So much for the juniors! I thought I was going to be great! Then, I met my seniors. A bit more of a challenge, but, life only throws so much at you as you can take, so, I started with an introduction, but they didn't love me! I wanted to show them the book, but decided not to, because it would not save me from this crowd. Some preparation had gone into this class, so I talked a bit about the IBT (internet based test) TOEFL (test of English as a foreign language) and two of the six things they have to be able to do:

• 1) deliver adequate oral responses to questions
• 2) participate actively in (academic) discussions

This bored them to bits, and the love slipped away from my fingers... Having a light discussion about the movie Avatar (and its 9 Oscar nominations...) allowed me to demonstrate to them that they are not as proficient in the aforementioned as they first believed. Love had left the building.

Unfortunately, they threw the one argument at me that I cannot argue with: talking about Avatar is not in THE BOOK. Yes, this story features another book. The book of TOEFL. This book (approx 1000 pages) features examples of the questions and texts they might get when they take their TOEFL. Later on, I learned that their Chinese English teacher is working on that, so I can make them do what I think is right to prepare them for this test, without focusing on the book! (of course, right now, I know s**t about IBT TOEFL, so help is required, but at least I know what to do now) Class almost finished early, as I had nothing left to talk about. This is where teacher-skill no. 5 kicked in: be able to improvise. So, I had everyone write down what they thought they needed help with. Asking them to tell me in front of the class didn't work. Chinese people don't like to admit their weaknesses, because it makes them lose respect. (I wondering how much respect is left for me...)

When I left, I saw that there was no love...