About 10 days ago one of my students asked me to write a speech for inclusion in the forthcoming new newsletter. After deciphering exactly what it was all about I dutifully complied. About a week later another one asked me to check the English in some material, copied from the internet, which they wanted to include. So I did, thinking I knew who would be blamed if the grammar was incorrect. I was promised a copy of the newspaper.
On Monday I was handed two copies of the newspaper. It’s an A2 sized newspaper of four pages. Gina and my “speeches” and photos are on page one. Lo and behold the English Department’s English newspaper contains practically no English. So much for me thinking that I would get to read about the college.
Don’t know why I should be so surprised. Last year I became practically demented due technological problems after the IT guy had renovated the lab computers and deleted necessary programs. Also, the various pieces of hardware didn’t always connect to each other. One day, during a bad fortnight, I went through four classrooms looking for a system which would work and still didn’t find it. Students couldn’t fix the problems nor could anyone be found to help. Given I was required to use multimedia for some classes it was a real problem. Son Michael tried to put the pieces (me) back together and suggested that I change the computer language to English. When I suggested this to my liaison teacher I was told that I couldn’t because the teachers (Chinese English) wouldn’t be able to understand! It’s OK for the foreigner to struggle but not the locals. I was assigned “helpers” in each class and usually they kept me out of trouble, but it didn’t work then. In the past little effort made to teach students to SPEAK English during their education so I’m lucky anyone speaks it or understands me. Fortunately, I was saved by H1N1 flu and after 4 weeks away from classes the IT guy had been back and fixed everything. The system had returned to its normal problematic self. And I have an excuse of sorts! No one expects me to read Chinese. However, they are big on remembering things so I’m not sure how watertight my excuse is.
I have just discovered how to insert images into the text. All on my own too! However, I won’t be changing the first two posts unless a miracle occurs and I’m a bit too busy for miracles right now. I have end of term issues and holidays to plan.