Confessions from the classroom . . .

After some time in a classroom in China it is easy to start feeling like a god. I will not go into the reasons for feeling that way but after teaching in the challenging environment of schools back home it is not a state of mind that you want to change anytime soon.

Fortunately, there will always be moments in the classroom that serve to remind us that we are mere mortals. Students are the great levellers.

Last week I asked my students in Business English, as a first step in a marketing exercise, to name any foreign brand of household product available throughout China. A student nominated a product known to me as 'Black People Toothpaste' = the one with an Al Johnson graphic on the packet.

I jumped in and said there was no way a foreign company would market a product using a name and graphic like that. I went on to explain the commercial, legal and societal reasons why this would never happen. In conclusion, I said that I could understand why they all thought it was a foreign product (graphic of a foreigner) but if there was ever a product made by Chinese for Chinese it was "Darkie", as it was commonly called when I first came to China.

This morning I discovered I was wrong. Totally wrong!
http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/05/china_business_and_glocalization_what_goes_around_comes_around.html

On Thursday morning I will put on my mortal clothing and go to class. I shall apologise for my mistake but ask to be excused from banging my head on the floor on the grounds that it was a mistake any dumb foreigner could make.

Then I will step back and find out what else they can teach me.

{does everybody else around here walk on water or have you also had less than eureka moments in the classroom)

Along the same lines as 'Black People Toothpaste'

A while ago I was teaching a bunch of advanced high school kids. As usual they asked my age and I always reply that I'm 100 years old.

One day we had a new student and sure enough she started asking the same droning questions including my age. As per my standard I told her I'm a century.

Tom quickly raised his hand to tell me that not only have I erred, but he knows my true age

"Prey tell me," I say

"You are 101"

I asked him how does he figure that.

"Easy. Last year you said you were 100, so now you must be at least 101"

 

He got me. Marks for listening

Outside the classroom, I love it when my wife tells me all about some famous Chinese brands when we are shopping.  Brands like Dove, Proctor & Gamble, Kraft, etc., etc., etc.

Personally, I like trying out Chinese brands - when I can find them.

After some time in a classroom in China it is easy to start feeling like a god. I will not go into the reasons for feeling that way but after teaching in the challenging environment of schools back home it is not a state of mind that you want to change anytime soon.

Fortunately, there will always be moments in the classroom that serve to remind us that we are mere mortals. Students are the great levellers.

Last week I asked my students in Business English, as a first step in a marketing exercise, to name any foreign brand of household product available throughout China. A student nominated a product known to me as 'Black People Toothpaste' = the one with an Al Johnson graphic on the packet.

I jumped in and said there was no way a foreign company would market a product using a name and graphic like that. I went on to explain the commercial, legal and societal reasons why this would never happen. In conclusion, I said that I could understand why they all thought it was a foreign product (graphic of a foreigner) but if there was ever a product made by Chinese for Chinese it was "Darkie", as it was commonly called when I first came to China.

This morning I discovered I was wrong. Totally wrong!
http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/05/china_business_and_glocalization_what_goes_around_comes_around.html

On Thursday morning I will put on my mortal clothing and go to class. I shall apologise for my mistake but ask to be excused from banging my head on the floor on the grounds that it was a mistake any dumb foreigner could make.

Then I will step back and find out what else they can teach me.

{does everybody else around here walk on water or have you also had less than eureka moments in the classroom)

you're kind of half right though because it's american owned but it's only sold in china and south asia

I had adult students totally punk me.  The example I remember was an English workshop wherein I did adjective sequence, or OpShACOM.  I came in and wrote that on the board.  "Con, OpShaCOMP!" Huh?  "You forgot the P."  Huh?  They edified me:

Opinion
Shape/size
Age
Colour
Origin
Material
Purpose

As in "Ugly large brand new red American cotton rugby sweater".  The students not only knew the entire lesson, but had an improved, updated version.  They were greatly amused.  Time remaining in the lesson: 44 minutes.

Last year on April Fool's Day I was teaching a class of known pranksters. So I started off class strong. "We all know today is April Fool's Day. So for the entire day, I won't believe anything you tell me. I will believe you tomorrow, but not today."

Then from the back a student yelled out, "You look beautiful today Borkya!"
 

 

Having the difference between 'stationary' and 'stationery' explained to me by a very patient Sophomore student is just one of the many humbling child-of-the-spellchecker generation moments I've had.

Reading this thread I was reminded of one corker of a story one student of mine told me last year in Dongguan.

This student had a nice, part time job working at the Hyatt in a new region of Dongguan near the uni we were at. This is a very swanky, bigwigs-would-go-there-to-hide kind of Hyatt.

The student told me one day at work a couple of weeks previously, there was a rather elderly man who came to her and asked for directions. Very nice man, she said, very polite and patient with her English. But she couldn't help him, no matter how much she tried, she didn't know where he wanted to go.

Man left. Fellow employees immediately ran to her and berated her for not helping him more, and 'don't you have any idea who he is??". She was completely clueless as to what she'd done wrong.

I asked her if she found out who he was. She didn't. I told her she should, I was so curious by her story and why she was so torn to pieces by her coworkers.

A couple of weeks later she came to me before class and told me she'd found out. Still with a rather clueless expression, she said to me:

"He's some man called....Warren Buffett???"

 

Who?

After some time in a classroom in China it is easy to start feeling like a god. I will not go into the reasons for feeling that way but after teaching in the challenging environment of schools back home it is not a state of mind that you want to change anytime soon.

Fortunately, there will always be moments in the classroom that serve to remind us that we are mere mortals. Students are the great levellers.

Last week I asked my students in Business English, as a first step in a marketing exercise, to name any foreign brand of household product available throughout China. A student nominated a product known to me as 'Black People Toothpaste' = the one with an Al Johnson graphic on the packet.

I jumped in and said there was no way a foreign company would market a product using a name and graphic like that. I went on to explain the commercial, legal and societal reasons why this would never happen. In conclusion, I said that I could understand why they all thought it was a foreign product (graphic of a foreigner) but if there was ever a product made by Chinese for Chinese it was "Darkie", as it was commonly called when I first came to China.

This morning I discovered I was wrong. Totally wrong!
http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/05/china_business_and_glocalization_what_goes_around_comes_around.html

On Thursday morning I will put on my mortal clothing and go to class. I shall apologise for my mistake but ask to be excused from banging my head on the floor on the grounds that it was a mistake any dumb foreigner could make.

Then I will step back and find out what else they can teach me.

{does everybody else around here walk on water or have you also had less than eureka moments in the classroom)

You mean this stuff?


Every now and then I'll walk into a small mom and pop market that has a display that still says DARKIE.

Rather humbling moment today- all last week, we'd been reviewing some errors in a sample email I'd written. I wrote the greeting as: "Hi, Mrs. Ricebowl," We talked about the series of problems with starting an email this way- including putting a comma after "hi". Wow, did I ever emphasize how you should never have a comma there. Going on and on about how 30% of all emails I received had that stupid comma.

Well, today, I received an email linking me to a grammar site explaining that the proper structure for an email greeting with "hi" should be: "Hi, John." instead of "Hi John," Giggle search- yep- that's definitely correct- although (thankfully) an error so common it is becoming acceptable- to the point that one website actually said for such a casual greeting, using a comma was taking grammar rules to the extreme.

I'm actually pretty embarrassed about this as this week I need to go back and tell people I was wrong, inevitably losing my credibility- hopefully they won't realize that over the past few years here I may have lost the ability to effectively communicate with native speakers of my own language...

Here is the history behind Darkie or Darlie toothpaste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie. It makes for a fascinating read!

Over here we have washing powder called "Colon" I told my husband I can't possibly buy it