As the month goes on, my posts are getting shorter and shorter...I feel today is going to unfortunately follow that trend. Nevermind!

I like thursdays. My first class is pretty good, and the second is the only quiet class that I teach. There may only be a handful of good students in the second class but they all listen. As far as i'm concerned, I don't mind if a class isn't that great as long as they try, so class 11 is the one I respect the most.

As for today's lessons, two things happened which I really liked. The first was the student his disagreed with my biased question; "why is it important to learn a second language?"

It might seem strange that I was happy that my student told me it wasn't important to learn a second language, but quite on the contrary. It meant he had to explain his answer and justify himself, and more importantly, it (as much as is possible in my classes where no one will speak, other than to other students) started a nice little discussion on whether learning English would actually contribute to my students.

He pointed out, possibly correctly, that the majority of people in China won't ever need to use English as they will most likely stay in China. A few other students agreed with him. I had to argue back to these students how it could still be useful even inside of China.

For example, the bigger the city they end up living in in the future, the more likely they will meet English speakers. If they end up working for international countries, chances are they will need English. It's not all just work though. As most of my students like at least one out of music, books or films, they get access to a whole new world of culture with English.

So in short, this student by disagreeing with my question, gave me a chance to really express why I think learning English is so useful for them. I gave them more reasons for why it is important for them all to learn English, but I feel those points in the above paragraph are a nice little selection.

Now, the second thing I particularly liked about today, was that I got a little present! One of my students gave me a small piece of chalk, which she had carved into. It may sound small and insignificant, but considering the size of the chalk and the detail of the little carving, I was impressed. It's also nice that I am actually appreciated through the calamatous noise that many of my students make while they chat to friends instead of listening.

Yep, I like my thursday classes.

Oh, and I'll finish on something I forgot to mention about the high school classes yesterday. While I'm busy teaching about international education week, the high school is celebrating 'Karl Marx week'.

The Chinese are big fans of Karl Marx. People always get excited when they find out Marcus' name, as it just sounds like Marx to them! So when in the middle of my time with the high school students I pointed at the picture perfect drawing of Marx at the back of the room - unbelievably drawn in board chalk -and announced that "Marx is cool!" the class burst into mad applause. In China, Marx may as well be a rockstar. He's seems to give that sort of cult-like joy to people.

I guess it makes a nice change to the UK, where many people would think i'm mad for liking some of Marx's ideas. Emphasis on some by the way.

Tomorrow will be the last day of national education week (and incidentally of Marx week), so I'm hoping that I have some amazing story to tell you from my last three classes of the week. It will also be the 22nd, which for me, will be a very special day of every month until I leave China at the end of the year...

Until tomorrow!