School Christmas

They thought it would be nice for the children at the "bilingual" primary school to be visited by some foreign teachers during their Christmas celebrations. So we were told to prepare some activities to do with them, and we were to spend a couple of happy hours visiting their classrooms and bringing Christmas cheer.

Well, the arrangements were pretty bodgy - we were seriously misled as to the age of the students, and number of classes. So I found myself being physically pushed into the centre of a classroom full of five-year-olds - I had an activity prepared for older children who had possibly learnt a few more words of English and some self-control. As I stood in the centre of the classroom I saw that the desks (which I had hoped to use for the activity) were pushed back against the walls, and the little darlings were sitting around on chairs screaming (literally) with excitement. Their rosy cheeks were sticky and grubby from eating lollies all morning - most of their normal food has very little sugar - and they were as high as kites.

I had to do a quick think on my feet, trying to dredge up an "activity" that could be done safely - for me and them - in this situation. It had to be something that required no language skills, and very little space ... and I was coming up blank. One of our lovely office girls was with me, and she had a CD player and a CD - I had no idea what was on the CD (had not had a chance to listen to it) other than "Christmas songs". And she had no idea how to work the CD player which she had grabbed on the way out the door.

This was one of those "performing monkey" situations that ESL teachers hate. Someone somewhere sometime (and I hope, for their sake, they have already "passed on") gave the people of China the idea that foreign teachers like to "sing a song or do a dance". No chance, even if I could. So what did I do? What would you do if you had to survive for about 15 minutes in this situation?

Well I started with: "Hello" - it's the one English word they all know - and they chorused back, "Hellooo!" Then I tried, "How are you?" and they all screamed, "Ahmm fahhn, anda you?" Well, that is what they are taught in schools. I had a go at, "Merry Christmas!" "Merry Christmas!" and I was fast running out of ideas. The only other thing I was fairly confident they could handle was, "What is your name?" - so I went around the room randomly asking the little upturned faces and getting "My name is ...." Chinese names that I couldn't repeat accurately.

I asked Alice to play some music, and their teacher (in a tiny mousey voice) and I together managed to get them to understand musical statues. But after one little soldier nearly lost his front teeth (a lot of the little boys had toy guns with them) I gave that a miss. I tried getting boys and girls to "dance" separately - "now the boys" ... "now the girls" ... - but there seemed to be a great deal of confusion about which was which, I guess those two words weren't in their vocabulary yet. Listening wasn't a strong point in either language.

Some moments that will stay with me:

In one class I turned the tables and suggested one of them might like to perform. The teacher volunteered a little pixie-girl who she said had very good English. She was tiny for her age, but came confidently to the middle of the room where she sang and flapped her little arms and spun around, and they all joined in.

In another class I spied a spare tiny chair, so I grabbed it and sat myself in their circle. A chunky little man two chairs up made a big show of leaning away from me, almost squashing the kid next to him to avoid being near me. So I grabbed him and sat him on my knee. The other kids were greatly amused and he had the attention he obviously needed!

In one of the classes there was a little boy who had just spent a year in Australia - what a gorgeous little kid he was! He came out and tried to translate for me as the kids asked me questions ... yes, by this stage I'd decided that getting them to ask me questions was by far the safest strategy, at least with these students who were a year older!

One little boy - another cute chunky kid - desperately wanted to show off his extremely limited English. He kept putting up his hand, but then he would stumble and stall, or just say silly meaningless things. Finally he stood up and started reading out of his book. "I am a boy. I am a good boy. I am learning English ... I am slim..." At this point the teacher suddenly realised he had his book open and stopped him. "You are not slim. You are fat!" she scolded him.

In my sixth and final classroom they had some banger things - they shoot paper everywhere - to let off. Can you imagine doing that in the classroom in Oz? They wanted me to be in the middle of the room so that I would get showered in coloured paper, but I backed away nearer the door. The teacher and her assistant were struggling with several of these cardboard tubes, holding them high in the air and twisting the bottom of them to make them explode. The children wanted to be involved too, and were swinging on the teacher's arms and pulling on the cardboard tubes. I thought about how I would have insisted that everyone was seated in their chair with their lips buttoned and their arms folded at a time like this. There was mayhem and screaming, and finally to everyone's relief there was a loud bang and a shower of green and red strips of paper.

And it was over at last. We headed back to the principal's office. When we had arrived two hours before they had presented each of us with a paper cup of boiling hot Chinese tea, and instantly anounced that it was time to go. Our cups were still sitting there, so they hotted them up and we had a quick cuppa and headed home.

We were each presented with a generous gift for our little effort. There was a lovely little mug with a matching lid. And some pre-stamped postcards. And a little Chinese doll. And an electric jug.

I guess they had no idea Peter and I were married. Hmm. One already in the kitchen. One for the bedroom, and one for the study ...