English Corner at Hanggao

(Mel)

One of the best parts of this trip is without a doubt our daily English Corner sessions. I’m sure they’ve already been mentioned in the blog but just in case you’re reading this and don’t know English Corner is a 30 minute block of time during the lunch break every day when we hang out in a room of the school and any kids who want to practice their english or learn about American culture can come to chat with us. In past years English Corner has been held outside but since we’ve only had 3 or so sunny days the whole time we’ve been in Hangzhou we’ve been inside for it but we’ve taken advantage of having a classroom by writing a few American slang words (with definitions) on the board every day. At first we weren’t sure if the kids would like it but most of the kids check out the slang words of the day first thing when they get to English Corner.

To me the most interesting thing about English Corner is seeing what questions we’re asked because they often reflect ideas that the kids have about the US. Some of the most commonly asked questions include:

• “Do you like Chinese food?” often followed by “Do you know how to use chopsticks?” or “Do you have any asian food in the US?” ( the concept of how the US really is a mix of cultures from all around the world seems to be known but not fully understood- that is to say the kids know that the answer to this question will be yes but they want to hear us confirm it)
• “What do you think of Chinese education?” often followed by “it’s much harder than your school isn’t it?” (a very challenging question to field because there are too many differences in the systems to do a flat comparison of difficulty like that...) also in this conversation we’re often asked questions about how much homework we have and how often we take tests or “Which classes do you take?”
• “Do you wear uniforms at school?” usually followed by “Do you have a lot of rules at school?” then “Are there punishments?”
• “Do most Americans care about religion?” or “Do you go to church?” and even a few times I’ve gotten a “I hear that in America they teach religion in school is this true?”
• “What do you do with your spare time?” or “What do you do on weekends?”
• “Do you have a part-time job?”
• “Do you do volunteer work?”
• “Do you like KFC/McDonalds?” (both of which are located directly across the street from Hangzhou High school)
• and what is possibly my favorite of the frequently asked questions: “Is life in America really like ‘gossip girl’?” ( I usually tell kids that though i’ve never actually seen the show if someone were to follow me around with a camera no one would want to watch it).  Similarly we get a lot of “Do most people in your school have a boyfriend/girlfriend?” or “Do you have a lot of parties?”

We also get a lot of kids asking us for help with SAT questions or even homework for their English classes. Additionally, some of my favorite questions have been

• “Why do people like American football?”
• “If you only have three minutes between classes at your school when do you use the bathroom?”
• and then there was the day someone tried to stump me by asking me to do a math proof...

In all seriousness my true favorite moments of English Corner have been when we’re all just having discussions rather than a question and answer session. The other day we were all talking about real high-school issues like stress and peer pressure/ conformity. It’s really satisfying to have conversations like this where we find common ground because the purpose of an exchange is not to learn facts about a new place, but to understand another culture which actually means connecting with people. It’s true that if a student comes often enough english corner can serve the purpose of helping kids with their spoken english but more importantly it can not only answer the questions the Hangzhou students have about the US (and vice-versa) but it can put faces and real people in the place of these questions and assumptions. It’s very easy to think of a country as an idea or its government but important to remember that when it all boils down to it, a county is a collection of people.