Like a Bull in a China Shop. Literally.

WHEW!  Man have we been busy!  Since classes started and we got into the swing of things, Karen and I have been working nonstop!  200 students need English names, and each of them obviously want a name similar to their given Chinese name, or perhaps a name that means something that they are interested in like water, beauty, strength, and Kobe (he’s HUGE here).  It all takes a lot of work.  More so, it’s all very time consuming.  See my laptop screen below?  Imagine organizing 7x that much, over the course of 4 classes.  Yea yea yea, sorry that the blog took the backseat.  Hey, I don't get paid to blog.  My University demands my time :)

Whine whine, ok here's the update you are waiting for:

So I had a mini freak out last week.  After spending nearly 8 hours working on a single week's lesson plan, I could not imagine doing this routine each and every week.  Powerpoint slides, written English curriculum, spoken curriculum, it was all very daunting.  What would I be getting out of this trip? When would I practice my Chinese or visit and interact with the locals in the city? I spoke with my waiban (faculty contact) and demanded some textbooks, or at the very least some structure.  I couldn't imagine how a brand new teacher could be expected to teach at the post-graduate level with no tools!  He first told me to calm down, drink some warm milk, and to take a bath.  He was kidding of course, and then he told me some very interesting things.   "These students have studied English for an average of 8 - 10 years.  You are not expected to teach them anything NEW.  How can you?  You can't explain a new word or idea in Chinese, so it would be incredibly difficult for both you and the student" - I thought this made a lot of sense.. but I was still frustrated because I want so badly for the students to actually learn something.  I paid too much money and risked too much to come here and merely EDUTAIN.  (not educate, but entertain).  Sure, the students giggle and enjoy my poor attempts to pronounce their Chinese names.  Sure it's probably funny seeing the strange looking waiguoren (foreigner) trying to live in an unfamiliar setting.  But I wanted more.  I don't want to just teach a fluff class.  Other teachers here (with experience and better pay mind you) are teaching "movie appreciation" and "how to enjoy country music" courses.  REALLY?!!  And I am teaching post grads written English for their personal statements and master's degree applications? Come on.

My waiban’s sentiments were echoed by my downstairs and much more experienced Canadian neighbor (who also teaches on campus).  Over beers and poker, he put it very bluntly, "It's naive and perhaps a bit vain to think that while not knowing their native language, that you could teach English better than a Chinese teacher."  How true.  So I did a bit of soul searching and brainstormed what value do I have?  What could I teach them that no Chinese teacher could?  What am I an expert in? And then I had it. 

SLANG. 

Some might ask, "isn’t slang mainly used by the lower class? Why would you teach it to students?" They would be absolutely wrong. Slang is used by everyone in every context. Friends, faculty, business, sports, etc… they all use slang! There is universal slang that is used by everyone, however, there are many subcategories of slang used by specific groups. Slang can be seen as a family tree with universal slang at the top representing words that are not only used consistently in the media, but by virtually everyone. This huge category of terms and expressions spans all ages, social groups and economic groups with such common words and expressions as: "to stand someone up",  "to get one's second wind", or "to be wiped out". 

"To bend over backwards" - This phrase is commonly understood in our culture to mean "to exert an enormous effort in order to accomplish something." The literal meaning, however, is the physical act it describes, of which few may actually be capable of doing! How easy would it be for both myself AND my students to design a year long course in learning Slang and its various uses? The students already know all of the words (to bend over backwards) but they have never heard it used in this context. Abbreviations and acronyms are a large part of our daily language, many of which are used commonly. An obviously exaggerated example -  FYI, the CEO wants you to pick up a BLT and an OJ for the VP ASAP. OK? So it’s exaggerated ... but you get the picture. 

So teaching and learning slang can be both useful and entertaining, but what about the students who want to get into business? Would they have any use for this course in their professional careers? Definitely! In fact, business is notorious for creating a slang or jargon of its own. Clearly, a nonnative speaker who doesn't have a working knowledge of business jargon would be at a loss. Imagine someone not familiar with idioms being told during a meeting that he or she "has the floor" or being asked to "take the ball and run with it." ASAP and FYI are common in the business place as well.

 "I don't know who blew the whistle on Ernie, you know, the paper pusher in accounting? He is going to get hung out to dry by the big wigs for calling in sick again. If he doesn't pull it together soon, he's gonna get canned, and cush jobs like his don't grow on trees!"

So basically I’m excited.  Class went extremely well today, my students learned the various forms of elementary slang terms, where they ranked on my invented 1-10 “Formality Scale”, and appropriate situations and audiences in which to use them. From [ Yes/sure/yeah/of course/you bet ] to [How do you do/Good afternoon/Hello/Hi/How are you/How’s it going/Hey/What’s up]. It was humerous to hear the students struggling and practicing words that we as American’s take our understanding of for granted. 

Sometime in the next month I will teach a sports oriented slang course: 

• BASEBALL: to field a phone call, to be home free, to come out of left field, to be in the ball park, to be out of someone's league, to pitch ideas, that's one strike against him/her. 
  
• BOATING: to be on an even keel, each man for himself, to go down with the ship, to like the cut of someone's jib, to shape up or ship out, to be smooth sailing, to take the wind out of one's sails. 
  
• BOXING: to go a few rounds with someone, to be a heavyweight, to be a lightweight, to hit below the belt. 
  
• FOOTBALL: game plan, to run interference for someone, to take the ball and run with it, to tackle a problem. 
  
• HORSE RACING: to be down to the wire, to be first out of the gate, to be in the homestretch, to jockey for position, to be left at the gate, to be neck and neck, to be right out of the chute, to win by a nose. 
  
• SWIMMING: to dive right in, to get one's feet wet, to go in headfirst, to sink or swim, to jump off the deep end, to test the water. 

The students seem very eager and excited to be learning a new way of speaking! Who knows, if they keep this up, I will have to incorporate a few “movie appreciation” days into the monthly calendar. Except my students hopefully will understand more of the dialogue compared to those in that FLUFF class (They watched 'Forest Gump' today). Maybe even a “music appreciation” day with the breakdown of some popular lyrics? Nah… who can attempt to explain to AMERICANS what today’s music really means..

Got a chip in my engine,26 inch rims,

got fade away money,b*tch i'm ballin out the gym,
got my old school pumpin,hit wheel, on recline,

if you think a n*gga broke,you out yo monkey ass mind,(yeah)

diamonds on my pinky,(yeah)hand on the pine,
touch and die, yo mama do the second line(yeah),

screens fallin from the sky,
syrup fallin in my cup,
old school chevy, thang,
comin down(n*gga), what,
got diamonds in my mouth,got som gucci on my seat,
got g's on my(ay)bitch its cold when i speak,
got a freak on my arm, got a charm around my neck,
you can gone pass the mike,
watch i'm bout to catch wreck,
still screamin out mayne,
pistol in my hand,southside so thowed(born in the game),

big face on my chain,84's on the frame,
big bodies comin down, hoggin up both lanes,

stuntin(stuntin)is a habit,
get like me,
Have you ever seen a chevy with a - (get) get like me

Have you ever seen a chevy with a - get like me
Have you ever seen a chevy with the butterfly doors,
stuntin (stuntin) is a habit

And David Banner’s “Get like me” is still in the top 3 on KUBE’s playlist at the moment.. This is sad in so many ways.

Lyrical Genius