Lost In China

I haven’t really said much about what I do at this university. Well I teach 8 groups of students. The smallest group is about 20, the largest 60. I teach 4 speaking classes, one Literature class, 2 listening classes, they are the big ones, and a class on the rather unnervingly wide ranging “Introduction to European Culture”. I’ve started with the Ancient Greeks naturally. 

So, my listening classes. I sit in a classroom with a sound console and a mike. My students have headphones and a screen. It took me a little while to dispose of the mike. The students hate wearing headphones anyway and I can throw my voice quite well fortunately. The material I use is pretty much up to me. We’ve had some poetry, news reports, and of course songs. Today I taught a song. I primed the kids last week by talking about the Beatles and asked them to find something on the internet about them. There are 57 in that class and every single one brought something. So after the intro chat, when I left home, when did they leave home etc. I found my MP3 of “She’s leaving home” and put it on the system. All went well until half way through when the MP3 stopped !! Oh no I thought. I’ll just have to sing the rest of it but could I be that cruel ? This is where one of these wonderful students, who goes by the name of Cinderella, I won’t forget that name, explained that she could get the song on her phone and should she play it through the microphone ? Should she ? Oh yes. And it worked. 

Tonight I am the “Honoured guest” of the student guitar club. I suspect I won’t be quite so honoured when they hear how badly I play……