One month past in a flash, and the second went by even quicker. I could spend time reflecting on the first two months as a whole right now, but there is just too much to write about which is more recent...and I have another train to catch in 2 hours.

I said in my last post that there were plenty of positive parts of teaching that I missed out writing about. This week has had so many of those good aspects, that just describing this weeks events would describe fairly well the good side (so far) to teaching in China.

This coming saturday, No 2 middle school is hosting an short English play competition, and some students from the 7th, 8th and 9th grades have been working hard towards this event. My working week therefore started at the weekend, on saturday, when these students were having a rehearsal. My job for the day was to help correct scripts and improve any pronunciation that went a little messy.

It turns out that trying to correct English written in the style of a Chinese student - so with grammar mistakes inspired by Chinese grammar and turns of phrase - is rather difficult. Some sentences were near impossible to decode, and even some words were difficult to replace. One good example would be the hunter in No 2 Middle school's performance of 'The ugly ducking' (spelling mistake intended), who wants to catch the ugly duckling as 'booty'. The students didn't know the word for pirate or viking, so trying to explain the word booty in context was challenging! Another thing very difficult for Chinese students are articles, as they don't have them in the Chinese language. This results in the words 'the' and 'a' being used really inaccurately, and even the teachers don't always immediately understand why you would sometimes use 'the' instead of 'a' and vice-versa.

One thing I particularly liked about the preparations for this competition was explaining to my supervisor that they had ended up with as many German inspired pieces as English - in a competition celebrating English. One school is performing a short version of 'the sound of music' -set in Austria, one performance is a brothers Grimm fairy tale. Our school's 'the ugly duckling' is even finished with the song 'edelweiss'. Rosie (my Supervisor) sounded quite surprised to find out that a lot of the fairy tales she and the school thought were very traditionally english, actually came from the rest of Europe.

So i said that I worked on saturday. I also happened to have a normal day on the sunday...Chinese Schools, if they have a holiday, make students work at the weekend to make up for lost days. And that of course means I work too. I wouldn't exactly call the a plus to the teaching experience, but it's certainly different.

Now that i've settled into the school properly, and the students and staff are used to me, There is a really nice atmosphere at the school. The gate staff always smile as I arrive and leave. The younger students always shout to me "Hello! Nice to meet you!" as I walk past. Around the 9th grade block where I work, my students always smile (and they're the people I want to be smiling the most - if they aren't, i'm doing something wrong) at me, and say either "Hello Teacher!", or "laoshi Hao!" from those who don't like to use English. The teachers in my office now also seem (mainly) convinced that I am doing a good job and working hard for them, so the office feels a bit warmer now too...if you ignore the fact that the physical temperature is dropping rapidly.

I am also starting to discover just how satisfying teaching can be, if you can only just have a successful lesson. I judge a good lesson on when I know that everyone has learnt something, and that the class actually payed attention. The latter point has only happened a few times, and for some classes, they still haven't payed attention for a reasonable part of the lesson, but when a class does, the lessons just feel more enjoyable. I'm not sure if the classeshave noticed yet, but they actually appear to enjoy the lessons more too when they pay attention...

In the last blog, i briefly mentioned my next attempt to control my classes - a small fluffy dog soft toy. Guess what? It actually works! Most students in my class are all too happy to pay attention when there is a dog flying around a classroom. Those who don't pay attention and find a dog suddenly slamming into them from no where, often get so embarrased that they do indeed begin to listen. What isn't so good is when a teacher walks into the class, who doesn't speak very good English, and just sees me throwing a dog at a student. Yes, that happened.

But now i'm running out of time to write, so i should briefly explain why i'm catching yet another train. Kai told us a few days ago that we need to go to a town called Ili to sort out yet more official business to do with permits etc, so we are taking a fairly short train over there to sort it out. By short, I mean that it's around 4-5 hours I believe. What makes me particularly happy though, is that Ili is in the mountains, and hence out of the desert. The scenery will be green again! Sometimes it's nice to get out of the desert landscape, and see grass again. i have a feeling that Ili may be quite a nice town, so you may hear a little about it on the blog in a few days. Naturally, there will also be more on this English play competition, which takes place this saturday. I may even say how my performance goes...as apparently i'm playing the Titanic theme tune with a student, then playing a few solo pieces...

More from me soon!