Hi, everyone. I am Anita. Today I am going to talk about my part time job. I work as a Chinese tutor during weekend. My student is four year old Indian girl. I am surprised at first why an Indian kid wanted to learn Chinese. I mean, she can’t even speak English well. She can only count to 37 in English. So it really surprises that she wants to learn Chinese. Besides, I know many people find Chinese difficult to learn. Then I find out that she really likes a Chinese cartoon called “Kailan.” So in some way she becomes interested in Chinese. In fact, she is also learning Hindi (from her mother) and Spanish (from the day care school) at the same time. So, I am thinking if she feels confused sometime. We communicate with each other in English. She’s a really cute girl, but she’s too little to take it seriously. Every time I go, she wants to play with me rather than literally learn. And I understand, so most of the time we are playing. We do the role playing together. It is really funny when she asks me to play the daughter and she plays the mother. She will act as a mother and use the kind of motherlike tone to ask me what breakfast I would like to have and she will “cook” for me. Sometimes I feel so guilty because I don’t teach her Chinese but play around. And her parents are very nice people. They treat me very well. So I don’t want to disappoint them. Gradually, I learn to teach her some simple Chinese words when we are playing, for example, I would ask what’s her favorite animal, color, food and then I will tell her the Chinese words. In fact, I really like this job because sometimes it gives me a chance to go back to childhood. When I am staying with her, I feel like I am a kid too. I can throw away my upset and pressure for a while. Because of the midterm, I haven’t been there for two weeks… So after this week, I am really looking forward to see the girl again.
