Talented Kids?

This past Wednesday evening I received an email from a director of an English recruitment center. She obtained my email through one of my colleagues, and was looking for someone to fill a position that had suddenly come to her attention. She told me to forward my CV to her by the following morning, and if the employer was satisfied, I would have an interview scheduled later that day.

So I did, and they were, and I went.

My interview was scheduled for 6:00 in Tsuen Wan, which is the last stop on the red line of the MTR, about 45 minutes from work. Tsuen Wan marks the beginning of the New Territories, a 300 square mile area of land situated between Kowloon and the border of the People's Republic of China. The area used to be incredibly rural until the 1960's, with a population of only 400,000 people. However, due to Hong Kong and Kowloon becoming grossly overpopulated, many housing developments were built, and "new towns" rose up from the ground. In less than 50 years the population has increased to 3.5 million people.

I arrived at this gateway town, exited the MTR station, and found my way to the Nan Fung Centre, which happened to be right across the street. I took the elevator to the 15th floor and found the door I was looking for: Talented Kids

My interview took place at a small plastic pink table designed for children. I was barefoot and answered questions posed to me by a man who had a good command of the English language, but was terrified to apply it in an actual conversation. He stuttered, stammered, and made very little sense in explaining what exactly I would be doing. He told me I would teach 3 classes:

Trinity Guildhall Speech & Drama Young Performers (Age group 4-5).
Hooked on Phonics- Letter Sounds (3-5).
Hooked on Phonics- Kindergarten (4-8).

He told me a lot more information, but did so in a way where it seemed unimportant and pointless. He informed me it is a 20 week contract, every Saturday from 11-3, and it will pay 270HKD an hour. While I am not overly impressed with the money, I figure that I have nothing better to do on the weekend, so I might as well try to make a little extra. And plus, little Chinese kids are absolutely adorable. I might as well try my hand at it.

On Saturday I arrived at the classroom a few minutes early. I received my teaching materials and went to make myself comfortable. Three of my students were already in the class when I walked in the door. Upon seeing me, one of the girls burst into tears. She was not satiated until her mother came back into the room. I tried pacifying the girl with a smile and a hello. She replied hello to me, and then began crying again, this time even harder. It ended up being that she did not like the door shut. With the door open she could see her mother waiting outside for her. This gave her comfort. As soon as one of the students closed it, ungodly wails pierced the room.

This first class was my Young Performers class. My goal was to get them to actively participate in drama and activities. I tried to get all of them to sit down and sing a song with me. No dice. I tried to get them to play a game I made up for them. Nope. Let me mention that there were only 4 students in this class, yet there was always one student who was trying to leave the classroom, one who would ransack the toy collection, and one who wanted to envelop me in the miniature hula hoops that were strewn across the floor. The two girls actually tried to participate. The two boys were a little less receptive. And lest I forget, one of the girls was named...wait for it...

Fok Yu.

I wish I were joking. And it's pronounced just like you think it is. The only student in that class not to have an English name, and it's Fok Yu. I ended up calling her "honey" quite a bit.

My second class was a bit better. Three darling little girls (Belle Wong, Hung Ching, Venus Ho) who sang songs to me and impressed me with their English skills, especially for being so young. My syllabus for the day was to teach them the letter "M," however, we breezed through that in 15 minutes, leaving me 45 minutes to keep their attention on learning. I was only partly successful. Once again, the toys were discovered, and lesson time turned into play time.

The third class was a hybrid of the first two. The kids were older, but were by no means any more well-behaved. I taught them the "at" and "an" sounds, and for the most part they were fine. However, there was one boy in the class, ironically enough the oldest, who had very bad pronunciation problems and compensated for this by speaking in Cantonese all the time. When I told him to speak in English he would laugh maniacally and then fall backwards off his chair.

I am wondering what I have gotten myself into.