Day 2 of 'English Camp - You MUST have fun'.

Tuesday.

I was to 'observe' all this week, and so it continued today. The kids, after day one, were pretty nervous at the sight of certain foreign teachers, but otherwise livelier. They had stayed together in a dormitory, and seemed to have got to know each other pretty well after the superb ice-breakers yesterday.

Today I followed a few classes around the 'English Experience Centre'. This is the impressive mock-ups of a post office, restaurant etc. from the West (meaning America). As I felt like a laugh, I watched freaky Korean/American girl first. She was doing the restaurant (this is what I will have to do next week), and then the airport was to follow with another class. Her partner for the first venue is none other than my new partner, Mr. Ying (name changed slightly for protection...but think I've already blown his cover previously - as I have for everyone).
Freaky teacher began as she meant to go on - by lining the kids up against the wall, and blasted them at the top of her voice with a flurry of restaurant-related words, in no particular order, and with her v. strong US accent.

'WAAAAIDER! (waiter);

WAAAAIDRESS! (waitress);

PLAAAYD! (plate);

DEESUUURT! (dessert);

STAAARDUR! (starter)

....and many others. Amazingly all the kids survived this onslaught. Half were then led away by Freaky, and the other 6 were left with Mr. Ying...so either way, they lost.

Mr. Ying, dressed as a waiter, went through the simple dialogue that each of them was to repeat. He has an incredible way of turning clear, written English into a whole new language when it is spoken. The meaning of a word is not so much explained, but is repeated about 5 times instead, then the sentence it is in is repeated 3 times, pointing to the word of confusion. He will finish with 'Do you understand?'. The students are stuck on auto-'yes' whenever they hear this question, and it only takes one person to say it.

Mr. Ying then acts as a waiter. I watched from near the entrance, where he walks to after the students have ordered, and pretends to tell an imaginary chef what to cook. He explains his role to me briefly... 'I come here, count to tree in my mind, and then go back'. He takes his role very seriously, and would probably make a very good waiter. He serves out the fake food which is stuck to fake plates, and gives out the fake drinks (each of the fake items cost the teaching centre the equivalent of 75 pounds...a good example of how much money has been put into this place by the government). The other 6 students are with Freaky, going through a 'making a reservation' dialogue. After 15 mins the two groups swap over and everything is repeated.
After the 20 minute break between classes (where the kids go and chat and play together - i.e. have fun) I went to observe the airport class, again run by Freaky. This time, a good Korean teacher was helping her.

Freaky took 6 kids away, and made them go through the metal detector (which is real!), before entering a mock-up of the inside of a plane, with 6 real aircraft seats. Freaky pretended to be an air-stewardess and went along the seats with a trolley serving real drinks. I don't think she would make a real stewardess, however, as she is a) too loud, b) not nice c) unattractive d) really annoying. She then puts on a safety video from Korean Airlines (in English) and leaves the kids to it for 5 minutes while she does nothing. Then she tells them all to get out, and the next 6 students come in.

After the lesson I suggested to her that she stays with the students during the video, as they don't listen to any of the English, and check they do what it tells them to do (at least 4 of them had their seats back and trays down prior to take off). Freaky seemed to agree with me. However, I was later to find out that during the lunch break she was swearing her head off about me, saying how dare I tell her what to do after only being here for a day, blah blah blah. It was only a suggestion, which I put in a polite way, to help raise her teaching level above it's present one, which doesn't even register on the teacher abilty rating machine. I think she hates me. But I'd rather she hates me than loves me, or even likes me...so I'm happy with the outcome.

(That afternoon...)

Finally, it's the 'Mission Impossible' class. This will just be me and Mr. Ying. I'm asked if I am ok to do this class, as I haven't seen it before...but I say I think I can do it. Mr. Ying tells me there is much to prepare before class. This involves the complex procedure of cutting out pictures from printed out sheets, and putting them in small packets. These are then put around the Centre, both inside and out. The students will get some clues as to where these packets are, and must find them, bring them back to the classroom, stick the cut out pictures onto their paper, and then find the next packet. Mr. Ying explains that myself and he then do...absolutely nothing, before laughing and saying 'it's very easy' 5 times.

Mr. Ying insisted that I go with him to stick the packets to various places before the students arrive...although he had already showed me where they are put earlier in the day. He makes it worth my while by asking me to put my finger on the packet while he puts a piece of tape over it to attach it to wherever we might be (like the flag pole in the car park). I try to wonder off a bit when he gets to the sticking up the packets part, to see if he can do it all by himself. But he always calls me over to put my finger on it. I manage to get quite far sometimes, but always have to go back. I put my finger on the packet, holding it onto the pole while I watch Mr. Ying fumble around with the tape, finally snap a piece off the reel, and then completely miss the packet I am holding. He does this pretty often; his strike rate is around 1 in 3. But he will never break off another piece of tape...he will pick off the tape he missed with, which may take some time.

By the time we got around to the back of the building to stick up the last packets, I lost it with Mr. Ying. It was fascinating at first, but now it was torture. I was far behind him this time, and he waited for me to arrive just to hold my finger on the packet. I took the tape away from him, and trying not to sound pissed off, asked him to watch me do it. I snapped off a piece of tape, picked up the packet, stuck half of the tape to the packet and the other to the pole. Tadar! Look at that! He seemed impressed.

'Mr. Ying - you don't need another friggin' person to put their friggin' finger on the friggin' packet while you fumble around with the friggin' tape, and then after all that miss the friggin' thing anyway and it falls to the friggin' floor and friggin' blows away! We then have to go after the friggin' thing, and then start this whole friggin' palaver all over a friggin' gain, man!!!'. I really wanted to say that.

Back in the classroom, the students arrived, and I was to begin my first class. My Ying said I should explain to the students what they needed to do, and he would explain the rules, which are stuck on the wall (but not by Mr. Ying, I think). I went over what they needed to do...which was pretty straight forward. Mr. Ying went over the rules:

'Rule number one - Complete one mission at a time.' 'That means, complete one mission...at a time. You must finish one mission...before starting the next mission.' (Pointing to the words...) 'one mission...at a time'. 'One mission'. 'You understand 'mission'?'

'Yes' (said in a 'Oh for f&#ks sake get on with it' kind of way)

'It means...mission.' 'Something you...need to do.' 'Mission'. 'Only do one mission at a time'.

Unfortunately there were 5 rules. It's never right to interrupt a teacher infront of students, so I didn't, and he went through all 5. I had to turn away whenever a student gave me a 'Can't you do something?' type look.

As the kids ran out of the room, maybe to look for the first packet, maybe just to get out of the room, Mr. Ying said to me quietly 'You did good job. You explain it (to them) very well. You are a good teacher. I very happy you come'.

I felt so happy too.