Thursday morning, I walked into my 8:00AM Reading class and after greeting the class, told them to open their books to lesson one. To my surprise, they all responded by telling me they had covered lesson one last semester and the class was now on lesson thirteen. Somehow, this has slipped someone's mind and their information never made it to me before our first class!
My lesson plan, which had been carefully prepared to cover lesson one, was now worthless. Instead, we all opened our books to lesson thirteen and began to read the dialogue on there. It was about Ying Yu, who is making a surprise visit to her boyfriend, Richard, in Scotland. After arriving, Ying Yu realizes that her luggage has not arrived with her flight and was lost somewhere. The airport attendants helping her, but with their thick Scottish accents (Ye guin the wrang way wee lassie, ye should be waakin' thateway), confusion ensues.
After getting through the whole passage with the class, it was time for our 10-minute break. I took the opportunity to regroup and plan out what to do next.
After the ring of the bell, we continued class. I decided to split the students into groups of four and have them make short skits about being at the airport. This resulted in more confusion, but as I went around to each group and asked questions, it started to come together. I would ask:
- Where are you going?
- Who is the traveller?
- Are you going for business or vacation?
- What happens to you in the airport?
- Who are the other people and what do they do?
As the groups started to answer these key questions, the rest of their scripts began to fall into place. After visiting each group, I had a good idea for which ones really understood and would do a good job, so I called a few of the groups up to present to the rest of the class.
One group, with a particular eager and funny student named Wyman, did a very funny skit where Wyman, the security guard asks the traveller to go through the metal detector after showing her passport. As she walked through the detector, he made a beeping noise and pulled her aside for closer inspection; the class thought it was hilarious. Most of the skits turned out pretty well and it gave the other students who were having a bit more trouble to see some examples for next time.
Though we had gotten off to a slow start, the class ended up working out. I was relieved. Here I will try and prepare for the lessons as best as I can, but am quickly learning to leave myself open to flexibility. Hopefully with time, I'll get better at dealing with these times in China when a screwball is thrown my way...
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