I arrived to my first class about five minutes before the bell rang. I’d gotten up early to make sure I was on time—bad form for the teacher to be late. Almost every student was there waiting; there was a momentary hush as I walked in. These were graduate students, and not English majors, so they said nothing to me at first.

I wrote my name on the board, then waited behind the lectern until my watch ticked passed 8 a.m.

The students are in their mid-20s. A few are older than me, having spent time working between undergraduate and graduate schools. They are respectful but shy. Most prefaced each sentence with an apology for their poor English, then stammered out what I thought was entirely understandable. They’re far from fluent, but their English is leagues beyond my Chinese.

“You have to make mistakes when you’re learning a new language,” I told them after an hour of pulling words from their mouths and trying to string together a conversation. “It’s OK, but you have to try.”

This class is called “Listening.” From what I understand, the students are supposed to have tapes or CDs or something to listen to. The textbook I got from the English Department is little more than a series of quizzes on these mysterious recordings. But I have yet to see or hear any such materials; nor have the students.

So instead of listening to a recording about entertainment—as the textbook would have had us do—we spent the second hour of class talking about movies and music and other things American. I figure I can at least give the students a chance to hear some English by talking to them, and maybe they’ll get up the courage to add their own thoughts at some point.

The second class went smoother. These were English majors, sophomores, 19- and 20-year-olds in the prime of their university experience. I walked into class 10 minutes early and was greeted by “What’s up, man?” from a student who called himself Rock. I tried to joke with him a bit, but his English isn’t quite there yet. My guess is he learned the bit of colloquialism from his last foreign teacher, or from TV.

In all, the sophomores were livelier and much more willing to speak. We played hangman in the second half of class, and this group had little trouble with “paint,” “sensitive” and “ambitious.” Next time I’ll try something harder.

The biggest challenge with the sophomores is the usual Chinese chaos. I’d ask a question and have four or five answers shouted back at me. I kept trying to get the students to raise their hands, like back home, but that’s a foreign concept I suppose.

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