holidays are over

Wednesday morning I got about enough sleep and then got up out of bed to plan my lesson for the day.. today it was oral English, I found the presentation from last time that I didn't have time to use... result!! I also had written lots of questions on pieces of paper and folded them to put in a bowl to ask everyone. I started off the lesson asking everyone about their 'May day' holiday. There wasn't as many people in the lesson as usual because of this holiday. They seem to be getting much better at speaking though, even if there is a few who decide to go all shy on me! Most had visited their family, but some had stayed here as their homes are too far away, one girl told me her family were fishermen so she went out on the boats and fished with her Dad. Another said she loved walking and had climbed a famous mountain near her home, and others said they had lovely food that they had missed while at college.


My presentation was about my own life at university, at first I told them about my first year and what living in halls of residence was like. Also about magazines I love and read for inspiration for my own work, and I showed them some of my work, styling shoots, a dress I made when I was learning to knit, and some different projects. I even showed them what freshers week was like because they have nothing like this here, they told me only 'bad girls' would go out like this in China. They said their culture was very different and it was interesting to see the contrast between them both. I showed some pictures of 'student nights' and organised events such as halloween, I don't think they could work out why I was dressed up as a 'zombie nurse'!! hahaha. Luckily I had 10 minutes left so I got my bowl full of folded pieces of paper and they took one at a time reading and answering questions such as, "describe what the person next to you is wearing".


After this lesson I went to my office and waited to see what was going to happen with my lesson with the teachers. They seem less reliable than the students! A few ladies came including the lady from last time who will be visiting Southampton university in two weeks, she seemed to have practised what I had told her but still her speaking was very poor. I thought the most useful things to tell her were how to get on forms of transport, and very basic everyday things. It was hard because some ladies could speak very well and some had very low levels of English - hard to get the balance right. They seemed to think I was amazingly knowledgeable and know everything about England with the kinds of questions they were asking... this is obviously not true but I think (hope) I got away with it!!! Also previously they have learnt English from the London accent so my northern accent sometimes confuses them. Its so funny when you tell them a new word and they become really broad yorkshire!