On Teaching Well

The sight of a pale-skinned young man of European descent ambling down a street in Changsha is usually enough to elicit unabashed stares that would make Kate Moss blush, but that's nothing compared to the firestorm of gawking that is unfurled when said young man is quite obviously primed for classroom duty, clad in an Oxford shirt and red-and-gold-striped tie. My own students also seemed somewhat dumbfounded by the appearance of this peculiar life form, despite their two years of experience studying English under foreign teachers. Perhaps unfortunately, their giggly glances turned to taciturn gazes with the ring of the 8 AM bell, and I had 100 minutes to pry the most basic personal data from their reluctant lips and give life to William Zinsser's thoughts on the craft of written English. After five hours of teaching, I've definitely mastered the notions of unity of tense and narrowly proscribed topics in nonfiction writing, but whether the same can be said for any of my students remains to be seen.