Tutoring the Adorable Spawn of Satan

During our opening information session a couple weeks ago, our program director briefly mentioned that she knew of families in the area who were looking for English tutors. I had also heard rumors that tutoring for a family here was more of an intimate process than back home; the families treat you very well, make you food, invite you on family outings, etc.. Turns out I was qualified (I can speak English), so I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to help out, earn some money, and gain a little insight into the culture of a Chinese family.

So I got set up with a family that lives across the street, and we had our first session last Sunday. I was tutoring a boy and two girls; the three of them are each eight years old, and are absolutely adorable. When I rang the doorbell to their apartment, the father of the boy opened the door and very quickly introduced himself in broken but adequate English, then introduced me to the three kids, who told me their English names and ages in near-perfect speech. He then ushered the four of us into a room, threw me a textbook, and slammed the door.

The suddenness caught me a little off guard, but I gathered myself and started asking them questions I had prepared about their favorite color, food, game, thing to do, etc, thinking this would be a good place to start before diving into the lessons in the textbook. It immediately became clear they had other plans. No sooner had the door closed than there were jumping on the bed, tackling each other, yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs, and not listening to a word I was saying.

These kids had more energy than I have seen in individuals for a very long time. They were incredibly difficult to control, and I progressed from nice, mild, friendly teacher to “sit down and shut up,” authoritarian teacher extremely quickly. The interesting thing was however, that every so often they would became obsessed with the lessons we were doing; when reading through practice dialogues, they would passionately fight over who got to be which character, and loudly and proudly read their parts. When playing a “name that object” game-show type thing, they were laser-focused.

Also, I was absolutely amazed at how good their English was—I would go as far as to say that their proficiency was not much worse than their American peers. I wonder if this is the trend now in China, that kids begin learning English at almost the same time they start school; this seems to be the case. I actually heard an interesting statistic on the Colbert Report a little while ago, that there are more people learning English in China than in America. I know that in most places in Europe they start teaching kids English at a very young age as well, so if China has adopted the practice, that makes me all the more glad that it is my mother-tongue. 

It also kind of makes me feel like I’m wasting my time learning Chinese! Nah ... actually according to a random guy I met on the subway, most young men and women here can read English very well, but can't speak proficiently because they almost never practice at school. Hence the need for a weekend tutor.