English Competetion

I was asked to give an English corner which luckily never materialised
but then it came back to haunt me when Chris and I were asked to be
judges for an English competition in the new school.

We agreed and dragged ourselves over for the preliminary stage and
watched our students perform, mainly because they wanted us to watch
them for support and not really for any other reason. Then the next
week the day of the competition came and so chris and I, after a long
day teaching, wandered over to the hall, and quickly found ourselves
wishing we had bothered to shave and wear a shirt!

All the student teachers who had organised this were dressed up to the
nines and the heads of both the schools were there along with a few
hundred students! We had no idea what was going on so just kind of
rolled with it, but the student teachers seemingly had just about as
much idea as us!

We sat down at our set places at the front of a large lecture hall
with large airline style conformable seat and only then noticed that
everything was on video and there were two professional photographers
around as well.

The students then proceeded to put on prepared performances including
providing an english voiceover for the snow white film, singing
English songs and all sorts of cool things.
The teachers then tried to run a game with the kids but of course none
volunteered, so Chris and I jumped up on stage and joined in playing
the balloon games with them, I worked with ChenChen, my old student
and friend, and Chris with another student.

At the end they asked us, without any prep time, to give a speech! So
I Stood up and gave them a small speech, most of them were students I
am or have been teaching, and so it wasn't too hard to give a little
on the spot thank you speech, then unfortunately chris also had to
give one! In the end the snow white dubbing girl won! and Oceane a
student we are friends with was a pretty close second. However in true
chinese style she was heartbroken at being second, its just not good
enough! She was genuinely upset! crazy chinese!

In all the craziness we didn't even manage any pictures! Only one of
Oceane receiving her giant but disappointing awards!