Ink Blots and Broken Specs

This week I have been teaching about Daily Routines. What you on school days and weekends. Pretty routine stuff but I remember doing it for both French and German when I was in High School, so I thought it was probably the sort of thing that I should be teaching them.

The main part of the lesson is based around writing a paragraph or two on the school day:
"On School days I usually wake up at 6am. I get up,have a shower,clean my teeth and get dressed. I then eat my breakfast at 6.20am. I usually eat toast with jam and drink milk. I leave for school at 6.45am. I usually walk to school and it takes me 20 minutes. I arrive around 7am, our first class is at 7.45am. We have our lunch at 12pm. I usually eat rice and vegetables. In the afternoon we have two more lessons. My favourite subject at school is English. We finish school at 5.25pm. In the evening I like to listen to music and play, but I must also do my homework. I usually eat my supper at 6.30pm. I like to eat Dumplings and Noodles. I clean my teeth and wash my face and go to bed around 9pm".

This was a very good answer. Most of the children worked hard and took part well. It made me realise how hard they work and what sort of lives they lead.Especially when you consider school is 6 days a week for them. When I asked them to do weekends they consisted of going to school, doing homework and watching TV. Only the occaional one or two actually did something fun. The senior kids even have to go to evening classes which last until 9.30pm. So they have even less of an opportunity to actually do anything fun.

The lessons have gone quite well, one or two trouble makers as usual, but I think that is always going to be the case. The worst was a boy who thought it a good idea to throw a leaking pen across the classroom. He covered the walls, desks and floors in ink; as well as the clothes of 8 girls. I absolutely lambasted him in front of everyone, made me stay on his hands and kness picking up paper and rubbish all lesson, brought him back at break to clean up the ink and had him apologise to all the girls personally. Think that did the trick. Ben Dai! Idiot!

One of my favourite hobbies in China appears to be breaking glasses. In litle over 3 months I have broken 2 pairs.Now that I am a primary school teacher I appear to be regressing back to how I was in Primary where I easily broke a pair of glasses every fortnight. I think they actually kept glasses waiting for me just in case I came in.

I broke one pair playing football, so I bought a replacement and today I broke the replacement whilst teaching. It was at the start of the lesson and made it hell for 30 minutes. I could not see whether they actually working and when It came to correcting the work it was very difficult, but this was the very naughty class and they seemed to behave better because of the glasses-so maybe I should break glasses more often!

This weekend marks 100 days and 100 nights in China so we should do something fun. I'll keep you updated.