Annoying aspects of life in China.

I went, at Joan's behest, to give a sample lesson at a language training school. I had misgivings about things even before we went and, to my intense depression, found that my misgivings were, if anything, optimistic.

First off, they wanted a 40-minute sample lesson. For a class of students ranging in age from 3 (!) to 9 (!!). This is, flatly, on the face of it, ludicrous. "Oh, they all have the same English level" is not a defence. A three-year old has the attention span of an average gnat while a nine-year old has the attention span of at least three gnats. Teaching to one will bore the other, no matter what.

Oh, and of course, I had about 15 minutes to prepare for this lesson. And nobody could tell me clearly what the students had or had not yet learned. "They've almost finished the first book." "How many units remaining?" "We've started on the second book." "So you've finished the first?" "We've almost finished." Ad nauseum.

So I assembled a lesson from nothing for an age group I have no experience with and an age range which is clearly ludicrous. Only to find out that the main teacher of the class was basically incapable of communicating in English. Joan had to do interpretation on those rare occasions where I needed instructions translated because the class teacher was utterly useless. And, of course, I had three-year olds mixed with nine-year olds.

To call the resulting lesson a travesty would be too unkind to real travesties.

Did I mention that it was incredibly hot as well? That we went an hour there and back for this? I didn't? Consider it mentioned now.