SO, not this past Monday, but the Monday before, we flew out to China. We had to take two flights because it was cheaper than a direct flight. Not our entire group could go because some of them don't have the proper paperwork and passports and stuff to be able to go, so those ones all went to Burma.
We stayed in an apartment. It was actually really nice, it was on a high enough floor that we had a bit of a view too.
Anywho, the schedule changed basically every day. But we did a lot of English teaching. One of the days we taught in a university there. We taught two classes. We started off by playing a couple games that involved them speaking English if they were chosen and stuff. Turns out it doesn't matter how old people are, they still willingly participate if there is candy involved. We also gave them vocab words and they had to incorporate them into skits. Some of the skits they did were really funny.
We did a lot of English corners as well, which is basically a couple foreigners who speak English, leading a group of people who are trying to learn to speak English, in discussions and little group conversations. They also play English games and stuff. We were in charge of leading a bunch of them.
My favourite part was teaching in one of the kindergartens there. It wasn't an orphanages, but they wanted us to do a couple classes for them. The nice thing about that was that was that the teachers gave us some stuff to teach on, so we were actually doing their curriculum instead of just making up random stuff.
The one day we taught them about tastes. Sweet, Salty, Bitter, and Sour. We gave them little taste testers of things. They got candy for sweet, seaweed for salty (which they LOVED), lemon rinds for bitter, and lemon for sour. You should have seen their little faces when we gave them the lemons. So cute, we got some pictures so hopefully they'll end up on facebook at some point.
We did a bunch of "teaching" in an orphanage school there. Basically we just sang random songs with the kids and played with them and gave them candy. Trying to teach was ABSOLUTE CHAOS!! it was ridiculous. It looked like something from a movie. There were kinds gambling in the back of the class, other kids were wrestling, other kids were throwing things at each other, they would just walk around and get up and leave whenever they wanted. It was CRAZY. But the more we went there, the better it got because they would start to recognize us and know the songs that we were singing so that was cool.
The interesting thing about our time in china, was that it was like a little test run for our group for our major trip coming up. Needless to say, we have somethings to work on. So if you guys could pray for that, that would be wonderful. It's a lot of communication problems, and misunderstandings, and people feeling left out. But I hope that we worked through some of it for our major trip.
But don't worry, China was a good time and I'm happy that we were able to go. I'm gonna miss the cold weather in China though, I finally got to bundle up in some sweaters and even a toque!
Oh and I almost forgot, I got to celebrate my birthday in China, I figure most of you can't say that! haha. I realised that I made the mistake of letting the people on my team know that I like cows. I'm pretty sure I have never owned so many cow related things. Pencils, a pencil case, a toy cow, cow tape, a dancing cow and even a cow toque. It was a little ridiculous. haha. My birthday was fun though, they got me cake and everything. :) Oh also a little happy birthday shout out to my mamma. :)
Anyways we're back at the base now for two more weeks of lecture and then out on the major trip, i hope everything is good with all of you, and I will talk to you all next weekend!
Today's Fun Fact:
In Thai, the way you pronounce words is very important, you could be using the same word, but with different pronunciation it means something completely different.
For example, if you say "cow", depending on how you use your intonation it could mean: rice, news, knees, white or nine.
SO, if you say the Thai sentence for "I'm sorry", but use the wrong intonation..... you actually say, "I farted."
