Monday, November 7, 2011

An English Competition

Recently I went on a trip to help in a 3 day English competition sponsored by World Vision. When I was first approached by my English teachers to go with my students I thought “ugh.”
Now you’re probably wondering why “ugh” was my first reaction. Well, now that I have been here for a little over a year (pat myself on the back) I have a better understanding of how these competitions work in Mongolia. You go to this far off town and the students and teachers sleep in…a freakin….classroom. The teachers don’t even get their own classroom, nope. They share it with their students. And sleep on the floor.
On top of being uncomfortable, the schedule is always late; you never know what’s going on or how long anything will take. But, I put these thoughts aside and said disgruntling “FIINNEE”. After a nauseating 4 hour bumpy bus ride, we get to the town and walk up to the 1st school. The director comes up to us and says oops you’re in the wrong school, in fact you must go with all your things to the other side of town, which is about a 30 min walk, to the 5th school. “Oh poop” I think. So we grab all our things, and walk in the cold across town. We are all hungry and tired but we are actually the lucky ones. There are other students who will participate in the Math competition who had to take the train, which will drop them off tomorrow, at 3:00 AM.
We get to the 5th school, and they put us in a small classroom, with the tables and chairs pushed back and a thin rug rolled out. There is no running water in the town that day, and the bathroom in the school has a huge hole on the door. The students set up their sleeping bags and when they ask where is mine I timidly say I am staying at another PCV’s apartment that lives in that town. I felt a bit guilty for doing so but the thought of sleeping on the floor of a classroom with all my students and that gosh darn hole in the bathroom door did it for me. And we go off to find some greasy Mongolian food.
The next day, my teacher says we must be at the 1st school at 9:00am! Don’t be late! They will not start on Mongolian time! And I, foolishly enough, believed her. (Looks like I haven’t learned all that much my second year after all) I get to the 5th school on time, and we wait…for almost two hours, until it finally starts. First they entertain us with students singing English songs. Cute right? Only right after that starts the English song competition and, oh my…this is awkward, the same students who just sang are singing again- with a few extras added. After we had some lunch together, provided by World Vision (WV) which was very nice of them ;( side note: they made sure to feed these students for the entire 3 days, which is extremely rare here in Mongolia.) After lunch, the written test: students who pass this written test can move on to Stage two: Speaking about certain topics, and once they pass stage two, on to the final stage: debate! At the school, before their written exam began, this exchange happened with my student:
Student: Ellie teacher, please slap me on the back, 3 times.
Me: er….what?
Student: Please, 3xs on the back, it is superstition
Me: um…should I slap hard?
I awkwardly ended up slapping the backs of all the students, feeling like what I was doing was wrong, yet kinda funny. After the exam, dinner and you would thing we would all go back and hang out until tomorrow. Nope, not these overachieving students! They waited for hours for the test results to be posted. This took so long that they eventually went back to the 5th school, and when someone told them it was posted, a handful of students put on their boots and walk out to the 1st school late at night to see who got placed in the top 6. Now, when I asked why, one student said “I need to know if I can sleep tonight. If I get placed in the top 6, I can’t sleep. I must prepare all night. But if I didn’t place, I can sleep.”
I am proud to say that most of my students placed in the top 6 of their grades (9th, 10th, and 11th). I spent that night talking with my students about the different topics they will be presented with the next day; global warming, air pollution, child abuse, bad habits, Mongolian educational system to name a few. But after awhile, we just chatted and I let them ask me any questions they wanted to help practice their English and I have to say I truly enjoyed spending that time with the students.
The next day, I met the students at the school, all of them had only 2 hours of sleep the night before but no one complains and they don’t seem tired. The day starts late as usual. When the students start their speaking, some are so nervous they get to the microphone, say their name and nothing else. They stand for several brutal minuets, saying and doing nothing. Eventually, a judge has to tell them to go sit down. They go back to their seats, heads down, ashamed.
Final stage, several of my students make it to the top 3 of their grades. The debate is pretty uneventful with students not understanding the topics, but by the time 11th grade gets up, it gets pretty decent. One of my students’ wins 1st place, and a laptop, for the 11th grade; she cries from happiness. My 10th grade student gets 2nd place, she cries from disappointment. In the 9th grade, a student from our town also wins 1st place but she has a fever and even though she is happy, she just wants to go home.
And that wraps up my 3days of the WV English competition! The students who participated really did learn a lot and I have never in my life seen students who had to endure so much and who were so dedicated. An interesting experience after all, although...truth be told... I would be fine if I didn’t experience it again for a long time.

No comments:

Post a Comment