China's English bubble almost ready to pop

Here's the story:

Last December the employees and students of the Kai En chain of English training centers in Shanghai arrived to their schools to a very rude surprise: After 13 years of operation, one of the oldest and best known English training companies in Shanghai had suddenly gone out of business.

The directors had fled the country, leaving the employees of the five branches owed months of back-wages and customers without refunds for their expensive pre-paid courses.

When looking at this in the context of Chinese and international trends, it could be a preview of things to come for China's English language industry. CLICK TO READ MORE...

I'm on TV in Taiwan

Here it is: My 15 minutes seconds of fame.

A student's poetry

One of my students, a woman my age, wrote the following. It comes from her bittersweet observations of her grandmother's aging process. I think it's a beautiful poem, all the more so since English is not her native language.

     If it could be allowed
     That one body be occupied by two souls--
     I hope the one with beauty, grace, and some kind of humor
     Leaves me first.
     Go ahead, my dear!
     You shouldn't be cooped up in such a body.
     And as for the remaining one
     I will learn to know your sadness.
     Let's begin from "Let me introduce myself."
          --Jessie

Teaching children

I've found that I prefer teaching adults. Perhaps I just need to change my methods...

Now THAT'S how to educate! @ Yahoo! Video

Back home in Humboldt

I saw this strange fruit the other day at Safeway. It's called a Buddha's Hand, and is similar to a large lemon, but without much of a pulp. It's used primarily for its zest, and for perfuming homes and closets in Asia. I was tempted to buy one as a table decoration until I found out the price: $14.95/lb! I'll wait until I'm in Asia.

Life is rolling along. I completed the TESOL course on Februrary 1st. We got together at a nearby bar (The Cellar) and celebrated our graduation. As soon as I can figure out who took photos and how to get a hold of them, I'll post some here. I gained a great deal of valuable teaching skills which I'm looking forward to implementing (as soon as I can get a job!)

BTW, The Celler is next door to a relaxing coffee house, and guess who we saw there? Yep, Mrs. Kevin Bacon.

When Theresa and Amanda picked me up from San Francisco, they surprised me with a trip to the Winchester Mansion in San José. I've wanted to see that crazy lady's house since I was 9 years old, when I first saw pictures of it on my Viewmaster. Let me tell you, after seeing the bizarre house that Nutty Sarah designed herself, you'll feel proud of any poorly designed dog houses you've built in the past.

By the way, I got the Amazon problem resolved. I have reservations about ever buying anything through them myself.

I sent my application to Hess on Monday. They wrote back on Tuesday saying that they're going over applications this month for the June 1st intake, and will be contacting me shortly regarding an interview. I'm very excited, but trying not to get my hopes too far inflated.

I came upon contact information for two people with whom I performed the Rocky Horror show back in the early '80s. Greg played Riff-Raff, and now is a very popular morning DJ in Las Vegas. Bonnie, who played Janet, has a MySpace page, but not too much information on it. I wrote to them both yesterday; we'll see if I get any replies.

The spellcheck isn't working on Blogger for some reason, so just ignore my typos.

Two weeks down, two to go

Wow, this last week has flown by!

This week I felt much more confident student teaching than I did last week. I've been getting good evaluations, and I'm really trying to apply the suggestions that the instructors have been giving. For posterity's sake, here's a list of topics that we've been studying for the past two weeks:

Language Skills: Listening
Organization of a Lesson
Present Tense
Communcative Activities
Language Skills: Reading
Eliciting Techniques
Past Tense
Future Tense
Lesson Planning
Language Skills: Speaking
Perfect Tense
Business English 1
Beginner Grammar
Language Structure: Writing
Error Correction
Modals
Gerunds & Infinitives
Classroom Management
Video Teaching Techniques
Teaching Children 1.

We have teaching practice on Wednesdays and Fridays. Last Friday I taught an interm-adv. level listening class, last Wednesday an interm. reading class, and today an interm-adv. speaking class. The types and levels of lessons are always varied, and we never know who is going to be in our class, so that's a challenge. Fortunately, at this stage we get our assignments at least two days prior to teaching so we have plenty of time to prepare and ask questions.

Lask weekend I took a break from school and wandered all over San Francisco. On Saturday I walked around the Pacific Heights area and located the Mrs. Doubtfire house. I spent quite awhile strolling around that section of town, marveling at the huge 3 and 4 story mansions.

I then headed to the coast to the ruins of the Sutro Baths. So far, this has been my favorite spot in the city. As I was on the lookout, watching the waves crash against the rocks and spraying salt water high into the air, I was listening to Josh Groban sing Gira Con Me Questa Notte. The combination of the beautiful Italian song and the majesty of that spot brought tears to my eyes. This area was featured in the movie Harold and Maude, which was my geeky reason for visiting it.

My next stop was the Haight. Just as I expected, it was full of smoke shops and hippies. Basically, a larger version of Arcata. I made the obligatory stop at Haight & Ashbury and had an ice cream at the Ben & Jerry's on the corner.

On the suggestion of my classmate Peter I next journeyed to Twin Peaks. There are no buses that go up there, so I had a steep 20 minute hike. But it was very much worth it, as the view was stunning. I could see all of San Francisco and across to the East Bay. You can see the spectacular view in the top photo.

After my hike back down, I found a bus stop, but I was confused about how to get back home without taking the long, roundabout route that got me to Twin Peaks. I asked a woman who was getting into her car but she said she didn't know the bus lines. I guess after seeing me trying to figure out the bus stop map she felt sorry for me, because she drove around and offered me a ride to Castro and Market, where I did know how to get back to my hotel. Very nice woman; she even suggested a Vietnamese place on the Embarcadero called The Slanted Door (which turned out to be out of my price range).

Sunday I met one of my goals while in San Francisco: I rode the underground Muni. I took it to the Financial District and got to see the Transamerica Pyramid up close. I also happened to find the Taiwanese Consulate (where I'll be getting my residency visa) right across the street. Next I walked through Chinatown and watched the old men playing go and the old women playing cards in the park. I also got to practice my very rudimentary Mandarin with a kind Taiwanese woman who runs the Sino-American bookstore. She seemed like the typical 大姐 (dàjiĕ - Chinese auntie) I've read about and seen on Sexy Beijing.

I then headed to Coit Tower, another uphill hike but not quite as bad as Twin Peaks. The view was great there also, at least from the parking area. I didn't bother riding up the tower because the line was way too long. And that winds up my adventures last weekend.

Tomorrow is Saturday and, while I should work on a project I'm supposed to do for class (testing a non-native speaker and submitting an evaluation), I may just explore the city some more. Especially if the weather is nice.

My first day student teaching

I loved it, even though I was extremely nervous.

There were five students in the class that I taught: Telek, Jeed, and June from Thailand; Dae Hoon from Korea, and Aki from Japan. They were very nice and very forgiving of us new teachers as we blundered our way through our lessons. Mark, the instructor who evaluated our group, is considered by some to be the "tougher" one; I'm glad I got him because I know his praise and criticism are honest and therefore the most useful for me.

After receiving our evaluations, Stacy, Yang Hae, Ik Joo, Maya, Junie, and I found a pub and toasted our first day of teaching. Maggie and Peter had other plans or they would have come too. I feel bad that I didn't see Len, Jared, Jandie, or Lily after class or we would have invited them also. Keiko wasn't in class today.

I wanted to post pictures in this and in the last entry too, but they won't upload to blogger for some reason. I'll have to try later.

I'm fairly certain that I won't be bogged down with homework or lesson planning this weekend, so I should have free time to explore the city. Too bad I don't have any money. I do have an unlimited Muni pass, so maybe I'll just explore the free sites (and bring a peanut butter sandwich for lunch). My roommate Fernando will probably want to go too. Do I dare introduce him to the Castro?

I left my heart...

I finished my second day of TESOL training today, and tomorrow is our first day of practice teaching. I'm looking forward to it, although, of course, I'm nervous. Hopefully after this first hurdle I'll be a bit more confident. This evening I agonized over my lesson plan for this first, dinky 15 minute lesson that's primarily meant to get our feet wet. I know that it was overkill, but I so want to be a good teacher.

I'm enjoying my stay in San Francisco. I'm staying at the Kenmore Hotel, which you can see to the right. It's a 'residence inn', which is like a cross between a hotel and a youth hostel. I don't have to use a bathroom down the hall, but I do have a roommate. He's a medical student from Brazil named Fernando, who's here for a month taking an English conversation course. His English is actually quite good; he's very funny, which is difficult in a foreign language. Breakfast and dinner are provided here, but there are no TV's or really any other "luxuries" in the rooms.

I haven't had much time to explore the city. My class is over at 4:30pm, and I have to be back at the hotel between 5:30 and 7:00pm if I want dinner. Since teaching practice is on Wednesdays and Fridays, it looks like I'll have the weekends to look around town.

I really meant to write more in this post, but it's 11:30pm and I need to go to bed.

Welcome 2008

Had a rather bumpy ride this holiday season. Theresa's older sister died suddenly of heart failure on December 23rd, leaving behind two kids, her husband of 22 years, and many sad family members and friends. She was only 48.

On January 2nd, after 38 years of driving, I got my first speeding ticket. Not that I didn't deserve many over the years. Mr. Officer clocked me at 45mph in a 35mph zone. I'm thankful he didn't pull me over just a few minutes before, because I was talking on my cell phone while driving, which officially became illegal here in CA on Jan. 1st. I've got to dig around and find my hands-free paraphernalia. So, I now get to experience the joys of traffic school.

I leave on Sunday to finish up my TESOL certification in San Francisco. I'm jazzed! I've been writing to a nice guy in Taiwan whom I met through MySpace a few weeks ago. He lives with his partner in Zhonghe. He's given me plenty of good advice, and has been a great source of encouragement. Turns out that he helped design the course that I'll be taking at Transworld Schools. It's a small world indeed. (I've received much good advice from many kind people, including Holly, whose Taiwan Chronicles appears to the right)

I now have a new laptop computer, which I love. It has a built-in webcam so I'll be able to communicate with family and friends while I'm in SF and then overseas. My old desktop PC had accumulated so many junk programs and files that it continually bogged down, plus it was running on a bootleg copy of Windows, so I couldn't get the necessary updates. I'm determined to keep this laptop as "clean" as possible. When I first set it up I made sure to delete all the unnecessary introductory crap that came installed on it (like Norton...shudder). I bought a genuine version of Microsoft Office, and I've downloaded only a few necessary-to-me programs (Avast! anit-virus, iTunes, Skype, FTP Commander, and Hong Kong Mahjong). Windows Vista doesn't seem too different from XP. I got an mp4 player for Christmas which holds my music and Chinese lessons, and I got a 2GB flash drive for my photos, so I still have most of the 120GB hard drive free.