The Adventures of Tai'an

The students at the Summer School put on a concert for the Foreign Teachers. I wasn't overly excited about having to sit through this but it was quite good.

They sang in Chinese, English and Japanese. They performed acts, did magic and skits. It was a good night

By Friday 11 July 08 the campus is a ghost town because all the students have finished the school year and are now on Summer Holidays.

On Saturday 12 July 08 I went to go to the gym and couldn't believe the the number of guards on duty, people lining the streets, cars parked on foot paths. It was madness.

I rang a leader from the school to find out what was going on as I was concerned that it might have meant the Olympic torch was coming today and nobody had told us. No, these were all the people taking the entrance exam to start the new school year on the 01 September 08.

Hope I get some freshmen. They are keen to learn in their first year.

The students have their end of year exams in the week from 07 July 08 - 13 July 08. When they have finished their exams they are free to go home and see their family and friends.

By Friday 11 July the campus was like a ghost town.

The exam was sat by the students on Sunday 22 June. The foreign teachers were not required to attend the exam. Later I would find out why I believe this to be the case.

Monday the 23 June I received the papers to mark in the afternoon. Quite overwhelming when you have 269 Chinglish papers to mark. I set myself the task of marking one class per day. This in itself is a huge task.

The first part of the exam was multiple choice. I learned the letters verbatim. Sometimes the student gave you the choice of answer with the answer being a, b, c, d. Other times you would notice that the answers were marked originally in blue pen, however they were corrected in black pen. This could only lead one to believe that they paper had been swamped between students to correct.

The next part was simply one word answers. Some students had the right answers but in the wrong place.

The final part of the exam was writing. Some students wrote directly out of their text book. Other students copied information from the exam paper. Others started with information and then continued to copy the question as if to think that you wouldn't read it.

In the end only 3 students failed the final exam. However I don't think any of them failed overall.

It was interesting to find that the students were quite proud of their cheating. One student told me how he was the first to finish and he sent an SMS to the class monitor who then sent the answers to individual students. When I questioned him over this and told me that yes there was a teacher supervising but they just turn a blind eye because they don't want anyone to fail.

Now we know why the foreign teachers were not required to supervise their classes.

The school year ends here in July and the new school year resumes in September.

On the 13 May we were advised to check our school calendar and to make sure all the students will get their oral marks and listening marks both worth 20% before their English Classes end this semester. Fortunately for me the teacher that broke her contract and went home had already done this before she left!

Both Arthur and myself had 06 classes and we were both to write the final test for our own 06 Students. The test format was given to us and we had two weeks to write and submit to the school. The deadline was 02 June. Not being one to let things sit around and cause myself undue pressure I wrote the exam and submitted it on the 16 May, much to the other teachers dissatisfaction.

After receiving the exam papers the school decided to mix them up and choose some of the questions from each to make the final exam. I requested a copy of the final exam to ensure my reviews with the students were meaningful.

With mixed emotions I discovered that section 1 on the exam which is 20 multiple choice, 15 were from my exam paper & 5 where from Arthur's. Section 2 which is reading comprehension was a 50/50 split. Section 3 which is to fill in the blanks with the proper form of the words given was from Arthur's paper and in my opinion way too easy. Section 4 which is writing was from Arthur's exam paper is simply a plagiarism of the example given.

Anyway the exam was today and I will receive the exam papers tomorrow afternoon for marking. I await in anticipation of marking 250 + papers! Although I am the lucky one, I have no classes next week and we have until the 1 July to mark them.

The following week I have 2 classes. Not sure how that works when you really have nothing to teach as the exam is over. I am planning on doing karaoke as they love to sing. I just need to get myself either an Ipod or a MP4 player.

If I finish marking my exams early I will head to Jinan. I was planning on going to Jinan to watch a football match on the Saturday anyway. Whilst there I will source either the Ipod of MP4.

After my 2 classes the following week I am unsure what I will be doing. There is poor communication with the foreign teachers. Is it a Chinese thing? Is it a challenge with the language? Or is it the way that the leaders operate with all teachers? From discussions with the Chinese teachers it's a sense of power. It is where the leaders can control everything. By inviting or telling you at the last minute and your acceptance of this indicates the power they have over you!

We have requested staff meetings to share stories both positive and negative and perhaps learn how we could be more effective. This always falls on deaf ears.