maybe my 3rd graders have been watching rap videos?

While my Junior 1 students are uncreative and my second graders are adorable, my third graders would best be described as profane, and sometimes down right evil!

Let my first say that I had the class from hell today. From the minute I walked in the room, I could not get the third graders settled into their seats. They were loud and uncontrollable. I finally said in broken chinese "Do you want me to tell your Chinese teacher you are bad?" That got them quiet enough that I could begin my lesson.

There are about 35 students in class, so I am greatly outnumbered. I try to command the classroom by walking around. I confiscate the notes the kids write each other, Chinese books, comic books, math homework, drawings, toys, origami, improvised sling shots, the list goes on.... (I once made a third grade boy cry because I took away his drawing. To his credit it was really intricate and wound up being not just a picture, but a game between him and three of his classmates, with their scores and QQ numbers on it.)

Anyway, this afternoon the third graders were particularly bad. During class I walked down between two rows of students to see what the boys in the back were doing because they were most certainly not paying attention. It wound up causing more of a disturbance than it was worth. I turned my back towards one row of students, and apparently one of the boys thought that was an invitation to fake smack my butt. He didn't actually touch my butt, but he was fake hitting it, which caused quite a raucous among the class. How did I know he was fake smacking my butt? Two boys provided a reenactment, although I hadn't asked for one.

About fifteen minutes later, a boy from the back of the room ran up to tell me something, even though I ask all the kids to stay in their seats. He pointed to the kid that sits next to him and tells me that kid said "Fuck you teacher". In my head I was thinking "WHAT DID HE JUST SAY!?" but I calmly told the boy to sit down and be quiet. This was a third grade class so I'm sure the student didn't know what he was saying. Giving them a reaction would have just made it worse, but it took all my energy to not flip out, especially considering how loud and terrible the kids were all class. Seriously, I don't work in downtown Newark! I can't believe a third grader said that!

I don't know where my third graders learn English curse words, but I swear it's not from me!

Two weeks ago, in a different third grade class, a boy gave me the finger (its always the boys, isn't it?). This is not a customary gesture in China, so again, I'm not sure who taught him the Jersey bird. I ignored him the best I could. Later I caught him trying to show his friends what to do, but they weren't paying the best attention because they were sticking out their ring fingers- not their middle fingers.

I saw this class again last friday, and the same boy who flipped me off the week before gave me the finger again- but this time it was the ring finger. Kids are funny.

take action to protect the mice

I'm teaching my Junior 2 classes (8th graders) about movie genres and other movie vocabulary such as setting, plot, character, etc. After 3 weeks of lessons, I asked the students to use the words to make their own sentences. They were supposed to write about movies. The students were broken up into 14 pairs.  This is what they wrote for the word "action":

"The government has took action to reduce the pollution."
"We should take action to reduce the pollution."
"The Chinese government has took action the reduce the pollution"
"We should take action to reduce the pollution."
"The government takes action to reduce air pollution"
"We can take action to reduce the problem." 
"We take action to reduce the pollution."
"We should take action to protect the wild animals."

My favorite variation was:

"We should take action to protect the mice."

I didn't know the mice were in danger...

A couple students tried to incorporate other vocabulary words from our lesson into their sentences, but failed:

"We should took action to reduce the pollution in the theatre."
"We take action to protect the setting."

In defense of my teaching, I only see these students once a week for 40 minutes.

As for the repetition, the kids weren't cheating off each other! The students must have learned the sentence: "The government should take action to reduce pollution" from their Chinese English teachers. This is how Chinese students learn English. They learn entire sentences and are expected to regurgitate them verbatim. Therefore, they don't know how to use individual words properly or in a unique way to express their thoughts.

Other fun anecdotes from my movie lesson, include the fact that on a class survey, many students (8th graders!) wrote that the funniest actor they knew was "Tom and Jerry". Yes, the cartoon. And for the funniest movie, a popular response was "Mr. Bean", probably one of the worst movies ever made. Although while I've been in China, I've seen "Mr. Bean" shown on a bus, in the dentist's office, and at a bar. Chinese people really do love this movie, but I'll never understand why. Another bad movie that is insanely popular over here is "2012".