Crazy English

The Great English Awakening:

Pupils in the Hands of a Crazy Demigod

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One thing happened in March 2009: Li Yang came to HuaiYa Senior Middle School. This is the story.

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Part 1: night of the living dead

It was a routine Sunday evening. I was just drifting into boredom when I got a text message from a student informing me that the famous Li Yang was coming to HuaiYa ZhongXue. Do you know who Li Yang is? Probably not. But in China he is a celebrity of fanatic popularity. He's not an actor. Not a singer. Not a basketball star. Not an Olympic gold medalist. Who is Li Yang? He is an English teacher!

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Our minds are controlled by our environments. Must be. Since being in China, I have heard again and again of Li Yang, the guy who learned English so well and so quickly and who promises the same to all students if they just follow his "crazy" methods... I have heard of Li Yang from students... from people I meet on the train... from men on the street who ask if my English is better than Li Yang's. This guy must be an English-speaking, English-teaching superhero! Well, in 8 months all this fanfare has gotten to my head. And so at that moment reading the text message informing me of Li Yang's arrival, even I felt the wooziness of disbelieving excitement at the notion of seeing and potentially meeting the famous Li Yang.

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At first, I truly didn't believe it. I thought the student had sent a joke text. Why was Li Yang coming to HuaiYa Senior Middle School? The school is in a small town. Why? Was he really coming? Come on...

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But then the calls started. Students calling my cell phone. Students knocking at my door. Students who were normally zombies at this time of the night were ALIVE... and coming to eat my brain. They wanted me to give them ideas... ideas of how to get Li Yang's attention. They wanted me to tell them jokes, stories, words of wisdom, etc. with which they could charm Li Yang. They wanted to practice speaking with me.

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Part II: a new dawn

I awoke to the excitement of thousands of students speaking English across campus. There was a sense of enthusiasm... and in some a sense of desperation. Must impress Li Yang.

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I had numerous appointments, one after another. Practice speaking with this student. Help this student make a giant flag to hoist into Li Yang's line of sight. Then some teachers saw me and asked me to visit their classes and offer words of encouragement and advice. So there I was talking to class after class of students I had never met before. Busy morning!

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If I wasn't excited before (but I was!), I was definitely excited now. Hype hung in the air, and I was breathing it in too. Mob mind: seeing 3,000 people going crazy, how could I not go crazy? Plus, I must say, it was very invigorating just to see the optimism... and hopeful to think how this optimism for English might make teaching it easier in the weeks to come. So, yeah, I was giddy too.

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Part III: the Great Awakening

Li Yang came... late, as expected. He talked... 95% in Chinese... so I didn't understand what he said. The 1% of what he said in Chinese that I managed to understand just so happened to be the words of mockery he used to refer to me.... "old foreigner," "ghost/devil foreigner," "dog." But don't worry, he mocked others too. He told the headmaster/principal that he looked like an old woman. He told one of the English teachers that he looked like Deng Xiaoping (a dig at his short height). He made fun of Obama. He made fun of Hu Jintao. It was something of a roast. Nothing to get uptight about.... I suppose....

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In general, his agenda was to inspire and encourage. He aimed to eradicate laziness, apathy, bad attitudes, defeatism, inferiority, shame, etc. Thumbs up! He also shared some of his methods of learning English. Li Yang, some of the other English teachers, and I each took turns leading the students in shouting English sentences. This is the crazy English method. It's also the part of the performance that I found most lacking in substance. Oh well, the encouragement was worth it. Here are some pics and captions.

my little 'tete-a-tete' with Li Yang

One of the marketing gimmicks of "Crazy English"... add a touch of nationalism, and you'll rope the patriot extremists into the market. You may also provoke global division, but hey!... at least you're selling books!

The above picture shows just one example of nationalism--a relatively harmless example at that. Unfortunatley, nationalism is written into the fabric of "Crazy English." It was everywhere. In fact, after greeting me and telling me how much Li Yang loves America (in English), he then proceeded to boast to the crowd (in Chinese) his love for the Americans who will soon be begging to learn Chinese. At that point, I guess he'll be a celebrity in America teaching us all "Crazy Chinese."

Cult of Personality

...and little red books

Shiny, Happy People Speaking English

Shiny Happy People Holding Hands

At some point, the Li Yang performance got personal. Suddenly students everywhere were crying uncontrolably. And they were being invited up to the stage not to practice speaking English but instead to share some moving story in Chinese and then to sob their eyes out. I'm not sure what was being said, but it seemed they were professing their love for their parents and their appreciation for all the hard work that their parents have done. Not a dry eye on the field...

After this, Li Yang turned up the stereo to the tune of some easy listening music. He then asked all the students to hold hands with other students and listen carefully to his words (spoken in Chinese). So then the hand holding began. Illustrated directly above. Also illustrated directly below.

unity conquers the world

Part IV: the feast

After the English Revival, the important people scampered off to an isolated location. As the resident foreigner who happens to speak English, I am in that circle of people, I guess. Fist, the photo opportunities. Then Li Yang sat down with the English department to recommend methods of instruction. Spoken all in Chinese, I have no idea what they said but I assume it was a suggestion for the students to practice speaking more in and out of class. Thumbs up! Li Yang was very thorough and careful in his suggestions. He gave alot of his time at this point. This shows a sense of his genuine interest and care in the mission.

Li Yang teaches teachers how to teach... and I just hear... it's called "tingbudong along with the conversation"

It is also worth noting that at this point, there were no more references to me being a "foreigner ghost" or a "dog" or anything like that. It was all professional from this point on. Who is the real Li Yang? Who should Li Yang be? It's something of a dilemma I think... sell mockery and nationalsim in order to sell books and sell the important mission? Or be professional... and boring... and accomplish much less? What would you do?

After this, ... er, I mean after yet another round of photo opportunities and autograph appeals... they formed an even smaller circle of VIP and yet I was still in the circle. So we enjoyed a big feast. Li Yang was again very kind, courteous, serious, and genuine to me. The food was over-the-top, and we just barely begun to satisfy our stomachs when Li Yang announced his need to end the night here. At this time it was about 9:00pm. He had been with us since about 3:00. That's quite generous!

In the final meetings, Li Yang had been very friendly to me. He praised me highly to the leaders of the school. And he offered me his name card and his business phone number and an invitation to work at his Crazy English Camp this summer.

Part V: after the fire, the fire still burns....

I'm writing now from the perspective of a few weeks removed from the event. I have teetered back and forth in my assessment of the event. Initially I was very excited, pleased, and grateful for what Li Yang had done. After stewing the night and morning, however, I let my sensitivity to the mockery sour my opinion considerably. I found it difficult to justify. And I became decidedly opposed to Li Yang when my students began to call me "guizi"... "foreigner ghost"... I also thought he didn't offer students enough good methods, particulary students with advanced vocabulary. What should they do?

After talking with students (who all assured me the mockery is harmless) and after watching how students continue to practice English, I have jumped back into the camp of appreciating what Li Yang has done. To this day, students still carry around their little red Li Yang books. They are reading Li Yang's other books. They recite his quotes with passion. And this very afternoon we are having an English Week Party where the students will sing songs, tell stories, tell jokes, act out plays, etc. in front of all their student body. I can imagine that their courage to do this was inspired in part by Li Yang's words.

I have also benefitted from the experience. I have found the Li Yang crazy speaking method to be energizing and fun. It is a new tool to use with students with less motivation, poor vocabulary, shyness, or laziness to participate. Also, I have noticed more students from classes that I don't teach approaching me with the confidence to speak. They say I appeared friendly and inviting when I was speaking at the Li Yang gig. So that's really cool. Finally, I have been asked by the school leaders to lead crazy English sessions in the evenings in front of ALL the students of grade 1 and grade 2. This keeps the spirit alive, makes me feel powerful, and endears me to the praise of the leaders. Win-win-win!

Clearly I have a mixed opinion of Li Yang and Crazy English. Overall, however, I approve and appreciate.

Classroom Management: A Case Study

Yesterday, I was just 5 minutes into class and 2 seconds away from getting into the heart of the lesson when out of nowhere came the sound of glass breaking and a wave of gasps. A student had bumped his elbow into his ink well, sending his brimful bottle and its dark-staining contents all over the floor. There it was, an ink blot asking me the big question: what the heck should you do now? Stop the lesson and clean it, ignore it and go on, a little of both? What to do? What would YOU do in a situation like this?

I decided the mess had to be cleaned up immediately or it would stain. If one student cleaned, all the students would be watching him, so we might as well make it a class effort to clean it up as quickly as possible. But the questions continued. How do you clean that much ink all over the floor? How do you even clean ink? And where would we get the water? To my knowledge, the nearest place to get water was across campus? What would YOU do in a situation like this?

Life works in mysterious ways. We needed water. Well we got water. Not more than 10 seconds after the ink incident and the initial attempt to clean it all up began, I heard an explosion on the right side of the classroom and high-pitched screaming. At first it honestly looked like the kids were being electrocuted by some powerful white current coming from the wall. My heart nearly vaporized at the sight of them being struck by this thing and the sound of their shrill screams. Fortunately... oh thank God... it was just a high pressure stream of water. Somehow, the water surging through the radiator blew off a gasket and then came out spraying the students in its line of fire. What to do? Continue teaching? lol

The students rushed to plug the hole in the radiator, but it was a lot of water and the pressure was very high. The room was flooding quickly. Finally, some students managed to slow the force of the water coming out by stuffing their jackets and shirts into the hole. Still water was coming out and quickly spreading across the classroom. Yo, Jack and Rose, the Titanic is going down!

To understand this situation fully, you need to realize how cramped these classrooms are. 80 students and 80 desks in rooms no bigger than American classrooms. It's a sardine tin in there. Somehow, we had to get all the students to work together to either help mop up or just plain move out of the way. As if by magic, they found their niches. In five minutes the situation was at least stable. The water was no longer gushing out..merely seeping out through the shirts. Some students were managing the flow of water with buckets. Some students were mop/drying the floor. Some students were drying out the mops. Some students were trying to get the 'janitor.' Some students--the majority--just sat at their desks and did homework, studied, or chatted. A quarter of the students worked feverishly while the other 3/4ths sat back and let them. Should I have tried to teach half the classroom? What would YOU do in a situation like this? I figured, this period is surrendered!

By the way, some janitor this place has. The guy came after a long time, inspected, laughed a little giggle, left, and came back later to fix the problem later. I've told you before. There really is no such thing as a janitor of the American high school standard in China. Everything is on the students, and this situation was no different.

By the end of the class, the situation was much better. The water flow was under control by swift bucket action, and the floor was looking cleaner and cleaner. And remember that lake of black ink all over the floor? GONE! Absolutely a job well done!

So, what did I contribute? Not a whole heck of a lot honestly. I kinda felt guilty about it. I didn't know who, where, or how to speak to ask for help. The students were cleaning and wouldn't have dared let me help them. I couldn't teach. So I just stood there and watched. Oh yeah... I kept the kids semi-quiet and calm... but my efforts were essentially nullified by the classroom monitor who shushed the students with that famously loud, mock-angry, mock-fatherly shouting that all class monitors in China are famous for having and using whenever the chance presents itself. So yeah, I didn't make much of a difference. The situation was handled smoothly and effectively no thanks to me. These kids are great...

By the way, if this situation had happened in class 6, I fear we would all be at the bottom of the HuaiYa Sea. Seriously!

Oh yeah, and by the way, apparently these radiators explode like this all the time. Happened in the English office. Happened in Class 12 a couple months ago. And happened yesterday in Class 1. How's that for a little excitement in the day?

March Madness

Where have I been for the last month?! No, it's not writer's block. It's called China block! For whatever reason, on March 1st I lost access to all Google-brand blogger blogs including my own. I was blocked. And my "internet behavior" was being monitored. Then today, March 24... for whatever reason... the forces that be decided I'm not a threat. So I'm back! And I pretty excited about it!!!

So I've been watched for a month, but I don't get a creepy feeling about having been spied on. Instead, I hope (if my internet behavior really was being monitored by humans) that:
-They have enjoyed my sense of humor... who else can lead them to hilarious Sarah Palin jokes, videos of puppets making prank phone calls, and video clips of Dan Quayle being an intellectual lightweight;
-They don't think I'm a lazy slob just because I have over 3,000 unopened emails in my inbox... I just have a 5 year running tradition of not opening spam... and not deleting it either!;
-They appreciate the level of random detail that I provide in my facebook status updates;
-They have acquired my fascination with 1980s nostalgia
-They didn't get irked by my internet habit of refreshing Yahoo! news to see if there is any new news
-They have updated themselves on important news items from the US, Asia, South America, Africa, and the bizarro world
-They share my interest in learning about economics, alternative energy, medical breakthroughs, chimpanzee social behavior,....
-They are excited by all the upcoming video game release dates that I have made them aware of -They have memorized the lyrics to all the 80s songs I looked up to sing along with on youtube

In the end, I think it must have been my mind-numbingly boring journeys through the streets of Belvidere, Rockford, Chicago, DeKalb, Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach, and New York City on Google Earth-Street View that must have driven them to the brink of exhaustion of watching my internet behavior... and to the conclusion that my internet behavior is any other adjective but dangerous! :-)

And so now I and my IP address are back in the world of blogging!


UPDATE (3/25): On the very same day I regained access to my blog, thegovernmentofthecountryinwhichIcurrentlylive (tGotCiwICL) blocked Youtube. At first I thought it was just a random Youtube problem. These little Youtube accessibility hiccups happen all the time, including in the U.S. But when minutes turned into hours turned into a day, I suspected Papa Panda might be responsible. Great, I traded access to my blog for access to Youtube. And to honest, Youtube is actually more important because I use it for lessons... yeah, yeah... and as the most entertaining time suck of my life.

Anyways, I just finished reading an article on Yahoo! News that confirms that Youtube has been blocked by tGotCiwICL. Why? Apparently some video of tGotCiwICL police forces beating to death a protester from a certain hotbed province of tGotCiwICL. The English name of this particular province begins with the letter T, ends with the letter T, and rhymes with "the bet." You do know the place I'm talking about, don't you? Well anyways, tGotCiwICL says the video is faked. And in light of the shoddy reporting and yellow journalism of CNN and BBC from last year, I say there's a darn good chance it is faked. Come on, it was posted by some random guy on Youtube!!! But Papa Panda doesn't want anyone to have a look to see for himself. Which means I can't say either way. And it also means I can't get videos to make good set inductions for my classes. And it also means I can't spend my weeknights reliving the 1980s.

... for now....

Snow brings Double Happiness

SNOW DAY in HuaiYa!

These last few months have brought an intensifying drought of no snow. I listened with envy and longing to parents' and friends' tales of snow days and blizzards at home in Northern Illinois. Record snowfall there; drought here.

But forget about my sentimental attachment to snow. The drought is very real and very severe in fact. The grim truth is that it hadn't snowed, but it also hadn't rained. I think the last time I used my umbrella here in Shaanxi was probably September. In January I was beginning to wonder if something serious was going on in this region when one day 2 weeks ago I happened upon a news story informing me that in fact there was a genuine drought and that it was spread across a wide area of northern China, east and west. Some reports say the drought brings desperate conditions that haven't been seen in China since the late 1950s. Severe, eh?!

Side note. The late 1950s were Great Leap Forward times... what a double misfortune that such a disasterous policy initiative coincided with disasterous weather conditions, including drought. This 2008-2009 drought has also been a double misfortune.... regional drought and global economic crisis collide!.... unemployed migrants workers from Shenzhen returning to drought-struck land in their hometowns. It wasn't looking good...

But that began to change yesterday. Yesterday it rained. It caught almost everyone by surprise (but not me... because I watch the Weather Channel feeds like it's a hobby... ha! we Americans love our weather news!). There was a variety of responses from students. Some were annoyed because the rain caught them at a time when they didn't have appropriate clothing or an umbrella. Others were overjoyed. These were the farmers' children. They knew what came with the long-awaited rain. Cold, wet clothing? Yes, but also income, employment, and stable food prices. Everything.

And now today the precipitation came in the form of snow. And you know how I love snow. Usually in Chicagoland I would not get excited about this kind of snow. I need snow that rises above my waist to get me excited. I like snow that breaks the budget of the city snow removal department. I get a sick pleasure out of snow that terrifies me as I drive in it! But this! This is a paper-thin accumulation. And it will probably all melt within the hour. Usually I use the word "pathetic" to describe this kind of snow fall. But here and now, I am letting this snow lift my spirits quite high as it lifts Shaanxi out of drought. Plus, any amount of snow falling on Chinese rooftops is boss!

I spy only one student playing with the snow... taking time to appreciate Mother Nature's art... three other students don't know whether to work or play... so they stand around with brooms in hands (who told these kids to sweep the snow?!). And the rest of the school studies feverishly in classrooms. Snow day without the hope of 'no school.'

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hmmm, I also spy... a SNOWBALL FIGHT!!!! Now this is what you do with snow!

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And I take pictures of people's houses; I feel like a creepy Soviet spy!

UPDATE1: I just now received a text message from a student (yes, my students text me!). Here is what he wrote...

"It's snowy! The school yard is full of snow! How romantic it is!!!"

Indeed, indeed!

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UPDATE2: At 10:35, the students get a 25 minute break to rest. First they do 5 minute eye exercises and then they get the remaining 20 minutes to stretch, walk around, jog, take potty time at the W.C., etc. They are free for 20 minutes! Well what do you think they did today? Pandemonium!

All I heard was the sound of 3,000 people playing. It was a massive, complicated snowball fight. As student A throws a snowball at student B, student X tucks a snowball down the back of student A's shirt. Everywhere snowballs were flying. Snow at people. Snow at trees. Some students even threw snowballs through the windows of their classrooms... devilish! Oh, and the big story on campus was about how the students in grade1, class 4 threw a snowball at their teacher (and she liked it!)... scandalous!

Some clever students came into the teacher's compound to get their ammunition.

a little action from the Snowball Riot right beneath my window

After the break, the school leaders put a stop to it. Would the students obey? Well they had no choice; by the time of their next break 40 minutes later the snow had melted beyond grasping potential. By the afternoon it was all water.

UPDATE3: At 11:00, the Snowball Riot was instantly squelched by the sound of circus music summoning the students back to the discipline of their textbooks. Safe from the thousand crosshairs of flying snow, I left my apartment to snap some photos of HuaiYa in snow.

HuaiYa Main Street

aint it quaint?

This one makes me feel 'Christmasy'

A Catch-up Effect Anomaly

A 'Catch-Up Effect' Anomaly:

How Do Cassette Tapes Survive in China in 2009?

Rock Valley College. Fall 2004. Macroeconomics with Professor Youngblood. The lesson: the Catch-up Effect. A lesson grounded in economics, flowing with uplifting and optimistic predictions for the potential futures of the developing countries of the world.

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Here's the lesson in summary. The lesser and least developing countries of the world have problems. Maybe the problems are health-related--malaria, AIDs, tuberculosis, etc. Maybe the problems are conflict related--war, terrorism, sanctions. Maybe the problems are money-related--deficits, government debt, inflation, etc. Maybe the problems are infrastructure-related--roads, plumbing, electricity, etc. Maybe the problems are resource-related--lack of freshwater, poor soil, uneducated labor force, etc. In most cases, such countries likely have a combination of all these problems. They are stuck in a poverty trap.

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By that point in the semester, the professor had lectured how with sound government and economic policies, such countries could escape from the poverty trap. That's uplifting, right? But then there's the catch-up effect.

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The professor explained that in it's initial stages of economic growth coming out of the poverty trap, the economic growth of developing countries is often steep and exponential. In other words, people's standards of living can increase rapidly... doubling in less than a decade... the developing countries catch-up with the developing countries like the hare spotting the tortoise in front of him.

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How? Technology! They get all the most recent and productive technology all at once.

Imagine that one surving caveman forever unaware of the modern world around him lives somewhere on this planet. He lives by hunting animals with his club. Maybe he only manages a kill once every two days. One day some NRA activists find him and show him how to use an AK47. Takes a few hours to teach him, but he gets the hang of it after awhile. Now he can get a kill every hour. Look at the growth of his productivity!!!!

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The cavemen-to-neocon line who developed separately from him developed more slowly and gradually. They innovated and adopted the arrowhead, then the arrow, then Zhuge Liang's rapid-fire crossbow, then the rifle, then the rifle that actually hits the target, then the sniper rifle, then the nuclear weapon, then the weaponized virus in Season Three of the tv show 24. These innovations happend over thousands of years... growth was slow... but this caveman instantly accessed them and his growth was NOW!

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This is something like what happens to developing countries that break out of the poverty trap. Suddenly they get cellular phones, satellite TV, mp4 players, PS3s, George Forman Grills, the Magic Bullet with EZ smoothie accessories... oh, and sliced bread. Together, these things enhance productivity tremendously... the people in the countries can do more with less time... their economy runs like the Gingerbread Man.

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Another advantage is that they eliminate a lot of waste. They have PS3s, so there are no Ataris, SNESs, Dreamcasts, or PS1s sitting around unused. They don't have to build landlines if they only need to build cell phone towers. It saves resources.

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The catch-up effect is the invisible hand's little miracle. It makes people lives better faster, and it happens all the time. Sometimes the country merely catches up. Sometimes the country catches up and then takes the lead. I think it's fair to say that colonial and infant America 'caught up' using technology initially developed in Europe--particulary England--and then took the lead in the 20th Century. And China's economic growth in the last few decades is nothing if not a model of how well the catch-up effect works. Who knows if China will catch-up or take the lead? But that's not my question. I want to know...

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Why are there cassette tapes in China in 2009?

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My memory stretches back to the late 1980s, so I remember the retirement years of the cassette tape era. I remember buying them. I remember listening to them... having to flip them over to the other side. I remember the painful rewinding and fastforwarding process. I remember those unique sounds of an aging or damaged cassette. I remember the 'piracy' technique of recording from the radio onto the cassettes... and getting barely acceptable quality audio! Cassettes, may they be forever dead...

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But they're not! China has them?! Not everywhere... in fact, in only one place that I've seen: textbooks. The Chinese textbooks come with cassette tapes. Textbooks published in 2005 and printed in 2008 come with cassette tapes! Why?!?!?!?!!??!!?

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On the one hand, the fact that China has cassette tapes is consistent with the theory of the catch-up effect. China's development really took off in the 80s--the cassette tape heyday. So we can expect there to be some remnants of the technology. But CHina should have--like the U.S. phased them out more completely. And I must reinforce that in most ways China has. You'll never find Chinese people to listening to music on cassette. And you'll be hard-pressed to find them listening to music on CDs. They all listen to digital music. So again, China's experience is mostly what we expect. The textbook w/cassette anomaly is just one small, but puzzling variation from the trend.

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So why do the textbooks come with cassettes? They were printed and released in 2008! CDs would have been cheaper, lighter, less bulky, and more convenient to transfer to digital format for increased used. Do the students even have cassette players?

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I'm going to let my mind wander over some possible explanations:

(1) cassette tapes are less easy to pirate?... and the textbook companies are concerned about piracy of their intellectual property rights? (but who would pirate textbook audio?! most of the students would be happiest if they never had to listen to the robotic voice of that British woman... I estimate less than 1% listen to the audio outside of class... no market for piracy!)

(2) the textbook company is concerned that some poor students don't have CD or mp3 players? (but I'd be concerned about the rich and middle-income students who don't have cassette players)

(3) the textbook company is concerned about poor, rural classrooms that don't have and can't afford CD players? (but CD players can't be more expensive than cassette players... when the cassette player breaks, the school will likely have to pay even more money to find and purchase this defunct technology. CD players are cheap!)

(4) the textbook writers are a bunch of dinosaurs who still live in 1987? (but how then do these dinosaurs manage to have 'hip' topics like "Book 7, Unit 3: Safe Sex"... yeah, the students learned English words about how to have sex safely)

(5) textbooks have always come with cassette tapes, and so they always must?

(6) the textbook company wants to give me something to blog about

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Seriously, I really want to know... why do the Shaanxi Senior High School English textbooks published in 2005 and printed in 2008 come with cassettes? Is there an explanation that I am missing?