Project SHINE Field Note - Sep. 30 2005

Anth 142
Field Notes @ John XXIII
9:00am – 11:00am
30 September 2005
ESL/Citizenship materials:
California (a secondary school textbook I found in the library)
A US Citizenship Preparation text (found in the library)
One set of bilingual (English/Spanish) picture cards
Oxford Pocket English Dictionary
Word by Word English Picture Dictionary (English/Japanese version)
SHINE packet
Teaching Method:
Since it was my first day, I was not sure what my learners need would be, so I brought couple of books to prepare for a bit of everything. Figuring out the English level and the need of the learner was today’s main point.
Field Description:
It was 8:48am when I entered the John XXIII building. I parked my car on the 4th Street Parking, which is next to it, and when I tried to walk along with San Fernando St. to the east, there was construction going on the corner of the San Fernando and 5th St including the north side sidewalk. According to the e-mail from Sarah, she said that there would be an orientation with the directors including her and asked me to come 15 minutes earlier. There is a reception desk on the left from the entrance. I saw a middle age Asian woman there and I told her that I was there for Shine project. She told me to go up stair, so I went up the stairs, which locates in front of the reception desk. Then I saw a room with counter south of the hallway, and I went in and talked with an elderly man with glasses. When I glanced over inside of the room, he seemed to be in charge there because he was standing in front of the counter and talking to two elderly Asian men and an elderly Asian woman and his attitude was like explaining something to them in Mandarin. There were some people in the large room next to where I was and I saw some people, mostly elderly Asian people sat and talking in the another room. MTM: It looks like there is no one to in charge but the elderly Chinese man at the front desk. I looked around the room and moved to the hall way. I was not sure where to find the people in charge there, and I went down stair to ask the receptionist where I could find either Leanne, or Libby. It was 8:50am. The middle-aged Asian woman told me to wait for someone at the upstairs. MTM: According to the mail from Sarah, they would have a site tour, and I was totally confused in the situation. It seemed there was no tutoring but seems people gathered in the room. So, I returned to the room with the front desk. This time, I went in to the large room and found the man who seemed to be in charge near the S.W corner table talking to the Asian elders sat on the table. I interrupted their conversation with “Excuse me,” and told him I came to the site for tutoring. He had strong accent in English and I had a hard time to understand his talking. Somewhat we made sense in the conversation as both of us took sometime to understand each other. Then he told me to sit down at any table to wait for someone, and added “You work with Vietnamese.” MTM: I was not sure what he meant by that, but I was sure it would be easier to make conversation with elderly Vietnamese people from my personal experience rather than Chinese. At 8:58am, more people came in to the room, and they were all Asian elders. MTM: they are all Chinese, from what I hear their accent. I sat down on the table at N.W. corner and started jotting down my notes. It was about nine, a middle-age (Caucasian?) woman came by and told me “Leanne and Libby were not here” as well as Sarah when I mentioned their name. Then she asked, “Will you teach Chinese seniors?” I was not sure how to respond the question, so I hesitated to answer right away. It was 9:05am, I decided to walk to the entrance to ask about the SHINE binder. When I walked back to the room with front desk, I found the “guy” talking to another elderly Chinese male. Then I found the “guy” asked me to teach the man next to him. I was not sure why he changed his mind, yet I needed to have a student to fulfill my requirement there, I agreed to do so. MTM: I was not sure if they saw my hesitation to help Chinese when the woman asked. Then the “guy” leaded us to the table close to the next room. And we sat down. As I needed to have his signature in my SHINE sheet, I asked him to write down his name on the paper as well as to my note. His name is Lexin Tu. When I saw his writing, I praised him for his good writing. He thanked me and was looked proudly and said he used to be a professor in China. He told me that he was from Shanghai and taught math and physics. And he told me that his daughter lives in Minnesota and married to a professor of University of Minnesota. He said he visited them in 1994, and he came back to Shanghai, then move to CA. He got his citizenship in last January. His son studied software engineer in Germany. MTM: why Germany? Why not the US?? As we introduced each other, he seemed a little surprised about me. I was not sure how to change the topic, so I should him what I have gotten from the library for tutoring. Since he passed the citizenship test, I removed the citizenship textbook from my invention. When I asked him what he would like to do, he said that he wanted to improve the pronunciation. Since I had no idea how I can correct his pronunciation, I led him explain the things on the picture cards, which I rented from the library in case the student could not understand any English. While he was telling me about the pictures, I tried to correct his grammatical errors, such as singular and plural, and verb tense in his speech. When we were during the session, the “guy” walked by, and told Mr. Tu, “Good teacher ma?” Then they had short conversation and the “guy” left to another Chinese group. At 10:10am, we had a 10 min break. I remained in the sheet since there is nowhere to go. Mr. Tu went off to bathroom and came back within 5 minutes. I was not sure what to do, so I was checking another material for next 50 minutes. While I was doing that, Mr. Tu said he wanted to talk to me. I was not sure what to talk, so I told him a general idea of why I am living in San Jose and doing the service learning. He asked me about my family if they were in Japan. So far, I went through these questions, and he said, “young people can change minds quickly, but we can’t.” I was not sure how to respond him, so I tried to make a conversation something related with intercultural understanding between Japanese and Chinese. I remembered the story what happened on the day my friend was going back to Taiwan, so I told him about the story. It was on the day we had the farewell party for my Taiwanese friend, and I learned Mandarin from her, so I wanted to write down something in Mandarin as a good-bye letter. I wrote down “please write me a letter when you go back to Taipei.” When my friend read it, she was confused and told me what it mean “letter” in Chinese character. She explained to me that it means “toilet paper” in Chinese. When I explained Mr. Tu the differences of the meanings of the same Chinese character, he laughed himself breathless. At 10:30am, we started the another session till 11:00am. I had brought a book called California, for secondary school children, from the library. And I let him read some short stories, such as “the Origin of California Flag” and “the Origin of the name, California.” As the book had large printed letters, I think Mr. Tu didn’t had hard time to read through. When he had problem understanding some words, I explained the words to help his reading. MTM: he didn’t know these facts even though he lived in CA quite long and passed the citizenship test. He was interested in the fact that the name California was Hispanic origin. After 11 o’clock, the “guy” came in and asked me to change the schedule for next week. Since I do not have class on Thursday afternoon, I agreed to come back on 1:00-3:00pm on Oct 6th. He said that it is only one-time change. He did not explain if there is no class on next Friday nor it was reason for fulfill the needs on non-Friday visiting ESL students. MTM: I’m not sure why I had to change the schedule, but at least I have something to do to fulfill my time. Then, I asked him to write down his name. He told me that he is “Title V” and he showed me a mail he held in his hand. MTM: what is Title V? I wrote down his name and I explained him that I was writing down his name so I could remember, since it seemed important to make a rapport with him to get to know about this site if he was in charge of Chinese people in the second floor.