My First Class

On Monday the 10th of September I received my teaching schedule. Much to my surprise, it was all in Chinese. I just stared. One of the Chinese teachers came by and, luckily, helped me translate it. It wasn't a bad schedule except for the fact that I was teaching at the new campus, which was a forty minute bus ride from where I lived. It was something that I was expecting but still wasn't too happy about. It meant that my mornings got even earlier. The school held a meeting for new foreign teachers where we discussed what an introductory class should be like and how to conduct ourselves as a teachers. It was a helpful meeting that put some of my fears at ease. Though, I was still hardly prepared for my fist day of class.

My first day was on Wednesday the 12th of September. I had two classes that morning, one from 8:10 to 9:45 and another from 10:00 to 11:35. Surprisingly, I slept well that night so I woke up and felt great and ready to start something way different than anything I had done back home. The only nervous qualm I had was making sure I got on the campus to campus bus and finding my classroom before class started. I don't know why I was worried, it worked out very easily. It was a comfortable bus ride and gave me time to listen to all the things I wanted to listen to (podcasts and audiobooks).
The director of foreign Teachers came to the new campus and personally showed me to my classroom. It was a nice because I was convinced that my classroom didn't actually exist. Everyone from the new campus, never heard of a building 4. But it was there, barely.
When we were walking up the stairs to the classroom, I felt like they had just finished the building. Literally just finished minutes before I got there. There was a thick layer of construction dust coating everything. To make my theory seem more legitimate, the floor was covered in used construction materials. I shrugged it off. Even though I've only been here a month, I knew what this place was like. This was normal.

My students started to arrive in class and talked amongst themselves for a while. I look through the book and some of the notes I had taken and before I knew it, it was time for class to start. I stood up and greeted them.
“Good morning!”
They replied very loudly and excited, “Good morning!”
I introduced myself, “I'm Corey, I'm going to be your teacher for this class.”
They began whispering between one another and giggling as they repeated my name in hushed tones.
“C-O-R-E-Y.”
Few got their notebooks and wrote my name. I started to tell them about who I was and where I was from. That teaching was something new to me and I was excited to be able to help them get a grasp of the English language. I talked for a while and thought that its taking up a good chunk of time. I looked at the time. It had only been 5 minutes, I had 85 more to go. 'Okay,' I thought to myself, 'whenever I meet someone from another country, I have tons of questions about what it's like. Maybe if I let them ask me questions about me and my life in the U.S., we could have a solid discussion.' I was dead wrong.
“Um, okay, well, does anyone have any questions for me?”
They were dead silent accompanied by blank stares.
“Don't be shy.”
Still, they blankly stared, looking over at one another and whispering. The weight of the class began to fall on me. I started to feel like I was making an ass out of myself. This went on for a few minutes. No one spoke. I tried to pry something out of them, anything at this point. Still, nothing. I checked the time and checked my notes and decided to move onto the next activity.
“Okay, well,” deep breath, “let's go around the room and get to know one another. I want to know who you are. What you do for fun, how you spend your free time. Anything, so I'm going to give you five minutes to come up with 3 things about yourself that you want to share with me and the class.”
I thought, 'this should eat up some time, people love to talk about themselves.' I gave them their five minutes then ask if they were ready to start. I wondered, 'why am I still asking questions?'
I had the students stand up, introduce themselves with their name and had them tell me the three things they wanted to share with the class. There wasn't a whole lot of variety in their answers. They liked computer games, their hometown was very beautiful, they liked shopping, they liked their friends, they liked to eat, they liked to sleep. Some spoke very softly and were hard to understand, but I didn't care. They were talking and keeping this class from being a complete disaster.
Next thing I knew, we were done. All the students had spoken. I checked the time again and let them have a five minute break. While they did their thing, I started freaking out internally. I still had 45 minutes with these kids. I sent a quick text to a fellow teacher.
'Do I need to teach the whole period today? It's like pulling teeth...'
He replied, 'It's up to you. I just have them ask me a question or tell me something about themselves, that will kill time.'
It was looking like I was going to have to pry really hard to get these students to talk. As the break wound down, I flipped through my notes and realized that there was only one thing left on my list of things to do. I needed to explain what the course was going to be like for them. This was hard for me because I didn't have a clear idea of that.
So, I just made vague generalizations about what we were going to do and learn. How the activities were going to work. How participation in the class and attendance can affect their grade. Different classroom rules about talking out of turn and cell phone use (which is a huge problem). I tried to make the course explanation last as long as I possibly could. I could only stall for so long.
Once again, I stood in front of the class as they stared, “Any questions?” I took a pause, “You can ask about me, about America, what ever you want.” Another long silence.
Finally one brave student raised his hand, “Do you have a girlfriend?” The class giggled the way a freshman in high school giggles when they tell a friend about their crush.
“No, I don't have a girlfriend,” I said with a little smile.
Once again, they giggled then, silence. It took a little bit of time before the same guy raised his hand. “What is your hometown like?”
I started to try and explain Detroit to my students, without making it seem like a city riddled with problems. I realized a good comparison. Comparing Shaoxing to Detroit. “Well,” I started, “Detroit is a much smaller city than Shaoxing. The area that I come from doesn't have as many people as you have here. We don't have a good public transportation system.” I looked at some of the students. They looked puzzled. “Buses. We don't have a lot of busses, so we have to drive anywhere we want to go. So if we want to go to a sporting event or the movies we have to drive.” I needed to keep going. “One of best parts of Detroit are its sport teams. Do you know what ice hockey is?” A few shook their heads, the rest looked at me like I should have be on a street corner ranting incoherently. I began to explain Ice Hockey, “It's a bunch of guys who use blades on their feet to skate on the ice and they use sticks to push a rubber, um, puck into the other teams net.” They stared. “Anyway our hockey team is the Detroit Red Wings and they're my favorite team.” I remembered that they love basketball in China so I switched gears. “We also have the Detroit Pistons basketball team.” They didn't stir. They asked me a few more questions that just leads to the same thing over and over again.
Then, the same guy as the first two questions asked me, “Can you sing us a song?”
I had a feeling like this was coming (other teachers told me that this happened regularly) but I still had the thought, 'What the ...?'
“Um, what kind of song do you want me to sing? I'm a little teapot?”
“Any song, just sing.”
I was nervous as hell to begin with, so being asked to sing on top of it is just making my head go blank on songs, even 'Little Teapot.' So I grabbed my phone and started flipping through the songs I have. Bruce Springsteen? No they wouldn't appreciate it. Childish Gambino? Unfortunately, no. I'm about to do Foo Fighters but grew uncomfortable when I remember that I didn't have the vocal range of Dave Grohl. KO? Metric? Of Monsters and Men? Then I came across The Black Keys. 'Okay, Gold on the Ceiling.'
I looked at the group, “Have you guys heard of the band called The Black Keys?”
Once again I wondered, 'Why was I still asking them questions?'
“Well they're a band from America and I like them. I'm going to sing you Gold on the Ceiling.” I pushed play on my phone and started dancing, “I'm going to dance too.”
They're giggling and quietly chatting as I started to find the right vocal pitch.

“Down in the waves
She screams again
Roar at the door
My mind can’t take much more
I could never drown in

They wanna get my…
They wanna get my
Gold on the ceiling...”

I got half way through the chorus when I decided that I was done embarrassing myself.

“I ain’t blind
Just a matter of time
Before you steal it
It’s alright
Ain’t no guard in my house...1”

I finished the chorus and grabbed my phone and turned it off.
“That's the song!” I may have thrown in a, “YAY,” in there as well.
They started to clap and cheer. Still, I felt almost defeated on the inside. I took a look at the time, again. We still had ten minutes together. I decided to be nice, offering up myself for one more question. A question didn't come. Once again, I really didn't know what I was expecting.
So I told them, “Well that's all we're going to do today. You guys can have the next few minutes to talk amongst yourselves. If you want to come and talk to me you can.”
They stared at me like they've done all class. So, I stared back. I nodded a few times and smiled, still they just sat and stared.
“Okay, any questions?”
This silence was literally killing me. It was so awkward. I looked down at my notes and list of names. I looked at the time again. Time just didn't seem to be moving. I looked back up. Still the same thing.
“You can talk to one another. Class is over. We will start with this book next week. Does every one have this book?” I held the book up. They looked at their books then back at me. A few shook their heads yes. “Okay, so next week, be ready to start.” I put the book down and looked around the class then back at the time. A few people started to talk.
'Thank God,' I thought to myself as the bell began ringing. I send the class off with a, “good bye,” which they repeat, loudly, as they walked out the door. 'Why couldn't they have been that loud when they were with me in class?' The classroom emptied and I stood in front of the room alone and thought, 'I wasn't expecting that.' I started to brainstorm ways to keep my next class busy and talkative for the next ninety minutes.

1 - "Gold on the Ceiling" written by Dan Auerbach, Patrick Carney, and Brian Burtonand; performed by The Black Keys