Overall, I have learned so much and have made some great friends, but there have been some peaks and valleys that have thrown me for a loop. I haven't worked this hard as a student in a long time, if ever. We have all made a language pledge to speak nothing but Chinese diring this workshop. It has been an awesome opportunity to continuously practice our Chinese language skills while learning pedagogy and language teaching techniques--all in Chinese! Our schedule is packed from 8-4:30 and then we have Skype sessions with teachers in China every night to further practice our Chinese. It was rather surreal to have our nation's Independence Day come and go without being acknowledged (it was a regular conference day for us) and studying and speaking nothing but Chinese.
That being said, today was a high point for me personally, where I had a chance to demonstrate some of my favorite teaching methods demonstrating nonverbal communication--and receiving compliments and affirmation that I'm on the right track.:-)
A few of us enjoyed a dinner in town tonight, away from the cafeteria food we have had all week. Even going into town, listening to the radio, we were trying to keep the language pledge, so a couple of my classmates were singing lines Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" in Chinese! The funniest thing I heard tonight, though was when I ordered a 啤酒 (pi jiu, which means beer). The server described a particular local beer (Saranac Summer blueberry ale) as "fruity." One of my other classmates heard her description and said, "我喜歡fruity啤酒!"What she said was that she liked fruity beers. It sounded really funny when spoken in "Chinglish" OK... Maybe you had to be there. ;-). Suffice it to say, today was a good day. Onward! 晚安!。G'night!