Amity Foundation in China

It’s been fascinating to think about the role of communication in the work that we’re doing right now. We’ve been at a school for children with Autism for just over a week now, and it has been quite an experience! Our basic title there is Teacher’s Assistant, which basically boils down to helping keep the kids in line while the teachers help the kids learn basic skills like hand washing while trying to help them develop their verbal communication. Some days, like today, the kids can be particularly rowdy, and even with a 1 to 1 ratio, we had a bit of trouble having them calm down and stay seated. It’s amazing to me to watch the amount of nonverbal communication that goes on, which is most of what I can partake in with the kids, due to the fact that the school is all Chinese and nobody speaks english. My commands for the kids are fairly limited to “turn around” “stand up” and “sit down”, but one teacher told me not to feel too bad because they wouldn’t understand much beyond that yet anyways.

This is a good segue into my second point. Through my work at this school, I’ve been totally taken aback by the fact that in the all of the work I’ve been doing, so much of it still seems centered on me. With only a short amount of time to help these teachers out, it takes awhile to get situated and figure out if I’m doing it ‘right’. The language barrier is a huge contributor to this uneasiness. Although we have friendly conversations every day, it can still be hard to understand exactly what is being asked for, and extremely difficult to ask questions for clarification. Sometimes, I find myself wondering if I’m even being helpful or if I’m more of an annoyance. But, what keeps me focused is that the teachers genuinely seem interested in me and my partner, not only for our conversations, but in actually helping us help the kids at the school. They have been an enormously encouraging part of this internship, and I highly value the time I’ve gotten to spend with them and the kids.

Starting this internship, I’ve studied Mandarin for two years. Despite encountering plenty of situations where I understand little of what is being said to me. However, I have been increasingly comfortable talking to people here, and when I really need to communicate, I can usually get my point across. With this context, arriving in Hong Kong was a total shock to me. Suddenly, all of my communication skills were useless, as the dialect of Chinese spoken there (Cantonese) is completely different from Mandarin. I had an unfortunate experience to trying to get a taxi to the place I was staying, and having to talk to six people before someone understand the English address I had. This experience influenced me in quite a few ways. First, I was made immediately aware of English’s role in other countries – and was shocked by how a little guilty I felt relying on it completely to get my point across. Coming from the situation where I could communicate, albeit only basically, in the native language, I suddenly felt completely trapped in my communication and fully aware of my assumption that English would suffice. And even though Hong Kong has a lot of English influence, this experience was still startling to me. Back in Nanjing, I am now even more excited to be able to communicate with the locals here, and am finding it that much more of a rewarding experience!

I can definitely say with assurance that until this internship, I never had a clue what teaching is about, what it entails. It’s kind of difficult even to describe the ups and downs I’ve had just in the the few days that we’ve been teaching already. First, there is the language barrier. But the real shock to me was having to come up with lesson ideas, and the stark difference between planning those lessons and actually presenting them. It’s so easy to wonder if we’re really even accomplishing anything with these kids. If we drill into their heads the english for Helicopter, what difference is that making? Sure, they can learn that word, but once we’ve left, what have we given them? So I find myself wondering what teaching really is, or at least what my role is right now as these students’ teacher. Am I here to help them a bit on their pronunciation? To give them the experience of working up the courage to talk to a native English speaker? To encourage them to want to study this for themselves? Given our short time with these kids, I feel mostly like it’s the latter reason. Kind of like that saying about giving a person a fishing pole instead of a fish. I feel like drilling words into their heads is giving these children fish, but maybe that being there and showing interest in them is giving them a fishing pole.

I think all of us were completely floored today by the hospitality of the people here. We have volunteer Chinese partners, which is where we get to learn about China and our Chinese partners get to learn about America. We speak both Chinese and English, and we both get lots of practice and screw up all the time! Learning to work up the confidence to speak is definitely a lot of not worrying about messing up. But anyways, some of our Chinese partners really wanted to show us around, so planned out an entire day for us. At the end of the day, however, one of the girl’s fathers invited a bunch of his friends and treated us to a dinner. All of them were very generous and were quite intent on making sure to explain Chinese customs around the dinner table. Although the conversation itself was pretty relaxed, I was still pretty conscious of just how difficult it can be pick up on these different traditions, even when they are being explained to you! But we all felt like we were completely welcomed, even though we did mess up a bit here and there with meal etiquette. Even though it wasn’t perfect, it seems like it’s better to make an effort than not try anything for fear of messing up.

The first two days actually teaching at the Migrant Children’s school were about as polar opposite as things could be. The first day could probably be best summed up as exhausting and disappointing. We basically just walked into 4th and 6th grade classes with absolutely no idea what to expect, and little teaching experience to go on. We were in groups of two or three, and the classrooms held between 40 and 50 kids. Quite frankly, we were all overwhelmed with the task put before us and felt like we had very little to offer these kids. Between their elementary English and our generally elementary Chinese, it was intimidating and just difficult to communicate.

But still, the kids were cheerful and excited that we had come to see them. Many would come up and talk to us, practicing basic English lines like “What are your hobbies?” and “What is your name?” Very similar to the questions I would ask them in my own basic Chinese. Despite the happy reaction, we all left the first day feeling like we were not going to accomplish anything in the next few days. Back home, we frantically worked to put together a new lesson plan.

The next day, today, was completely different. While still exhausting, the situation turned in a fairly productive time in which we became comfortable with strategies of teaching the children. I found talking one-on-one with the children most rewarding. There were some bad kids, but there were way more enthusiastic learners who always wanted to engage us.

I’m not sure if the next few days will get easier or not. But, unlike the first teaching day, I think we all feel like we will be contributing something to the school, even if just in a small way.