Asking 'why?' was like purposely asking for a good kicking. In the Oral English exam, to assess the student's learning over this semester, the School are insisting on a Chinese teacher being present to help the student, should they not understand our questions. In an English exam. By translating. Where, oh where, has that teacher been when half the class didn't understand that I wanted them to turn to page 56 in their textbooks? Better never than late.
The first notice didn't clarify when the exams would be. Hello Notice Two: at the end of the 60 hours of teaching. Hmm. Too ambiguous - do they exams count towards the 60 hours of teaching or are the exams extra to it?
Notice Three, come on down. They're included.
"Great" said the foreigners.
"Wait!" said the Dean's Office. "That makes their lives easier."
Notice Four: NO MOVIES IN CLASS... Fine by me, I haven't shown a film all term.
Notice Five: OK then, Laowais should complete evaluation sheets for each class. Nobody will ever read them, they will be filed immediately. But you must do them anyway.
Notice Six: We heard some teachers have agreed times and dates for exams with students, and have begun preparing. Whatever gave you the impression that you could do that? Days for exams are changed. There will now be a holiday on the first day of exam week. Because it is my brother's best mate's neighbour's birthday. We don't feel like working that day. So change your exams. And let the Chinese translator teacher know. That is all.
The next one got the teachers really riled up.
Notice Seven: Teachers should write a lesson plan for a two-hour class. It must be really good and have loads of words. Make it four or five pages. As much detail as you would write for five lesson plans. So that someone else can teach the same class without having to ask you about it or give you credit. Or maybe even employ you. Attached is an example that you'd better not copy, where we have pointlessly, meaninglessly and aimlessly used as many synonyms in each paragraph as we think we can get away with. To bulk it out. Do this with yours.
I wasn't too pleased about this - I put a lot of time and effort into writing up my lesson plans in the special lesson plan diary I was told to keep at the beginning of the semester when I was told to write one page per class - so I went to see The Man In Charge.
The Man In Charge was trying to pretend that he was busy which annoyed me and then he stopped it. I asked him to show me a model lesson plan and he did. It was in Chinese. The Man In Charge gave me one in English. It had ten words on page one and four more pages of Wikipedia. I laughed. The Man In Charge grunted. I showed him my lesson plans which have 1000% more written words and nothing copied from the Internet. I looked at The Man In Charge. He looked at me.
I wrote the best lesson plan you've ever seen. Five full pages, no gratuitous use of synonyms, just an exemplary classon preparing for a job interview. It's so good, that since I handed it in, it's been attached the the teachers' noticeboard and regularly brought up at meetings.