to-day life here. Anyway.

I had a KILLER lesson plan for the topic of racism, but it didn't go over too well. During break, a few students explained that everyone was quiet when I asked questions because they "didn't know how to express themselves." This is pretty interesting and indicative of the Chinese learning system. Basically, Chinese teachers emphasize "what," while Americans emphasize "why." If I ask them what they think of communism, they will no doubt recite a few quotes perfectly. "Chairman Mao says..." or "Confucius says..." but it's very difficult to get an original idea out of them. In much of the same way, when I ask questions with answers that require a bit of thought, students are slow to answer (if they do at all). Even if they have an original idea, it makes them very uncomfortable to throw thoughts out there. Being wrong, especially in front of the class, is super embarrassing, and "I don't know" is a more acceptable response than a wrong answer in a Chinese classroom. They explained to me, "In China, we have a saying. The first bird ahead of the flock is the one to get shot (or something)." I responded, "In the U.S., we have a saying. The early bird gets the worm." I explained that Americans emphasize the process, not so much the final answer, so I didn't care what they said as long as they tried. I think it kind of went over their heads.

So I tossed the racism discussion, and the next class I had a very boring lesson plan, "what to do in a restaurant," and everyone acted out various skits on the subject. SO BORING but they ate it up (no pun intended). To entertain myself, I told them that each skit must include kumquat, usually, guacamole, psychic, monkey, and a few other funny words. I tried to explain that some words just sound funnier than others, and though they nodded their heads in agreement, they couldn't think of a funny Chinese word. Usually is very difficult for them, and even among "fluent" speakers I almost always hear "yer-uh-ly." I broke it down in class and after about 10 minutes, some students looked up at me, smiles on their faces, convinced they'd get it right this time, and still shouted, "yeruhly!"

Also, I had to clarify what guacamole is, which was surprisingly difficult since they didn't know what an avocado was, either (I went with "kind of like peanut butter, kind of like jam, we eat it with Mexican food. Not a dish, a spread..."). Before I could finish explaining, everyone was trying out the first syllable for themselves. "Gwak, gwak, gwak, gwak, gwak." Multiple times I've seen Chinese people trying to pronounce a word that is unfamiliar to them. They say the first syllable a few times, always out loud, and then try their hand at the whole word. Without fail, every time it reminds me of this:


You know, I've been a little annoyed that my Chinese teacher sometimes laughs when we try to pronounce things, but I totally get it now.