Last chance

My students received their last batch of pen pal letters today.

"This is your last chance," I told them. "Think hard about what you want to write."

My students were surprised that we would not continue writing letters next year. I broke the news that I was only teaching at their school for this year. After that, there would be a different foreign teacher.

"No!" they cried. "Too soon!"

One of my students wrote to her pen pal, "Tell you bad news. My oral English teacher Jolie will leave. So we also keep in touch by ourselves. When I heard that, I'm very sad."

I was touched, and it occurred to me that these last few weeks would be my last chance too. I must make the most of the remaining classes with my students.

It's strange. The first few months of coming to the school seemed to drag on interminably, but the last few have rushed by me. I've barely been able to stop and really absorb that this experience will almost be over.

Lately, I've pondered one question: Have I done enough? My self-evaluation depends on the day. On bad days, I am reminded of some students who still can barely read a simple sentence or say a greeting to me. I wonder if I have made any difference.

On most days I know I have had some impact, even if the results of my teaching are not so tangible as a grade. At the same time that there are students who seem to be stagnant in their English learning, I see others bloom. I notice them take the initiative to speak to me in English, whereas last semester they hung back or only used Chinese. And instead of pausing every few words when reading sentences, they push ahead. I notice less fear.

I've learned in my own life that the biggest obstacle to anything is your own self. Lack of confidence can be crippling, and I don't want that to be the reason my students don't succeed. I have my one year to show them it's possible they speak English, and then it's in the hands of the next volunteer.

Write back soon!

The semester started out with a round of applause in one class when I told them that I had received their pen pal letters. (The letters came about a month ago, but we were on break for Spring Festival). It seems their pen pals were just as excited to get my students' letters. One American student wrote, "I was happy to get your letter ☺. My day wasn’t starting out so well so it was a good cheering up.”

My students wrote their return letters today. Mostly, I instructed them to write about school life in China. It's a striking contrast to the typical American student's. First, students at my school start the day at 6:20 a.m. for outdoor morning exercise. Then they have a period of self-study before breakfast, and class starts at 8:15 a.m. The last class -- the eighth of the day -- ends at 4:50 p.m. But there's more classroom time after dinner. From 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. the students have more self-study classes, broken up by a 15-minute eye exercise break. Sometimes I am already in bed when I hear their final bell ring. Then it's the same thing all over again the next day and the next day, every day of the week. The students' only break is a few hours Sunday afternoon.

This schedule makes it hard for students to get in trouble. Nearly every minute is accounted for. Unfortunately, there is very little room for extra-curricular activities. I think Americans put much more emphasis on our sports teams and music lessons and art and drama classes. But there's simply no time for such activities for Chinese students. The American students, my students think, are living the good life over there.

Dear pen pal

I got an enthusiastic "YEAH" when I asked my tenth grade students if they wanted to make American friends. Tucked under my arm was a first-class envelope from the USA; inside, 60 letters from eighth graders at a south-side Chicago school, the cause of weeks of my students' anticipation.

My friend is a teacher in Chicago. Before I even started teaching in China, we started discussing having our students be pen pals. Many of his students have lived in Chicago their whole lives and most have never left the city. The same with my students. The furthest they have gone may be the school we are at now. A pen pal would show them a slice of the world that they aren't able to see themselves. My friend and I weighed the option of going electronic. It would take less time and cost less money to send. But we are both a bit old-fashioned when it comes to these things and in the end we both favored traditional snail mail. There's an intimacy in handwritten letters that an e-mail just can't capture, a bit of magic in "being able to open letters that traveled all that distance," he pointed out.

Last week I picked up from the school office a plump cushioned envelope containing the letters and eight snapshots of the students in their classroom. The Chicago students introduced their families, listed their hobbies and asked what life was like in China or, as one student put it, "over there." They wrote about Chicago, nicknamed "The Windy City." "Probably because it gets really windy," one boy wrote. Another student wrote that Chicago has "a lot of big buildings. Like the Sears Tower in Down Town Chicago. We eat a lot of greasy food, which is why we are the fattest country in the world. What about you?"

The Chicago students' curiosity was evident in their questions. All kinds of questions, about family, school life, the Olympics (Did you see the Olympics? ... I saw the Olympics and it was really cool.) In one letter (in fact, in just one paragraph alone) a girl asked, "What is your favorite sport or thing to do? What kinds of food do you like? What things are popular in China? How's life and do you have any problems?"

Sentence by sentence, my students uncovered the meanings behind the crooked, rounded or scrunched up letters that looked so unfamiliar to their own neat script. Sometimes we ran into cultural hurdles, words that not even their dictionaries could explain. One Chicago student wrote, "How are you? I'm feeling chipper." ("Um, it's like really happy," I translated.) "And what are enchiladas?" one of my students asked about her pen pal's favorite food. My crude explanation: They're like flat pieces of bread with meat and sauce in the middle. It's a kind of Mexican food.

My students eagerly offered their friendship, as well as services as tour guides in the future. "If you come to China, I can act as your guide." They suggested seeing the Great Wall and offered to take their new friends to their hometowns for delicious food. They closed their letters with "Welcome to China."