Government worker's English training class!

Here is our first class, with the banner hanging across the front wall that they asked me to translate so that while everyone was laboring over A is for Apple, they could be reminded how important they really are. The banner reads "Wulingyuan worker's division English training class." There is nothing simple about Chinese and their official titles for everything. The sign couldn't have just read, "Welcome to English class!"

So the class somehow grew from the initial 20 members that they told me had signed up to a palm sweating 125 that had managed to make it on to the list the day before the first class.
Another thing that they kindly landed in my lap at the eleventh hour was the fact that after the Mayor of the town made a speech about the importance of learning English for the inevitable economic take over of the world by China, I had two full hours of materials to prepare for my 125 pupils.

The class went fine actually, and after the first twenty minutes I realized that it wasn't that all different from teaching my Senior 1 students. The women giggled a lot even though most of the time they were the one's following closely, while the men either bellowed out their English trying for their "HELLO, MY NAME IS OFFICER DU" to be heard from the 23rd row, or where totally lost and opted to chew beetlnut tabbacco and text on their cell phones.

By the end we had accomplished a fair amount of beginner material and I was totally exhausted from the two hour on my feet class that had just proceeded my five hours of middle school classes. The best part of the evening came when I was saying my farewells and thanking them for being such a good class when a younger girl raised her hand. She asked me "Ms. Natalie, next class can you teach us an American pop song? Everyone wants to learn an American love song that is very famous in your country like 'My Heart Will Go On." Everyone perked up at the mention of the American hallmark and in unison cheered and clapped in approval. Well, that makes my job easy, next's lesson is counting, greetings and "My Heart Will Go On," for 125 of China's bravest and boldest commi government leaders.