final presentations

all this week i am sitting for the student's presentations of their final projects. judging by the student's work throughout the semester, i wasn't expecting the final presentations to be any good. i'm happy to say, i was quite wrong. the presentations have been excellent. for the final project, the students split into pairs, and each was to pick one country and research it (no one could pick china, and no one could have the same country). i have four classes doing this project. most of the students picked italy, france, germany, england, japan, australia, switzerland, and korea. a few got more creative. today i will hear presentations on the maldives, iceland, costa rica, and togo.

it is really fun to watch the students do their presentations. i have gotten to know the kids over the semester, but because our material is reading and writing, and not listening and speaking, i still have trouble matching faces and names. i can match handwriting and names perfectly. in our university, and it may be this way at all universities in china, the students are divided into classes. there are 40 students in each class, and they are always together. the have all of their classes together, normally in the same room, and the teachers rotate in and out. as a result, the kids are really close to each other. some classes are tighter than others. oh, they also all live together. boys and girls are separate, of course. still, they see the same people all the time. there are four kids in a dorm room, and to have all of their classes and activities together....it doesn't seem to drive them crazy, they are close. presentations are not that difficult for them. how hard is it to speak when you have your 40 best friends in the room?

also, because the students know each other so well, there is a lot of laughing and joking, and very little shyness. i had one student start his presentation by throwing extraordinarily well aimed chalk at everyone who was laughing at him. i throw chalk, particularly at sleeping students, but my aim isn't so good. i should take lessons. one student, johanna, stuck out her tongue and waggled it like a lizard or snake ever time she made a pronunciation error. the class was dying. i had another student, sikey, who got up front and pulled her hair down over her face and gave her speech. we couldn't see her and she couldn't see us. just a wall of straight, shiny, black hair. toby, a really jolly kid, was presenting on russia. he ran into trouble trying to pronounce some of the place names. finally, after struggling for 30 seconds or so, he looked at his watch and realized he'd gone longer than 3 minutes (the time each student was required to speak). He smiled, said, "oh, nevermind," and crumpled up his paper and tossed it over his shoulder. the class loved him. the kids either had to bring in a map, or draw one on the board. the class exploded when kerry drew japan: one long oval with a dot representing tokyo.

it can be really difficult to keep the students quiet when their classmates are talking. i tell them i will take points from their presentation score. this helps a little bit, but it can still get really loud. the students will be quiet on their own, though, for the classmates that they really respect. one kid, seven, got to the front of the room, and the class was more quiet than they are during quizzes and tests.

the most surprising presentation was by one of my best students, steven. he is a quiet kid, and very thoughtful. he is also one of my favorite because he comes to every class, sits in the front row, and puts a lot of time and effort into his assignments. even though the project was supposed to be done in pairs, he begged to be alone. i let him, since everyone else had partnered up. he chose to do the usa. steven started off his presentation like all of the others, but gradually his voice rose, and the chatting and constant text messaging in the audience died down. steven was speaking without notes, and he had everyone entranced as he began to talk about september 11th. his comments continued, and he moved to talking about the iraq war, and his feelings on it. he spoke so passionately, his fists were clenched, he had tears in his eyes. he spoke of the children who were being injured and killed, and the families torn apart, and all the other results of war. he finished up, with the entire class silent and wide eyed, by saying, "i have a dream..." and turned around and scrawled across the board "NO WAR." the whole class was silent for a split second and burst into applause. it was a really neat moment.

steven came to talk to me after class. he was worried that he had offended me. i wanted to say, "of course not" right away, but we talked for a bit about speaking openly and political debate. so different are our cultures. i know it was a stretch for him to speak so openly in opposition of the us government, because so many people would never think to do the same thing in china.