Susan Gross TPRS

On my own in Shanghai

Susan — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 03:46:30 +0000

I took taxi to the metro station and then to TaiKangLu. Véronique had recommended it to me. Really a neat place! Lots of little tiny artsy-type places. I wandered around a lot and just checked things out. Lunch in a yuppie place: awful soup but good duck confit. I dunno what confit means, it was just roasted and kind of dry. Then I went to the high-end shopping area that YingYing and I went to yesterday. (I wanted a Sbux chai even though it would be made with a tea bag.) Well, this Sbux didn’t even have a chai tea on the menu. I went to the Coffee Bean cuz they offer a chai latte but it was awful. Oh well. Came back and to get a much-needed foot massage. I went to a nice restaurant with Tom and YingYing, and had duck again!! It was a fantastic meal. We had such a great conversation. Lovely way to end a good visit!

Hangzhou to Yizheng, back to Shanghai

Susan — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 03:39:26 +0000

YingYing and I took a bus from Hangzhou to Yizheng. It is an old fishing village built on a canal. Saw a woman washing laundry in the canal. (photo) the whole place had old decrepit houses and small museums. It was fascinating. There is a more modern part to Yizheng also, but frankly I found the old part to be very interesting. Upon returning to Shanghai at 3:00 we went to a pretty, yuppie shopping area and ate in the DinTai Fung dumpling restaurant. It was delicious but I ate too much!

Travel to Water Cities!

Susan — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 03:12:55 +0000

It has been raining here and this morning I had to get up and stand in the rain at 6:30 for 20 min, waiting for a taxi. The taxi took YingYing and me to a train station where we caught a fast train to Hangzhou. After checking into the hotel, we walked around the old streets. Ying Ying told me legends, about the stories of the founding of the city, traditions of pharmacists and scholars being so important, it was an education just listening to her. She told me about the size of disks in front of the buildings indicating the prestige of the residents. We took photos, and ate “beggar’s chicken.” Then we visited an old rich man’s house. It was an amazing house, with a pond and rock sculptures, the first phone in the city. He had 12 wives, so the house was truly enormous!

In the evening we went to a water show called “impression West Lake.” It involved the story that Ying Ying had told me (and ancient legend) enacted on a stage just millimeters below the water’s surface. The lights and many performers all reflected on the water! It actually looked like they were walking on water. It was a love story, with the most beautiful haunting music I have ever heard. We finished off the day by walking along the lake and across a causeway over one arm of the lake. What a special day!

Last Day at Concordia

Susan — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 03:05:58 +0000

Holy cow. This was my last day at Concordia International School of Shanghai. It was a long hard day. I began by teaching Véronique’s French IV class at 8 AM. Only half of the students were there today, but I did a lesson that involved subjunctive (as Véronique had requested), as well as past tenses, persons, y and en pronouns. It was such a thrill to teach French to real kids! I love teaching kids! The Mandarin teachers came to observe the lesson. I know that they did not follow the grammar we were doing, but I hope that they saw me implement the techniques that we have been discussing all week long. Then I observed six classes. Even though it was a long hard day, I see genuine improvement in every single teacher! That is so reassuring. I loved meeting with the teachers and telling them how good they are.

Concordia continued

Susan — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:59:03 +0000

It was a nice schedule today. I observed a few teachers, had plenty of opportunity to talk with them. I also met with Jennie (curriculum director) and Ying Ying about how to design the curriculum outline and how to design a reasonable outline of chapters/units/quarters/semesters. Jennie is a joy to work with It seems like there are often directors with a rigid framework that all disciplines have to adhere to. Jennie is only interested in getting a format that works well for maximum progress on the part of learners. What a treat!

YingYing and I are planning to take a trip this weekend. We made reservations for taking the train to the water towns.

Starbucks is out of chai tea bags ! Naturally. Reminds me of the time I drank the Starbucks in hamburg out of chai! I think every city needs to be warned before I come to town!

Visitations and Results!

Susan — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 02:47:50 +0000

I observed and commented with four teachers today. This is a really nice schedule because YingYing organized it so that i could observe and make suggestions, then com back to see the same teacher on another day to look for improvement. It is wonderful to see that the teachers have all taken my suggestions and tried to implement them. It is a growing experience for all of us! I can see their growth and I also can see when my suggestions were not clear enough. These teachers are all so willing and eager to try new things. It is remarkable!

After school I went to Starbucks for one of those “tea bag chais” with LanYing and the high school french teacher Véronique. Then I had dinner with Véronique. She is from Canada and she is such a sweet gal! I have been eating salad every day and feel much better. I guess I just need my veggies!

More classroom visitations at Concordia

Susan — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:11:42 +0000

I observed and made notes on more teachers today. I truly am impressed with the teaching of most teachers here. They are very interested in teaching well. They really make sure that their lessons are active enough to engage the students, they speak Mandarin exclusively (using English only to make sure that something is clear.) The only suggestion that is universal is this: Make the students the center of the lesson; do not worry about telling a story.

After school I went to Starbucks and had a chai tea bag in a latte and it was pretty good! Then we had dinner at Elements: salad and a tandoori chicken wrap. Delicious.

The hotel is really nice. It has a living room (in the picture), kitchen, bedroom bathroom, and study. It has ethernet internet, but because we are in China, I cannot access my own web page, so I can’t post any of these blogs. I can’t access Facebook. I have to just write in a word processor and then get around to this once I get home.

Concordia International School: Classroom visitations

Susan — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 23:51:17 +0000

I went to first period with Stella. It was so cool to see her again; we had met the last time I was here. At that time she was the “travel director” for Michael and me. She is a good teacher. She relates well with students. She had a story about Harry Potter having his clothing stolen and then she showed a slide of him bare-chested! The kids really got a kick out of it. For the rest of the day, I observed several teachers. They were very good. I met with each of them to give them suggestions and my overall impressions. YingYIng and I had dinner at the Blue Frog (American hamburgers) I had one wrapped in a lettuce leaf. Yummy! I have had a swollen tongue every morning (salt and msg, I think) so I was craving some American food. Then YingYing took me to her hair dresser went to get our hair washed! They gave us a wash while sitting up with really thick shampoo, then rinse while lying back. That was followed by cleaning our ears with Q-tips, then a nice long massage: head, neck and shoulders, arms and hands. Then a blow-dry ! Fun! For the first time since I got here my hair looks nice!

Day Two of Workshop at Concordia

Susan — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:49:00 +0000

Day two went great. I did the embedded reading in French. I had Nini and Paul be the heroes of my reading, using this picture as a slide in the story. Then groups did their teaching. Each group had a Mandarin lesson to teach. They practiced PQA, circling, getting reps, working with actors. I coached each group and I learned a lot of Mandarin. We had teachers from Hong Kong and Macau and Beijing. It was so cool! The only frustration was that we could not get around to everyone and it got to be so long that everyone was exhausted!

YingYing and Tom Reed took me to dinner at a nice place. It is interesting to go out with them because they have had so many interesting experiences. Ying Ying is an expert in tea and how it should be brewed and served and drunk. Tom is the technology director for the entire school. He has set up an amazing wi-fi setup and has all kinds of integration in classrooms, library and so forth. It is all designed right into the blueprints of the school.

First day of workshop at Concordia International School

Susan — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 22:33:22 +0000

The first day of the workshop at Concordia was outstanding! I really am happy. There were far too many teachers for everyone to be able to teach and get coaching, but one of the groups who was assigned the Group 1 lesson did their teaching. It was good to see that other teachers with other teaching styles can do TPR Storytelling and be effective. Also giving the entire group a chance to work together on a lesson enabled them to get their questions answered and so imagine themselves teaching using CI.

Ever since I got here, the entire school has been plastered with huge posters of ME — advertising the workshop. But today they added a big life-sized poster! I feel like such a celebrity. Here is a picture of the big poster.

In the evening, LanYing and Don McQueen took me to a wedding. One of the American teachers at the school married a beautiful Chinese woman. I wish I had taken my phone so that I would have pictures of the event! It was really fun. The bride wore a series of wedding and traditional-style dresses. The groom also changed into different suits to go with the bride’s choices. It was almost like a style show, with music and an MC to animate the whole event. Like our son Chris’s wedding, there was an MC and a bubble machine!

The food came in courses and it was amazing. We ate and ate. We saw slide shows of the youth of the couple, we heard lovely speeches from their parents that welcomed the new couple into the family. Then the music got lively and everybody danced! From little kids to old folks like me! Really a lot of fun.

Getting Ready

Susan — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 22:18:55 +0000

Woke up at 2:30 AM. It is nice to awaken at a weird time because I called Michael. It was afternoon back in Colorado and it was good to hear his voice.

At the school I met with Jennie, the curriculum director. I was able to explain to her how TPR Storytelling should create different instructional techniques but also that the curriculum should be based on what the students can do rather than list discrete details of a language program. She understood the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines. Since she is the curriculum director, she was eager to see the Mandarin curriculum link with proficiency guidelines.

The Mandarin teachers were having a day-long meeting with the Mandarin teachers from Hong Kong International School. By the time I got there, Nini Nam had already spoken. WangFang was speaking about the AP class and character-writing. After lunch, Paul spoke about his music and skits with elementary kids. He had made excellent materials and we all loved his demonstration.

Then I hastily worked with LanYing to get ready for embedded reading in Mandarin. We needed at least three hours to do the preparation but I did not have enough time. LanYing generously offered to write the script, put it into a Keynote presentation, and send it to me! Wow!

Meanwhile I went to dinner with Tom and YingYing Reed, and WangFang in the Bund. We went to a fabulous Hunan Restaurant. The picture shows me with one of the kids who greeted us at the door. After dinner we took a lovely night-time walk through the Waldorf-Astoria and the Peace Hotels. The Bund was so pretty all lit up!

I got back to the hotel exhausted but needed to go through my slides one more time; the workshop starts tomorrow! YingYing says there will be 120 people!

First Day at Concordia International School of Shanghai

Susan — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 04:34:56 +0000

Walked to the school because it is near my hotel. I toured the entire school, met all kinds of people. Worked with YingYing Reed (the Director of Mandarin for the school) about plans for the workshop. I observed LanYing McQueen’s 2nd grade class. Amazing! The kids were so excited and they were just screaming out in Chinese! They truly knew exactly what she was saying. It is such fun to see these little English speakers be so confident and comfortable in Mandarin! They had made up original stories and illustrated them. Then they pointed to each illustration and told the stories. They were so cute!

After school, LanYing and I went to Starbucks by Carrefour, but they only have chai tea bags, not the latte. Grr. I had dinner at East-West with LanYing and Don McQueen. Delicious! Later we went to the high school play : Neil Simon’s “Rumors.” The kids did a fantastic job and it was lots of fun. I think that being so busy all day will help me change my schedule and adapt to the 14-hour time change.