First Lesson - Cantonese Conversation Class

Last night I spent my first 2 hours teaching Cantonese Conversation to 7 adults. One is a 'gui-lo' and the others are Asian who speak some, very little or no Cantonese. As the Chinese school is not a profit-making institute and most (maybe all) administrative staff are volunteers, they were not ready to give me help with the printing job as promised by the Principal. It really made me embarrased when I had to teach without handouts to the learners for the first hour. But it went much better in the 2nd hour.




I taught them 'greetings and responses', 'introducing self and others' and then 'numbers'! A lot? Yeah it is too much for 2 of them who know very little Chinese. But for the Canada Born Chinese, maybe the pace is alright. Luckily it's a small class.




As most of them don't like writing and all prefer improving mainly speaking and listening skills, teaching them Romanlised alphabets and tones is inevitable. It's tough. Luckily I was taught 'jyutping' （粤拼）when I did my MA in Linguistics at HKU with Dr KK Luke who is one of the key persons developing the system. Now I understand better why I should do the MA in 2001 without the sponsorship from my former employer.




Hope most of them will stay in the class so that it won't be dismissed prematurely.