Mandarin/English Interpreting

I’ve been doing this over-the-phone Mandarin/English interpreting job for about 6 weeks now. The satisfatory points for me is only about 70%.

Sure all the clients I’ve been helped complimented on my customer service and linguistic skills, and always very much appreciated what I have done for them. Whether it’s to help them activating new credit cards, starting new electricity service, seeing doctors, reporting to the insurance company for car accidents, getting the police officer over to deal with an emergency… All and all, I did contribute a bit of myself to make their lives easier.

But, I just don’t feel like I can keep doing this job for any longer…

The super low hour pay is the majoy thing. $7.50 an hour is the most dreadful hour pay I’ve ever had in the U.S. (FYI, the lowest legal wage in San Franciso is $8.25 per hour). Oftentimes, I made fun of myself that I should find a cashier job at “Trader Joe’s” or “Whole Food”, at least I can get the 20% off employee discount buying groceries.

The 2nd thing is, I can’t really “interact” with people. One fun thing about teaching is you get to get direct feedback from students every day.That’s a big reward from teaching jobs, considering the low-paid, time-consuming and mind-exhuasting nature of teaching. The students acoomplishment is the biggest reward for teachers.

Anyway… I’m still searching for a better job. Meanwhile, I’ll keep serving limited-English-speaking Mandarin speakers, and keep learning from them.

Too Fast?

Repost old blog entry #5 

September 23, 2006

Too fast?

Done a personal survey among my students today. The most common feedback from them are– friendly, cheerful and nice personality, dynamic teaching skills, never a dull moment (one student said that, yeah, I’m an entertaining hostess…), patient, bilingually beneficial to them. However, almost all of them put this answer on Q2:

• Q:What do you dislike the most about this class? 
• A: You speak too fast! 

Maybe I’ve been far away from the lower level of English proficiency for a while, so I can’t remember the pain the 2nd language learners have to suffer from the fast speech of the instructor. Oh, yeah, I clearly remember one of my previous grammar professors back in college, Professor Hilbert, she is absolutely the champion of speaking fast on campus. Not only in class, in real life, she speaks even faster. I guess she’s been holding herself back really hard in class already.

That’s the reason why I want to get some feedback from my lovely students–to make myself a better teacher for the next cycle.

Always try to advance my career. Yeah, like the pyscho test Jesse gave to me yesterday,  my imaginary ladder on the movie theater screen is the sturdy, old, solid oak one. The one looks like the monstrous one in the public library, that can be steadily fixed on the floor, with wheels, helps you reaching the top of the bookshelfs and take you to any books you want to get. The underlining meaning of the ladder is– how you see your career. Which seems to be the major comfort and sense of security I can provide myself for the rest of my life.

Being professional; stay professional. It must be easier than stay beautiful. After all, I’m already too sexy and pretty for being a teacher.

Tutored Irina,aka my new TOFEL preparation student from Taiwan, this afternoon. Still feel good step into the familiar, same old campus. Glad that I help her a lot in grammar. She told me afterwards: “I wish I can know you earlier so I can suffer less from my classes… Hong should introduce us as soon as I got here!!” And she handed me the tutoring fee in a cute envelope with a thank you note and personal signature stamp on it… That’s a totally Asian way to show respect to the teacher. No matter what kinda of teachers that might be.

Repost my old blog entry on March 09, 2005

Chinese curriculum & landlord

2 things interesting today.

1. I followed my classmate Jen to her CHINESE 101 class to see how horrible this class is presented. The instrutor is an American male today, speaks pretty good Mandarin, very knowledgable in Chinese (I poped out 2 tricky questions to test him… Ha Ha), got his Chinese education done in Taiwan, taught in an OK way in class, sometimes quite entertaining. But, some problems observed:

• Too much new vocabulary and new sentence patterns in 50-mins class time. 
• Too less drills/practices/activities among students.
• Students are lack of enthusiasm to learn.

When I heard my classmates complained about how much they have been suffering from the Chinese class they’re currently taking, I had somehow suspicion on what they’ve described. Not until had I had the close obervation today, I was not suprised at all. (They told me another teacher, Miss Wong, is the total bi-o-tch for teaching them on Tue. and Thurs, who is also from Taiwan…)

Why can’t those teachers I met at the university and city college use a more fun,diverse and inspiring way to teach students in class? Why do they have to murder all the fun and joy learning a new foreign language? Especially Chinese, it supposed to be fun learning the culture and interesting sotries behind those ”tricky” characters… I wonder how many of my poor fellow classmates will continue taking advanced Chinese class next semester, or just hate it forever~

I began to have the idea of revolting the boring way of teaching Chinese outside of China.

Secondly, I know I’ve never liked anyone I knew from Mainland China. After being seperated for 56 years, Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese have lived in totally different political & economical backgrounds, we’d never be the same people anymore ( I think the same analogy applies to English/Americans/Canadians).

My Chinese landlord (immigated from north-eastern China, 山東 Shan-Dong Province 13 years ago) threw away my housemate’s heater without even thinking about inform him first. He blamed him as the “evil young man” living in the house, who uses the old-fashioned heater to not only try to burn down his house and cause the blackout in the house all the time. He also accused him as the sole reason for the increasing electricity bill for the past 3 months.

Is there any RESPECT in his dictionary or crazy mind?

I’ve tried my best to talk him into not doing so. No use. I could only translate what he meant to my Japanese housemate after he returned from school. Of course, you know how VERY angry he turned to be now …

Anyway, my poor housemate was calling his another Chinese friend over to translate for him so that those 2 people can have a huge fight later and settle part of the problem down.

I don’t think I’ll have a peaceful night. The on-line fortuneteller was right. This will be a very chotic year for me. What’s wrong with all those stars in the sky? Couldn’t they just orbit in the right tracks?