usadeepsouth.com
by William S. Boswell, Jr.
Part II
My Apartment
I was taken directly to my apartment. I had been promised a private apartment, but when I looked around I saw suitcases in one of the bedrooms. Joe noticed the look on my face and explained that, if it was alright, he would like to stay there for a week or two until he could make other arrangements. When I left he was still there and, to my knowledge, had made no effort to find his own place.
But, being new, I was satisfied to have someone close by who knew his way around.The apartment had two nice sized bedrooms with built-in cabinets for hanging clothes and a dresser for socks, underwear and handkerchiefs. My bedroom had a glassed in balcony that looked out on the street in front of the building. There was a living room with a couch, two chairs, a coffee table and an entertainment cabinet with TV, DVD player, and video tape player. The kitchen was small but had a refrigerator, two-eye gas stove top with wok, sink, rice cooker and other utensils, plates, glasses, and silverware. The bath was western with toilet, shower and lavatory. If you don’t know what I mean by western, I will only say that if it were not, one would have to have a good squatting technique.
The School
Wendy Language Training Center is located on the fifth floor of a six floor building across the street from the People’s Square. There is NO elevator. The school occupies the entire fifth floor. There is a reception room, administrative office, Director’s office, teacher’s office, six classrooms and men’s and women’s restrooms. The teacher’s office has six teacher desks, a dining table, small refrigerator, material cabinets and water cooler. There were heating units in the teacher’s office, reception room, administrative office and all six classrooms, but they were used sparingly except for the teacher’s office.
Guess why the teacher’s room was well heated. Everyone else wore coats all day long. I discovered that there were no teacher resource materials. There was no evaluation system for assignment of students and no curriculum had been settled on for classes that were to start within a week. They had ordered some books but really didn’t know where to go from there.
I spent the first week creating an evaluation form, evaluating students and recommending placement. We looked over the books they had ordered and decided which book we would use for each level. We started with a fourteen session intensive term with three classes at different levels of ability. There were seventy students. I was told that there would be four native speaker teachers, but I was the only one who showed up.
So I taught the three classes, two hours each, every day. We had one day break after six days of classes, then four more class days before the Lunar New Year break of about eight days. We finished the term with four more class days after the New Year break.
For the last page, please continue to Part III.
Want to go back to the first page? Click Part I.
Bill Boswell is a retired CPA. He’s a graduate of Delta State University and lives (when he’s not traveling) in Amory, Mississippi. He and his wife Nancy are the parents of 4 and the grandparents of 2. He’s been active in the Rotary Club for many years, and has hosted exchange students from all over the world.
Please visit our Message Board
or write Ye Editor at bethjacks@hotmail.com.
Thanks!
Back to USADEEPSOUTH index page