I'm an English teacher...in a Chinese cultural school! :)

[Bouks]

Yay me...I got a job in a local Chinese cultural school, teaching extracurricular English writing classes on Saturdays to Chinese-American kids. I am so excited, not just because I have a job, but because I get to hang out with the local Chinese-American community and maybe even take advantage of their Chinese language courses. There will also be a number of cultural events to attend, and I bet Chinese new year will be a blast.

I wasn't their first choice -- they originally selected someone else who backed out later. But I think I might have impressed them enough in the interview for them to call me back, when I thanked the interviewers in Chinese (Thank you, ChineseClass101 for your indirect help )

[shanshanchua]

Wow, Bouks, that sounds really interesting! Have fun both teaching and learning from those kids!

[lan_dawei]

Bouks,

What do they use for a text to teach Chinese?
Do they teach nursery rhymes like “小狗狗”?

Most ABC kids and kids from inter-cultural marriages
turn off Chinese school because they believe the
dialog isn't relevant. When I showed my son a lesson
on basketball (before I was a CC1010 subscriber),
he connected. I hope schools use resources such
as CC101 to help kids learn Chinese. They are relevant
and fun!

[Amber]

that's awesome bouks, you're gonna love it!

[maxiewawa]

Congratulations! I'm sure you'll like it.

Here's a little rhyme that I learnt as a kid from my mum. I was suprised that all of my students in Shanghai didn't know it.

三轮车
跑得快，
后面坐一个老太太。

掉五毛
检一块，
你说奇怪不奇怪？

[shanshanchua]

In SIngapore, that rhyme goes like this:

三轮车 跑得快
上面坐个老太太
要五毛 给一块
你说奇怪不奇怪

There are lots of rhymes like this that I teach my kids. They are also set to catchy tunes so they are quite easy to learn

But the challenge teaching older kids (such as ABC) is that while these rhymes may be of a suitable standard for them, they are often too childish.

[Bouks]

lan dawei,

I will have to find that out. So far, I have not begun the pre-semester meetings with the school. My interviews were not on-site. So I am going to discover things about the school as I go along.

It's a challenge to create the syllabus! I am used to tutoring, which means I got to use the class syllabus someone else created. Now, I have all the power...and responsibility