L. wasn't feeling well, but managed to make herself come along with me to YLT, even after she taught her class today. I really appreciate her help. Her presence and help with the computer at the class frees things up a lot for me.
The 1st class started off late, as we had trouble copying our diskette to the class computer. A virus writing a "winfile.exe" folder kept writing itself to the diskette whenever we tried to copy to the class computer. The head teacher, "N", said it shouldn't affect the copying, but I wasn't sure. We tried another disk he gave us, which worked.
We showed more "English Signs in Guangzhou" photos. I taught them the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees, And Toes" with the motions, but I think they thought it was a little silly. We went through more riddles --- they respond well to those. We're keeping score, having split the class into two teams.....right now, in the first class: Team 1 has 5 points and Team 2 has 1 point. The second class: Both Team 1 has 5 points and Team 2 has 4 points.
In the evening, I checked out a English corner that was supposed to be held around 7 pm in the XM school building. Other students were looking for it as well. But the room was being used for something else. We looked around, but didn't find the gathering. A senior administrator came by and told us it had probably been cancelled. I suggested having an impromptu English corner somewhere with the students. We checked various rooms, but they were all occupied or locked. The tables in the store outside were too wet and the other store's tables (on the other side of campus) were too loud with people watching TV. So we had it in the lobby of the building, pulling up some loose chairs. Mosquitoes gave us some fits, but we had a good discussion, going over things like what we like to do in our spare time, post-grad hopes, one-child policy (all the students I talked, around 20 years old, with have siblings), thoughts on school, and sports, among other things. We started out with four women. Later, 2-3 more came by to join us. They enjoy going to English corners. They all went to one held yesterday and one we had at E's café weeks ago. They hope to have more English corners in the future.
