Emily vs. the English Book

• Guavamama's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Kaifeng

Trip Start Aug 24, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Jul 04, 2008 Next
Entry

  Kaifeng, China
Monday, September 17, 2007

    When I first found out my teaching assignments a couple of weeks ago, I was really excited.  I wasn't stuck teaching first-year writing, a subject I was told was so impossible to teach that I should threaten to quit as soon as it was assigned to me.  I figured that third-year writing would be a good fit for me and my writing background and that I could have a lot of fun teaching the subject.  That is, until I met Liu Wei, the bane of my existence.
    On the first day of classes, as I shuffled into the classroom twenty minutes early, I was shocked to be greeted by a sea of patiently waiting students. All of the nervousness I had been feeling on the walk over vanished as it was quickly replaced by confusion.
    "Uh, is this third-year college English writing?" I asked, slightly weirded out that I was so early, but apparently late at the same time.
    "Oooooooh," a bunch of my students said, all nodding their heads and giggling nervously.  (Sidenote: I'm not being stereotypical when I describe the Asian 'Oh.'  I recently learned that there is a character for that 'Oh.' One with a rising tone to denote happiness, and one with a falling tone to denote sadness.  So it's not politically incorrect to talk about it.)
    "Oh, good. I just wanted to make sure," I said looking at all of my students.  "Wait, is everyone here already?"
    "Yes," said a girl in the front, who I soon learned was named Wendy.  "We're all here, teacher."
    "Oh..."  I had no idea what to do.  I just wanted to get to the classroom early so I knew that I was in the right room and to be able to write my name on the board and various other pieces of contact information before my students got there.  And now it was 9:50 a.m. and class didn't start until 10:10 and no one was talking.
    After several failed attempts at initiating conversation with my students and then standing around awkwardly for ten minutes, pretending to be enthralled in the textbook, I just decided to hell with it, this class is going to start early. 
    I quickly figured out a couple of things.  Holy cow, I talk fast.  Within two seconds my students looked lost and a brave student asked me to talk slower, gaining the eternal gratitude and love of her surrounding classmates.  Also, it's normal and expected for students to arrive early.  To this day there is still that awkward five minute lull when everyone is ready to start class but it's not time yet.  It's the worst part of my day.  And then most importantly and most tragically, I found out that my students don't know what a thesis statement is.  And I was floored.
    "So what do you need to have in a good, coherent and well-structured English essay?" I asked imploringly of my students as they just looked at me like I was crazy.  I could tell they were all thinking, "What? English having structure? But it's all about freedom and individuality and objectivity!" (This is something that a student told me while we were having a conversation discussing the difference between Chinese and English essays.  Again, something I wasn't expecting.)
    "What's the one thing, or should I say sentence, that is needed to give your paper direction and a focus?"  I asked again, slightly confused as to why no one was jumping at the chance to answer.
    "A thesis statement?" I asked, answering my own question while simultaneously writing it on the board thinking that maybe they just couldn't understand my accent, which isn't out of the realm of possibilities.  As I turned around I literally faced every single one of my students in the room cocking their head to the side and saying "thesssssisss staaaatement."  
    "If you know what this is, or if the name sounds familiar, just raise your hand.  I just want to see how many people have heard the name 'thesis statement' before," I said hoping hoping hoping.
    Nobody raised their hand.
    And this isn't their fault.  My students are smart.  I know they are capable of thinking, analyzing and processing.  I've seen them do it when we talk informally outside of class at English Corner and a lot of the times in class, when they challenge conventions about English and Chinese writing.  Most of them are willing to bend many social and political rules and disregard traditional social conventions.  Sure, they don't wreak havoc on any system or blatantly disregard the rules all the time, but I don't want anyone to think that just because Chinese people live, work and learn in a certain environment that they cannot think for themselves.  And I really admire my students.  They are writing and discussing ideas not only in an entirely foreign language but also in a foreign alphabet.  And to boot, most of their handwriting is neater than a lot native-English speakers I know.  This is one of the reasons why I'm frustrated when the book I have to teach from is mostly wrong and confusing.  And I can't really do anything about it because the guy who wrote it is Max's teaching partner, Liu Wei.
    The thesis statement's definition in the book is great and it's correct.  Except that the definition isn't stressed after it's introduced. The examples are.  But every single time the book gives an example of what a thesis statement is, it's giving an example of what should be a topic sentence.  Most of the statements barely give the attitude towards the topic or any sort of organizational form.  And more often, the thesis statements are basically just blanket statements in the form of commands than they are any type of explorative statement that sets up an intellectual argument.  So now I have 120 students who are writing topic sentences for thesis statements.  And I'm not really sure I can change that.  I don't want to teach them something that is wrong, but at the same time, I don't want to teach them something that when they stop having me as a teacher next year will be considered wrong by Liu Wei.  And that could affect if they graduate or not.  And this is on top of all of the other grammatical and spelling mistakes in an English book.
    So I've been exacting my revenge on the book and on Wei slowly and innocently.  Today when I was explaining primary, secondary and tertiary sources and which ones are best to use in a research paper I used an idea from his book to illustrate the example.  I created a hypothetical situation where my students all of a sudden decided that they hated me. They started throwing books at me and kicking me. 
    "We'd be primary sources.  Then, after class I would go home crying and tell Erin (their Advanced English teacher) about how you guys hit me with books.  Erin is a secondary source.  The primary and secondary sources are the best sources to use because they are close to the actual event or research and can be believable.  Now, imagine that Erin was having a casual conversation with Liu Wei and told him what happened.  Now, he might interpret the situation or story differently.  So the next time he sees someone he might add to the story that you guys, the students, are all crazy crack addicts and you started beating me up because you wanted to steal my money to buy drugs.  He's a tertiary source because the information has already passed through two people and the story is starting to change.  Tertiary sources are not good sources to use for research papers."
    As my students were filing out of the classroom to go to lunch, a student asked me a question about how much research she had to do during the week.  After I answered her question, I asked her what kind of sources she needed to look for just to make sure that the lesson hit home.
    "Primary if they exist for the topic and secondary sources," she said.  "And if I see any Liu Wei's, I'll throw them out."
   "Good," I said, smiling.
  

Print this entry Share Kaifeng hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry