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Welcome to English Village—the pride of Yilan County.  Every Tuesday, six of us gather in the morning to give some fifth grade students of Yilan County an unforgettable English experience.  The entire building is designed to be a simulated English environment, complete with an airplane donated by EVA Air, a fake dance studio, bank, restaurant, etc.

After a group introduction, the students, in groups, run through the stations to practice interacting with us, saying things like “I want to exchange $200 NT dollars to US dollars” at the bank or “Do your eyes hurt?” at the health center.  We also play fun games with them to get them to practice using English more.  At the end of their crazy adventure, they write postcards in English.

Running through this over and over again for the entire year with new students each time, I have to admit, gets a little boring.  Sometimes you have to spice things up.  For three of the male ETAs that teach with me on Tuesday, this means making the craziest possible introductions ever.  The rest of us on the Tuesday EV team have just backed off and let them have their show.  This has resulted in visits from Farruk with a Middle-Eastern accent, Mr. Robot who wears his helmet inside the classroom, dancing to “Twist and Shout”, singing “Happy Birthday” to Lady Gaga, forcing 60 fifth-graders to do jumping jacks, and pretending to be a puppet.

This Tuesday, one of my students at EV asked me, “What’s down there?” referring to the stairs leading down to what seems like a subway (from looking at the wallpaper).  In fact, there is nothing but a dead end down there.  But, instead I told him, “There are ghosts and monsters down there.  If you’re bad, then I will send you there!”  Later that day, as we walked to the next station, he told me that he was scared of ghosts.  I decided to mess around with him and suddenly screamed at him, he yelped hysterically, then said “ni xia dao le wo” which means that I scared him.  We laughed it off.

Then, when it was time to write the postcards, he gave me this:

Dear Jessica:

I am at Sin Sheng English Village. I went to the restaurant, bank, shopping mall, and health center. It was fun!  I saw a ghost!  I am scared.  Your student, Jerry