Are we there, yet?

So I went to Columbus yesterday for the Wuhan program training/orientation/let's make a deal session. It was great to meet everyone, but man, oh, man. Wuhan has us doing this crazy-ass pedagogically unsound schedule that mimicks my experience in Korea: they don't realize that just spending time with a native speaker of English isn't enough to promote real language learning. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Essentially, the Wuhan people wanted 400 students to rotate through 20 teachers in 20 days. If you're any good at math you will realize that this means with a class size of about 20, each teacher will see each class only ONCE in the entire 20 days. What's even more screwed up is the first speaker we had yesterday was this earnest teacher who'd spent a lot of time in China, and who had wonderful and sound advice for all of us -- which has to be tossed right out the window in light of the fact that we will be teaching random shit to random classes with no continuity, no valid form of assessment, no personal relationships, etc.

I call it a "let's make a deal" session because nearly everything we as teachers wanted to do was in conflict with the mandate from the Wuhan people. Essentially, our point person here (who is Chinese) has to go to Wuhan and try to negotiate the entire structure of the program. We proposed that at the veryleast, each teacher should have one class for one full day, and cover all the topics and skills needed. This means that each teacher would be teaching the SAME LESSON for 20 DAYS to 20 classes. Still not very good, but a bit better than Wuhan's stupid-ass idea.

Anyway, so we'll see how it all irons out. We've another meeting on June 19th in Columbus, and by that time school will be done so I should be able to focus more on preparing.

I am still excited about going to China, but I'm starting to get nervous about the actual teaching part of it. I'm just going to go with the intention of doing my best and not worrying about shit I can't change. What I'm really worried about is how freaking hot it's going to be, and whether or not I'll be able to handle it. Thankfully there's air con in the living quarters and classroom building, but any time spent outside on the weekends might be tough. I'm going to invest in a good water bottle to bring with me.

Well, now it's time to get some work done. I am going to a friend's house to watch the season finale of Alias tonight, so I best get something done before then.