First Day of English as a second language teaching.
Well Joe and I have officially started teaching ESL. We are required to teach 25 hours before we leave for China. Going into class today I was terrified!! I thought oh no they are going to rip us to shreds, but it turned out to be great, although I think Joe and I learned more about them then they learned English from us! It was just our first day though. The lesson we taught was all about health care. We taught the students words like backache, stomach ache, and my favorite the flu. How do you really explain flu? I said vomitting and throw up, but other then that how do you explain it without being completly gross!! I used scattegories type movements, immitating vomitting. Hmm Yeah I am suprised they understood what I meant. Maybe I just invented a new dance!
Well we also taught them how to play jeopardy. They loved it! Two of the ladies even got so into it they were trying to cheat with points.
Overall it was a great class. We teach a class with 20 students about half are from Mexico and other latin american countries and the other half are from Somalia. I think the hardest thing is remembering their names and knowing how to pronounce them. Good thing the students in China get american names or I would be horrible at remembering all of them.
Overall a great time!~emily

Why do the two of you want to volunteer?

This is a question that I am asked frequently. It is a good question, but there are many answers.
The most important reason is that I/we want to help other people. We both want our lives to be about more than ourselves. Too many people these days do everything for themselves and put too much emphasis on their current/immediate happiness. I am not accusing anyone; I just want to push myself to be the best person I can be. ( I know I am not stating all of my assumptions, but you can deduce them easily enough. If you are looking for a more in depth exploration email me)
I/we want to experience life in another culture. There is a lot that people can learn about each other and about God's creation. Some of the people I know do not think that life can be any other than it is in the US. Hopefully, I can show them that people do not all lead the same lives. Maybe they will see something in another culture worth immatating.
I am very interested in seeing how well I will do as a teacher. I have spent a lot of time considering the possibility of teaching for a living.
Through learning another language I hope to be able to facilitate conversation for immigrants.
I think this experience will bring my wife and I closer together. I hope to develop a greater appreciation of Emily's talents.

I am sure there are others; I will try to update as they come to me.


-Joe

Email List

If anyone does not want to bookmark this page, or if you are of the mindset that you will not want to read the blog every week, send me your email and I will send out something like quarterly updates.

-Joe
jgroshens@larkinhoffman.com

Nee how(sp?)!

We are learning Chinese now with an audio series from pimsler. I like it. It is hard, however, not receiving any input on the correct pronunciation. AKA, I think it sounds right, but who knows? Also, the directions are sometimes hard to follow(i.e. when saying, "nee dwee schwa putonwa ma?" I was told today by the cd that the nee should be pronounced with a "falling rising tone." What is THAT! ahhh) If you hear me talking, it does sound pretty cool. Unless your name is Meg and you hear the same phrases over and over. We are going to be meeting with a lady at some place in town soon that is going to have us start teaching full classes of immigrants English. Hopefully we will start gaining some classroom experience.

Nee how is Hello.

-Joe

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda...

One of the "debates" Emily and I had was how to thank people for donating. The idea just came to me today that we should have honored you(people who donate) with naming one of our students after you. :)
You see in China the kids names are very hard to pronounce and then having to remember all of them (around 900 probably)? Difficult to impossible. Especially, with my aging memory.
So the idea would have been... you donate X number of dollars and we name X number of students after you. As it is now, the children have total control over picking their own names! Believe it or not, one of the most popular names over there for the kids to pick is Kevin Garnett.

oh well, It was just a thought.

-Joe

Hello All!! Welcome to Our blog. If you have not read a blog before please scrowl down to view previous entrys or locate the "previous posts" located on the right side. You can also view Worldteach's website and find some information on the Hunan Province to your right. If you have any comments for us please use the comments section. We would love to hear them and others would too!!

To all potential donors!!! We Thank You so much from the bottom of our hearts. Everything you give helps us tremendously. We understand the sacrifice in giving and we want you to know that we are so very thankful and your money will be put to good use over in China.