Magores is teaching teachers.

My work situation has changed a little.

Not much. But, its significant in some ways.

Here's what my work week is like these days...

Wednesday -
-Feng Tai District - Kindergarten level -6 classes, around 100 kids total - mostly songs and vocab
-Home base - Kindergarten level - 8 kids - lots of pronunciation practice - The 4 sounds of "A", 2 sounds of "G", etc
-Home base - Toddler - 10 kids - We play with toys.
-Preparation for the other days

Thursday -
- I teach teachers (more on this below)
- Home base - the K and Toddlers
- Prep work

Friday -
- Feng Tai again - 6 classes, 100 kids - different kids than on Wednesday
- Home base - the K and Toddlers
- Private class with kid barely K age
- Prep work

Saturday -
- 1st class - 10 kids, K and 1st grade
- 2nd class - 10 kids, all K age
- The three 13 year olds - This just ended. THey passed their exams. No more testing until Senior year.
- 3rd class - Nine 1st graders. I love these kids. They can "think" in English.
- Prep

Sunday -
- 10 2nd and 3rd graders
- Private class with the Friday kid
- Teaching English to the younger Chinese teachers.
- Teaching English to the older Chinese teachers.
- Prep

Monday/Tuesday -
-Officially days off, but I do lots of prep on these days

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Teaching English to the older Chinese tachers is actually kind of hard.

A few of them were English majors in college. And, they aren't that far removed from college, so this info is still in their heads.

As the "teacher", I need to be able to explain what a "present particple" is to the people that have forgotten, and in a way that the others will recognize as being what they learned.

And, English really is a screwed up language. Without saying "Just because" try to explain the difference in pronunciation between:
-Though
-Thought
-Through
-Threw
-Tough
-Taught
-Ought
-Fought
-Naught
-Not
-Nautical
-Bought

It's crazy.

On top of that, add the concept of word stress...
-I signed a CONtract. But, he conTRACTed a disease.
-The PHOtographer took a phoTOgraph of a very photoGRAPHic scene.

And, there is sentence stress...

"he ran to the store"

- Who ran? "HE ran to the store."
- How did he get there? "he RAN to the store."
- Where did he go? "he ran TO THE STORE"

Let's not forget "timing" either...

-Actually, let's forget timing for NOW. It's a LARGE concept that i DON't have time for right NOW. Perhaps LATER.


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I literally spend more time learning English than I do learning Chinese.

And, the more I learn about English, the more I like Esperanto.