Occasional Tales

I’m nearly middle-aged, but try to keep up, you lot. The past two weeks have been non-stop. Part of this stems from moving on to a new new topic, viz. government. I’ve been producing PowerPoints and worksheets for it almost without ceasing in order to stay ahead of the game. I’ve dealt with the British government and have turned my attention to the American one. Ms Giggles declared her ignorance of the former, which she seemed to think excused her from doing anything, and because she’s fallen behind again, she’s not going to be producing anything about the US government until too late. I think the next time we have a meeting, I’m going to insist on knowing where things are at. Morrigan is more or less at the same stage I’m at; Dmitry and Ms Giggles are the gods alone know where; Mr Bradford may be on track. That means that having started on my next labour today, I’m probably going to have to deal with the structure of the US government by myself. I’m already thinking ab

It’s four years ago once more. When we became an InterBac centre, English B was extended to the A-level students as a way of trying to counter their disdain for English, which increased in their A2 year to the point that teachers would re-enter the office and announce that they’d seen < insert a number in single figures > students in their class. English B was meant to keep the A-level students from straying because there was an official exam at the end of it. Last year, my combined A2 class managed to attend classes regularly until about a month before the exams when the dimmer bulbs probably tried to make up for their lack of work over the preceding two years by vanishing into various dark corners where they no doubt remained just as cretinous and unenlightened. This year, I’m a little more confident that my A2 class will stick with me. But as for next year, I have less confidence about AS2, who are the most infantile class I’ve ever had. I got so fed up with th

And it began early. It’s not even term time and already we’re back at school till half four every day this week. There’s good, bad, and ugly. The good is that Vlad is not such a bad chap. The bad is that the timetables were revised, and mine got worse, with classes to the bitter end four days a week. Since then, the timetable has had to undergo further revision, but I’m not holding out much hope that my timetable will change significantly and for the better. The ugly is the bullying headmaster. During the holidays, I heard that the parents had to give him a smack or so because he’d gone and signed a contract with some other company in spite of the present contract having another three years to run. Of course, someone has to be punished, and we’re the whipping boys. I assume that the contract has always included some statement about school hours, but it’s never been rigidly enforced. We’ve even had an informal agreement with the school that let most of us go a bit ear

An early start. I’ve been lax in my blogging, not just here but elsewhere, too, perhaps having reached a point where I have nothing new to say or see no point in saying anything because saying something achieves nothing. Term ended like a slow terminal illness, and died by inches, one millimetre at a time. Apart from one class in the final week, I had no teaching at all for most of June because of changes to the post-exam timetable. There were things to be done, but I got on and did them, and then the term resumed its terminal decline. In fact, it died two days sooner in one of those classic Chinese moments when some student comes and tells us in the course of some unrelated conversation that the final day is Wednesday. My reaction was one of scepticism, but after some research, it turned out to be true, although who knows when we would have been informed. However, knowing what the school can be like, I won’t be at all surprised if we have to work the weekend before the star

Chairman of the Bored. It’s back to that time of year when we don’t have a lot to do. Yes, there are still classes, but most of the students have been away doing SATs, and some students have just been away. This year, I’ve had the same small group persistently turning up to class, which is especially disagreeable on long, drawn-out Friday afternoons, and babysitting them at any time just adds to the pervasive boredom. There are probably things I could be doing, although I think “redoing” them would be more accurate and I feel wholly disinclined to revise anything much at the moment without feeling that I’d be tinkering for the sake of tinkering. As a consequence of how dull yesterday was, I’m sure today seemed even duller. I believe I mentioned how boring things were at this time last year, but this year, the level of tedium seems to have risen. That may be a consequence of only having to deal with a single class who, as I noted above, have largely been absent because of SAT

All the geniuses come and go. I saw the last of my Senior 3s for the last time yesterday. That was the more dutiful of my two classes, but they made no effort to solicit any last-minute advice from me about today’s exam through which many of them slept. I can only assume that they’re so brilliant that their knowledge of English, and competence in the language surpasses mine. Last week, I asked them some impromptu questions about Paper 2 (writing). The results were not encouraging. They seemed largely incapable of recalling what the text types were or their cha­r­ac­ter­istics. I resumed my grilling on Sunday (yes, Sunday – Bank Holiday + China = stupidity) and noticed various students scribbling down notes as if they were seeing these things for the first time. Actually, that’s not beyond the bounds of probability. One thing I will say is that this year’s Senior 3s did not reach the heights of arrogance and in­suf­fer­ability which have characterised their predecessors for t

I don’t remember voting for the monkey in the paper hat, but I’m sure I did. When the cardinals gathered to elect a new pope, we thought that Lincoln Green would probably get the job by default. We knew the school didn’t want Ms. Giggles even although in many respects, she was a potentially ideal candidate. (Aside: She might’ve been the better candidate, but we also had no problems imagining rule by diktat under her wise and benevolent governance.) But it was the outside candidate who got the job. Why? Probably because the new pontifex maximus wanted his own man in place even although he (the new pope) has no InterBac experience. [ 30.08.14. I also heard that Ms. Giggles did not acquit herself well in the interview.] In addition to this omission, he’s allegedly rather young. Of course, he may be a natural at the job, but I suspect the rest of us will be there to guide him to the right decisions. I won’t be too surprised if I end up reprising my role in Fuzhou as the wise ad

We get the idea, but what about the details? We knew that the start of this term was going to be fairly horrendous, but barely two weeks in, the winter holiday seems to have been weeks or months ago. The first week was spent on practice for the InterBac speaking exams. Last week was the first writing exam, which seemed to be an opportunity for us to relax – fat chance. Instead, we spent hours having to pull the writing apart so that the final drafts could be copied, reassembling it, and then finding what’d happened to the bits that’d gone missing. On Monday this week, we had the practice for the Pre-AL speaking exam, which we were forced to conduct in the space of one day. Next week we have the real InterBac speaking exam, which is followed by a brief break before the real pre-AL speaking. There has been a certain amount of whining and complaining because of all the cover our work is generating. It’s the reason why next week’s speaking, which ought to happen across the week,