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By MIKE MEYER
Published: May 25, 2008
Mocky is a naughty monkey. His friends Ken and Ann are humans. Together, they teach English in Beijing’s elementary schools. My students love Mocky. He and his pals are more fun than the characters in their previous textbook series, Ma Nan and her teacher Miss Zhang. Those primers could have been titled “Hectoring English.” A typical dialogue went:
“You’re late again, Ma Nan.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Zhang.”
“When do you get up every morning?”
“At 7.”
“Get up earlier. Don’t be late next time.”
...... I live just south of Tiananmen Square, on one of the city’s hutong, or narrow lanes, in a decrepit courtyard house shared by several families. Since 2005, I’ve volunteered at the neighborhood’s elementary school. On the first day, I found blackboards decorated with chalked Olympic mascots, the five-colored rings and verses in Chinese:
The Olympics will be held in 2008
Our civic virtue must be great!
Spitting everywhere is really terrible
Littering trash is also unbearable
To get a “thumbs up” from foreign guests
Beijing’s environment depends on us!
Link:
Letter From Beijing: Learning to Speak Olympics
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