Third Month

Saturday, May, 1

I'm tired and sleepy, but I want to put down a few thoughts before going to bed.

It's May Day, the first since I became a teacher, I feel happy and excited – it's my own holiday.

This morning I took my students boating in the park. The weather was lovely, and one could not help being in high spirits; the new clothes I was wearing for the occasion probably had something to do with it. Two of my students helped me into a boat. They rowed, insisting that Teacher Hung take it easy and leave everything to them, a suggestion to which Teacher Hung gracefully acceded.

I sat back and gave myself up to the bright sun and the gentle breezes blowing across the lake. While one of the girls rowed, the other began to hum a Taiwan folk song, accompanying herself on a guitar. She had a lovely contralto voice, and the song suited her voice to perfection.

We had lunch in the park, sharing what we had with the others. ц was a gay and noisy meal and we all enjoyed ourselves tremendously. The students were taking good care of me, offering me the choicest morsels. More than once, the thought occurred to me: "How wonderful our young people are!"

We got back to the university around three. I sat down to some reading. The book was "An American Tragedy." I was sleepy, but Theodore Dreiser's great story gripped me as usual, driving away my drowsiness.

Tomorrow is Sunday. I'll make up for the time spent reading and looking about.

Monday, May, 3

Instead of working with the textbook this morning, I have the students talk about the May Day picnic and about Youth Day, which is tomorrow.

To liven up the discussion on Youth Day, I let one group of students enact the role of foreign tourists in China, young women from different English-speaking nations. They ask the other students about their life, work, and studies; the latter in turn ask the "tourists" about youth outside of China.

It all goes fairly well. But I soon discover that our students know very little about foreign youth, and have difficulty therefore in formulating their questions.

Assignment:

Read the three extracts from a diary and

a) say what kind of teacher has written it,

b)what you think about her first speech,

c) in what way she spent May 1,

d) how she organized the lesson on May 3.