Teaching English Abroad: English as a Global Language

English is becoming more & more necessary for those who participate in the global community, which means that English teachers are increasingly needed overseas. Read my latest article on the GO! Overseas Blog to find out what this might mean for you.

Here's a snippet:

English has become the unofficial international language. It’s the language of business, government, and social communication around the world. High-powered executives in Japan negotiate with their German counterparts in English. Countries with a population that speaks dozens – even hundreds – of different languages are unified through English. Travelers from a variety of countries find common ground as they trade travel stories in English.

Interested? Click here to read on.

Chung King Christmas

Twice a week, I teach a Music Club at an English school here in Shanghai. We listen to various songs in English & the students talk about the meaning of the lyrics, as well as which songs they like or don't like & why.

Before each class, I download a few songs from the internet. Music in China is easily accessible online & it's free to download any song you want at the click of a button, one of the few things you can do on the Chinese internet that you can't do at home.

We've been talking about Christmas traditions all week in other classes, so I decided to do a lesson on Christmas songs for Music Club this week. While I was searching for the classics - Jingle Bells, Silent Night, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer - I came across this very cool Christmas album, Chung King Christmas, released way back in 1992.

The Oriental Echo Ensemble plays twelve traditional Christmas songs on traditional Chinese musical instruments. They're all wonderful arrangements & perfectly appropriate for someone spending the holidays in China (like me).

Take a listen here:
Joy to the World

Caught in a Bubble

I teach English here in Shanghai. One of my classes is a Travel Club where we study a different country each week. This week we did New Zealand. I found a photo of a popular sport there called Zorbing. It looks like loads of fun! Apparently you can do this in Shanghai, but I'm still trying to find out where.

Anyhow, since it is such as unsual object, I decided to use it as a creativity exercise. The students were to imagine that this huge plastic ball was something else. To get them started, I gave them some ideas. I said that it could be a new mode of transportation that will eventually replace cars. Or it could be an alien spacecraft that has landed on earth. Or it could be a man caught in a soap bubble.

They laughed at the thought of driving one of these around the streets of Shanghai, & they enthusiastically began adding to the story about the aliens, but that last one simply confused them. They couldn't understand how someone could get caught in a soap bubble. It's just not possible in their minds. Bubble cars? Possible. Soap bubble traps? Not possible.

It made me think about how our cultural backgrounds play such a huge role in how we perceive our environment. I grew up with cartoons like the one here, in which one of the characters gets a little too close to the soap, & winds up flying through the air in a soap bubble. When they get too high the bubble always pops & they plummet to earth.

But here in China, I guess they've never seen cartoons like this. They've never been exposed to the idea of flying through the air in a soap bubble. So for them, it's just not possible.

So I left them to come up with more appropriate uses for the Zorbing ball. One group said it was a new medical treatment for heart disease - the rolling around helps with circulation. Another group decided it was protection against falling debris during an earthquake. A third group said that it was a vehicle to travel under the sea. All wonderfully creative ideas. Still, the soap bubble idea never caught on, & it leaves me to wonder what kinds of things I think are not possible because of my own cultural background.

What about you? What do you think is impossible?

Waffles

I walk down a side street looking for some street food for lunch. I find a section lined with food stalls - people selling everything from fried noodles to fruit on a stick to stinky tofu. I notice one stall selling crunchy waffles rolled up tight & cut into pieces big enough to eat with your hands.

A man is sitting in front of a make-shift grill - a metal box filled with burning hot coals. He's working three waffle irons. They look heavy. He has a rhythm going. He dips a ladel into a large bucket at his feet & pours some waffle batter into the first iron. He moves the iron down one spot, flips the second iron over & shifts it down too. He takes the third iron off the fire, opens it & removes the piping hot waffle with his bare hands. He tosses it onto the table next to him, moves the third iron back to the first position & ladels more waffle batter on. Repeat.

Meanwhile, a woman is sitting at the table. She takes the finished waffle & rolls it up before it can cool. She puts it into a cutter & lowers the lever - three hand-sized waffle rolls come out & she tosses them into a bin. Customers reach into the bin & select their waffles. They throw coins into a tin resting on the table. The woman has no time to count out change - fresh waffles keep coming down the production line.

I stand & watch the process for about five minutes, then walk on down the street to a noodle vendor. I sit & eat my noodles surrounded by chattering people on their lunch break. A half hour later, I return the way I came. The waffle man is still moving waffle irons back & forth. The woman is still rolling & cutting, trying to keep up with demand.

The Fish Market

There is a small fish market down the street from my apartment. I pass by there occasionally on my way to the bank. It seems that every time I walk by I see something that shocks me.

One time I saw the woman who works there scaling fish that were still alive, their blood splattering the metal pan she was holding them over. Another time, a fish had jumped out of his tank in an attempt at escape. It landed on the floor near a customer's shoe. The man looked down & nonchalantly kicked it under the counter, as if it were a carrot that had dropped on the floor. Today I was walking by the same fish market when I saw something flip out of the corner of my eye. I looked over & saw a fish writhing in a bucket filled with several other live fish whose tails & fins had all been cut off. Instead of water, they were swimming in blood.

In class one day, a student said that he didn't eat tuna because killing dolphins is cruel. I asked him why & he said that dolphins are intelligent. Did he mean that we shouldn't kill dolphins because they might be able to shed light on the origin of the universe? No. He said that the more intelligent the animal, the more pain they feel, so a dolphin would suffer a lot more than, say, a fish in the market. The other students around him agreed.