The Monkey Kings 美猴王

I just had my first English corner. English corner at Web means you, the foreign teacher, are holding an hour long seminar. I see it as a great way to get experience in holding a meeting and speaking in front of a group.

I don’t know how successful it was. It is often difficult to tell just what Chinese people are thinking, because so many of them hold their emotions–happy, sad, angry or ecstatic–inside. If I were in Germany or Italy I’d probably know exactly what most of them thought; but most Chinese people don’t want you to think they disapprove of you.

Anyway, my subject was American comedy and I analysed an episode of Seinfeld with them. The show is based on everyday subjects, familiar things; characters that drive the plot, and not the other way round; relationships; common things made funny; repeating words until they become funny. The reason I don’t know if it was successful or not is that there wasn’t a lot of participation and my students didn’t get a lot of the jokes. But they appreciated a lot of the humour when they understood it, and they learned about what makes American comedy funny, so I hit my goal.