My second year in China, I had a student who was bubbly, fun, and loved hanging out together. However, every time we were out, she would hold my hand and act like an overprotective mom with a toddler. I talked with her about it and told her, hey, I'm an adult! I really do know how to cross streets, and I've crossed streets and survived in many different countries! She was just showing love in a Chinese way (by being overprotective) but she responded to me, well, in China it's like you're a two year old. You can walk, you can eat, but you can't really talk yet beyond a few basic words. Therefore I think in her mind I was someone extra vulnerable who needed protected, even from things that I already really do know how to do: crossing streets, riding buses, etc.
Well folks, I can talk more now. However, I'm definitely still in need of work. I think in my student's opinion I would be about five years old now. But sometimes I still sound quite dumb for my age. For example (from this last week)
1. I still have trouble saying "tie my shoes" "untie my shoes" correctly. The tones and grammar are really complicated and I just can't quite master it.
2. I still stutter over the sentence "pour me a glass of milk."
3. This last week one of our assignments was to do story problems like this one (but in Chinese): Joe's class is forty percent boys and sixty percent girls. If there are 200 total students in the class how many are boys? How many are girls? It took me about ten minutes to work through this story problem.
The season of learning humility by learning a new language continues!!
Well folks, I can talk more now. However, I'm definitely still in need of work. I think in my student's opinion I would be about five years old now. But sometimes I still sound quite dumb for my age. For example (from this last week)
1. I still have trouble saying "tie my shoes" "untie my shoes" correctly. The tones and grammar are really complicated and I just can't quite master it.
2. I still stutter over the sentence "pour me a glass of milk."
3. This last week one of our assignments was to do story problems like this one (but in Chinese): Joe's class is forty percent boys and sixty percent girls. If there are 200 total students in the class how many are boys? How many are girls? It took me about ten minutes to work through this story problem.
The season of learning humility by learning a new language continues!!
