Taiwan Dreamin' : Teaching English

For this one I didn't call it episode 2 and just decided to call it "Teaching English." This whole episode focuses on teaching, what you need to teach legally and all that. I brush over a lot of things quickly so it's not really to be used as a guide but just to give an idea of how it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL9HGc9mJO4

Today I am 25.

Today is my 25th birthday. Wow... When I came to Taiwan I was 23, then shortly after turned 24. I have been here for slightly over a year.

I decided to stay here a while longer so I had to renew my Resident Visa. To do this I need to have a job, I am staying at Wells English School here in Taichung. Then I had to go to the hospital for my health check. They do x-rays, draw blood, and test your vision. Check your height and weight as well. I was about 77kg and 174.5cm something like that. Surprising, haha!

I feel pretty annoyed with myself that I only have a few Taiwan videos online, but of course I have other things I am doing too. I am editing episode 2 currently but I haven't been able to get past the intro music part yet...

I make a note not to talk about my relationships on here but I will just say I currently have a girlfriend and she has been helping me to learn chinese more than I had been with my friends. My Chinese tutor moved to New York so I don't have an organized class currently.

There are 3 videogames I am looking forward to coming out soon; Street Fighter 4, Killzone 2, and Resident Evil 5. Hope they are all cool. I have played the hell out of Fallout 3 since November. I want to continue to make videos about Taiwan though, I think I will do some more 'close to home' subjects for the episode after this one, that should make getting footage a lot faster!

Well, I am sorry I didn't update this blog more often. Not sure how many people actually even read this but if you do, let me know in the comments.

My buddies!

Well I am happy to say I have made some good friends here in Taiwan! KC and Claire are both really nice girls and very funny! I am always making bad jokes for them to make fun of me with, haha! Well KC had to go early but Albert came over later and we watched Batman begins! I felt watching it for probably the fifth time, it has quite a slow build up, but I think it will be worth it in the long run of the series because so many questions are answered that are usually a bit confusing about the Batman character.

Ian + Claire + KC

Dark Knight is getting really good reviews, I have been waiting 3 years for it. I guess I am a little hyped, I hope it can meet my high expectations!

Ian + Claire

Albert and I (sorry, no photo of him today!) have also been discussing E3 events. Thats the big video game conference where the companies announce their new projects. Seems we are both really excited for Street Fighter 4. Also Mega Man 9 has been announced. Both are really exciting for me in particular because they are part of the reason I got into drawing. I used to go to my friend Michael's house all the time and watch him play the games while I drew the characters and created my own, was really fun, and inspired my creativity!

I am trying to get going on my animation and video projects so hopefully I can get something up soon!

Gotta change my lifestyle

KC + Emily + Ian @ 89k

UGH!!! I haven't written on here for a while because I have been lazy. It's really bad! I think I just need to MAKE myself a scedual. When I was in the US, I worked 40 hours a week. I woke up at 7 something, got to work by 8:30 and worked till 5. Got home around 5:30. If I wanted to get anything done I had to do it on my way home. Well my point is that I had to do things at those times because of my work time.

Here in Taiwan I work only 19 hours, and its from around 3:30 - 9:10pm. I am not a morning person and before work I am always watching the clock to make sure I won't be late. So I end up waking up really late, going to work, coming home, and staying up really late. Also because of this timing I find its harder to get dinner.

Because of this I think I really need to enforce my own schedual and change this lifestyle. Today I woke up at 11am which is EARLY for me here, haha! I feel really tired right now, but I can't let myself take a nap or I wont sleep earlier tonight.

I think I need to be asleep by 2am. Then I can wake up around 10am, that should be plenty of sleep. After waking up I can go get some proper lunch/breakfast, all the shops will be open at this time. Then I need to stop being paranoid about being late for work, just set an alarm to warn me when I need to get ready to go. On weekends I need to stick to the schedual most times too or it will get out of whack. People have told me that sleeping between certain hours gets you better rest. Not sure if that's true, but I am not getting good rest currently so I can try it.

Hm... so what else is new? I just met a few new people in the past weeks, I think I need to try to be more social - part of stopping being lazy. We went to 89k to see some bands play. Actually they were pretty good I think. After that we went to the dance club Lobby, it was really crowded but having a bunch of friends in there is more fun I think. It's funny though, I thought having all this free time would make me more productive but it doesn't. I still need to make sure I am not sinking into the lazyness cycle. I really need to get working on my video and stuff. Just right now I am really having a hard time with thinking about the structure and format...

Ian + Emily @ 89k

On Saturday night Albert and I rode our scooters down a long road that led towards the mountains, then up beitun road into the next township. Albert just bought the scooter so he is practicing still. The roads at that time didn't have much traffic so it was good, and fun to drive faster on a straight road.

Okay - that's all I got for now - I'll try to post more later!

Weather - Teaching - PS3

It's getting hotter, I got a small sunburn while riding around on my scooter. I bought the PS3 like I said I wanted, so I have found myself sitting in my underwear in front of the fan playing 'Grand Theft Auto 4' quite a few times, haha! Trying not to use the Air conditioner too much. I bought 3 games, Call of Duty 4, Assassins creed, and of course Grand Theft Auto 4! Very fun! Good graphics! Good controls! State of the art!

It will get really hot, I don't know the actual temperature, and then it will pour down rain for a hour or two and cool it down. Taichung is a very sunny city, I think people are right when they say it has better weather than the others.

On the scooter the highest speed I normally get up to when driving is 80kmh, which is about 50mph. Speed limits are around 60kmh, which is about 40mph. Well I should say I've heard that is a normal speed limit because I've never seen a speed limit sign, or at least I didn't know that's what it was. I also have never seen a stop sign here, they mostly use lights. In small neighborhoods they have big mirrors at intersections sometimes to help you see if a car is coming.

Taiwanese Drivers will often slow down slightly (or not) and honk their horn as they are approaching an intersection to let others know they are coming through. I think the general understanding is that if you are coming to an intersection you may not have to stop but you better be careful! But hey, health care is cheap here, so if you don't mind having all your bones broken in a crash, at least its not too expensive to get your casts and surgery! Weee!

Back to the cram school topic, I will be working all summer, since it is not like a normal school, there aren't any big breaks in the schedule. Taiwanese Elementary School students get 2 months off for summer vacation, and 1 month for winter and a few scattered holidays. Older students, in high school, get 3 weeks summer vacation, and 1 week for winter. During those breaks the students will still be coming to the buxiban. The summer will be hot but luckily the classrooms, and most places here really, have air conditioning!

Teaching English in Taiwan - Keeping Kids Off The Streets

I have been teaching English here in Taiwan for a few months now, I am still a newbie for sure, but I did learn a lot in that time. Teaching in a Buxiban (cram school) here is quite different from teaching in a Elementary or Highschool, or University of Course. Taiwan is full of cities, parents are very, very busy making money. Some huge percentage of Taiwanese own their own business, a lot to manage, and so these kids don't have anywhere to go after school.

It's really impressive that as Taiwan is developing, the country hasn't really been free for so long, they have used schools, like mine, as a way to teach the children as well as being a sort of a daycare to keep the kids off the streets. Of course there are plenty of parents who can't afford it, but it's still doing its part. In the US we have many big gang problems, kids out after school with parents working two jobs. They have nowhere to go so they just make their own rules on the street, this starts them on the path to being social outcasts who don't really match up with the rest of the world.

In my neighborhood back home I saw plenty of other kids, and even some friends, go off on this path. As a kid I never really understood the phrase, "Keeping kids off the streets." To me it was like, "What's wrong with the street? How can just being outside make you bad?" Obviously that's not the point. Kids need rules, parents who know what they are up to, who their friends are. You don't need to rule everything in their life, like their clothes, or their hobbies, but just know who they are getting their moral ideas and things from.

So when I start to feel that my teaching is boiling down to playing games and teaching minor English vocabulary, I am satisfied to know I am a kind of a role model, or at least a good influence for these kids, to keep them out of trouble for the future.

Teaching English in Taiwan

I have been Teaching for a little while now so I have a few comments I can make.

First of all, every class is different, not just the age level, or the level of book they are in, but also just the class dynamic. Most classes energy focus around 1 or 2 students and depending on how those poplular/class clown/stand out kids act, the rest will follow. Some classes are slow and you will feel they are brain dead, other classes are high energy, sometimes good, sometimes bad. As a teacher you need to learn to adjust to their style, which is really hard.

For example I have one class where I can drill vocabulary in games, the students listen, and they enjoy the games, they make an effort to talk to each other in English when they know the words they want to say. I have another class at the same level who are pretty bad. They are too aggressive when playing games, and mean spirited, sore losers to boot. They also constantly speak Chinese, including foul language in Taiwanese and Chinese. Nothing much I can do about that, because this is a buxiban, a cram school. I can't send them to the principle, I can't kick them out, or really punish them in any way so the only way I can motivate them to listen is with rewards. Some people will tell you that this is a good system, but really, sometimes punishment is called for I believe.

The actual material is not too hard to teach, the books are good in general, although some days you don't have too much to work with. The tests are easy so any student who has been paying attention should pass. It's rare for a student to fail because the school wants to keep pushing the kids along to the next level. I think thats how my bad class got so high, just got passed along.

Most lessons go like this: First we have a spelling test, maybe 6 - 12 words. THis takes about 10 - 20 mins depending on the class. Next I have the kids open their books and we go over the written material, the different books can vary greatly on how much material is presented. After this, with younger groups we use flash cards to drill vocab, older kids we need to read or play a game that allows them to write, or speak, or in some way identify new sentence structures or vocabulary. Younger groups also need to work in a phonics book and a printing book as well.

It's much easier to make games out of flash cards than it is to do something with writing or speaking, but those are also more valuable sometimes. I can talk more about games in a future post. So generally the teaching is going well and I am enjoying it. The week goes by quickly and I fell happy after teaching my good classes, and after the bad ones, just relieved, haha!

Adjusting some more.

Everything is going well. Adjusting to teaching, getting used to the weather, and food. Things are going well. I've been meeting new friends, finding what I have in common with others, and I am still planning how to do my Taiwan Dreamin' show. I have been a little busy/lazy and I need to work on the intro some more.

Teacher Craig gave me this cool photo of a Door he found in Lu-Gang. Supposed to look like a temple door - but hm... those don't look like Chinese gods to me!


I hope I can get a scooter soon. I need some more advice and a Taiwanese friend to go with me for bargaining and such things. I am still thinking about getting a new scooter, but if I found a nicer used one I guess that is also good.

My Chinese is improving slowly but surely, learning from my friends. I am still waiting for Super Smash Bros to arrive, excited about that. I watched a really cool anime yesterday called Paprika, with Grant. It's made by mad-house and seems very similar in theme to their TV series, Paranoia Agent.

Well I should stop playing on the internet and try to get some work done!

ARC BABY!

I got my ARC now - Alien Resident Card. I was really lucky, the owner of my school basically went through the whole process for me, but it's mainly because I don't have a scooter.

So now I have an ARC I can try to buy a proper and legal scooter. I can also do other things with the ARC. SO yeah, it's good.

I have been meeting new people recently and it's been fun. A lot of people are interested to try the Wii here at my house. Sylvia is sending me Super Smash Bros from the USA - THANKS SO MUCH! So I can play that here with my friends, wish I can play with my USA friends too!

KC and Joanna playing Wii Boxing.

I went to a 24-hours-open Hot Pot place, that was cool. Tonight I will go out with friends to eat again. I will post some more things soon about the school.