This past summer, I went to China primarily for my annual visit to my extended family. Then I was faced with an unexpected obligation: Nie laoshi, a friend of my parents, was running a camp for Chinese high-schoolers to learn English and he invited me to participate as a student teacher. I was initially apprehensive due to the suddenness of the request. I wasn’t confident in my own ability to communicate with the students, many of whom were older than me, and there was a marked lack of information concerning the actual setup of the camp. Although I eventually agreed to go after my cousin (living in the U.S., and five years older than me) was invited to accompany me, coming in I knew nothing about what was expected except that I had to “Help out, and speak English.” I didn’t even know what the purpose of the school was—and as it turns out, neither did the other teachers.
The big reveal on the first day was that the teachers had one week to teach the 13 participating students English Parliamentary Debate. The students would be entering a competition right after the camp ended. Getting through all the material seemed pretty impossible, considering the amount of information previously offered (nothing), the amount the teachers had prepared (nothing), the English-speaking ability of the students (poor), the English-speaking ability of the students’ English teachers (about as poor), the students’ knowledge of Parliamentary Debate (none), and the teachers’ knowledge of Parliamentary Debate (none). But apparently creating this kind of scholarly situation is common practice in China, and in fact considered an excellent test of both the students’ and teachers’ abilities. Nie laoshi, who ran the camp and spoke Chinese and English fluently, left us on the first day for some other business with a candid “good luck.” We really did need it.
To be honest, the teachers were somewhat useless, in part due to how unmotivated they were (“I really wish I never came here,” groaned one of them on the evening of the first day), and the only one actually working to teach was Kelvin, a college graduate from California who spoke very little Chinese. This left a bulk of translating work to my cousin and me when we weren’t supposed to be doing much work in the first place. I suppose Nie laoshi anticipated the situation and thought leaving more duties to me would make for a better learning experience, and I can’t really argue with that.
The first problem we faced was the language barrier. Kelvin was the one preparing all the lectures for the students, but he did so in English, the language we were expected to speak exclusively in the classroom. Unfortunately all but two or three of the students couldn’t understand even the gist of what he was saying, and they were too self-conscious to admit it. What ended up happening on the first day was Kelvin giving a few two-to-three-hour lectures while the students nodded along as they pretended to understand him. He came up with some activities for them to participate in, but they had a difficult time with those as well, and only evaded notice because the few students who could understand him passed the message along. I only found out that the vast majority of the students could not understand Kelvin’s English after talking to my roommate in the evening, who confirmed that neither he nor his friends really had a clue what was going on. To remedy this, I spoke to the teacher in charge of organizing the schedule and he added a two-hour “English Corner” in the evening where my cousin and I would be in charge of explaining confusing material. Suddenly, I was very much needed—I had more responsibilities than the “real” teachers. The English Corner was the equivalent of me co-teaching a high-school class.
It turns out that there were six English-language books the students were supposed to have read prior to the camp as background knowledge for the debate. Naturally, not a single student had finished a book—but not because they weren’t motivated to do so; all of the students were eager to learn. The books were just too difficult in vocabulary and style for them to persist through alone. So my cousin and I decided to run the English Corner as a group reading circle, just like what one would find in an American English class. I was (apart from Kelvin) the only person at the camp who spoke English without a Chinese accent and would thus read as the students repeated after me. My cousin would then translate any incomprehensible vocabulary and have the students summarize what they had read. It seemed like a pretty good system to me at the time, and I believed that even without real teaching experience I could get through all the English Corners of the camp intact.
On day two, after I got better about helping the students understand Kelvin’s day lecture, I ran the first English Corner of the camp with my cousin. We used the system we had thought up the previous day, and when it came to the summarization—our comprehension check, as it were—we allowed the students to speak Chinese, which we hoped would lessen their apprehension of messing up. It didn’t work. When my cousin asked for volunteers to summarize, not a single student raised their hand. I wasn’t sure what to do. Calling on them didn’t work, either.
There’s nothing like an awkward silence to make you wonder if you made a mistake. No matter how much you keep prompting, nobody wants to answer. When you call on someone, they freeze up and don’t respond, and the others look to you expectantly as if you have to somehow ameliorate the situation.
My cousin and I ended up summarizing all that we read ourselves. I was pretty miserable at the conclusion of the class; it seemed like a failure to me. And so it was a big surprise when the next morning I received enthusiastic feedback from the students, who genuinely thought it to be a nice change of pace from lecture. While I perceived the difficulties in recruiting a summarizer an embarrassment, they never even mentioned it. And so we continued doing the same thing for successive English Corners, and the students gradually got more comfortable with answering questions and summarizing. I was asked a lot of questions in private, and I could see that most of the students had a drive to improve their English and speaking skills—they just didn’t want to mess up in front of everyone else. And when they learned, they really learned fast. I felt proud when my roommate, a quiet boy who never spoke in class because of his poor pronunciation, read along loud and clear at the final English Corner I led.
By the end, I felt I had contributed a lion’s share to the camp. During Kelvin’s lectures, I had developed a routine of circling around, checking up on the students’ notes, and explaining or translating when they were confused. When the teachers were unable to delegate quiz-writing effectively, I wrote one of the quizzes. My cousin and I came up with example debate topics and sample debates after doing a morning of research. I put in effort and improved just as the students did, and they appreciated my help. At times, I was frustrated, maybe because my translations were off, or I said something stupid. But the knowledge that I was part of the team and helping as best I could made it a rewarding experience.