A Few Tips on How to Lead a Proposal Review Team

Ke Xu

March 28, 2009

I. Careful Planning and Early Prevention

1. Interest Section Leaders Guide to the Academic Program

Prepared by TESOL Central Office and IS Leadership Council, this is the most important instruction handbook that guides all IS leaders on how to conduct proposal review. It tells you everything you need to know about proposal review, from the structure of the Convention Programs, types of academic programs (academic sessions and intersections), to the schedule and procedures for proposal review including deadlines for different phases of the proposal review. Read it carefully and mark important dates and deadline

2. Recruiting reviewers
In order to successfully complete the proposal review within the prescribed period of time, it is important to recruit an adequate number of reviewers

1) Requirements

• Experience in teaching, research or administration in related field
• Availability and commitment (Must be able to read 15 or more 150-word abstract during the period of June XXX-XXX). Each reviewer must sign at the bottom of the application stating that they understand the time constraint and the above-mentioned commitment (see attached sample application form).
• TESOL member, preferably primary member of your IS
• Convention experience
• Internet Acess

2) Importance of a valid email address

It is of essential importance to ask each reviewer to provide on their reviewer’s application form a valid email address which you as review team leader will later enter into the online Precis system. Reviewers will later have to use exactly the same email address to create a new account. So they must remember this email address. It is also recommendable that reviewers should provide a second email address in case the first one doesn’t work.

3) Ways of recruiting

• IS booth interview during TESOL Convention
• email interview
• phone/skype interview

4) Emergency readers

To effectively deal with the incomplete assignments left behind by drop-out or slow readers, building up a strong force of emergency readers becomes extremely important. Emergency readers can be recruited either before the review starts or during the review process (recruiting those who finish their assignments early and are willing to read more). Emergency readers must be willing to work under pressure, start late but still be able to finish their new assignments before the TESOL deadline.

3. IS deadline (3 days before TESOL deadline)
To successfully meet the deadline set by TESOL, it is highly recommendable for each IS to set up its own deadline so that the leader of the review team could have sufficient time to re-assign to emergency readers the incomplete assignments left by those reviewers who dropped out due to unexpected emergencies or those who lagged behind.

4. Professional guidance
Give the Proposal Rating Rubric (prepared by CO) to your reviewers at least one month in advance.

• Provide a list of the proposals accepted by your IS last year
• Provide the table of contents of recent issues of TQ and other professional journals related to language teaching
• Recommend some Web sites that may assist reviewers in keeping them abreast with the latest development of the theories and practice in related fields
• Form an online discussion group and launch a discussion forum on how to apply the rating criteria to the rating process so that a workable grading scale system can be established. To prevent reviewer’s true identity from leaking out, each reviewer can be given a code number when they participate in the discussion. In order to ensure the objectivity and fairness of the rating, reviewers are not encouraged to discuss on specific cases once the review starts.

Good preparation will reduce errors and mistakes, prevent accidents and problems, and therefore guarantee the success of the review.


II. Close Monitoring and “Leave No Reviewers Behind” Policy

Once the reviewers are recruited and the review process starts, it is essential to watch the progress of the review progress closely, as closely as you watch your stock investment.

Before the review starts, contact your team members at least once a month so as not to lose contact with any of your reviewers.

After the review starts, make sure you are constantly aware of the progress status of each reviewer at each stage of the 10-day process:

Shortly after the process starts, check in the Precis system and find out:

• how many reviewers have started reading
• how many reviewers have started grading

By the 3rd day after the review starts, it is necessary for review team leader to check to make sure the majority of the reviewers have started review process. To those who haven’t started reading by then, send an email to find out whether they have problem signing into the Preci system or finding the reviewer’s page. If they do have these problems, tell them how to solve the problems, or get help from the Precis tech support team. If more than 3 reviewers report the same problem, email the answer to everyone on your team so that you and tech support team don’t have to deal with each reviewer with the same problem later. To those who haven’t started the review due to other reasons, remind them that 3 days have elapsed and they have only 4 days left before the IS deadline.

By the 5th day, reviewers should have finished over 70% of their assignments. Check in the Precis system to find out:

• how many abstracts each reviewer has read
• how many abstracts each reviewer has rated
  
  

To those who are lagging behind, send an email to find out whether they are experiencing any difficulties and therefore need help. If they do have difficulties and cannot complete their assignments due to unexpected emergencies, take over those left-over abstracts and re-assign them to emergency readers. Considering the time constraint, it is advisable not to give each emergency reader over 10 abstracts.

Most of the reviewers grade the abstract they have read right away, but some reviewers may read the abstracts without rating them immediately. To those who leave their abstracts unrated by the 5th day after you start the process, send them an email and alert them that they are only 2 days away from the IS deadline, urging them to start grading the abstracts they have read.

As a review team leader, you have to know:

• how to log into the Precis system
• how to switch to the reviewer’s page
• how to enter reviewer’s data
• how to edit reviewer’s data
• how to add or delete reviewer’s data
• how to check the progress of each reviewer
• how to find out which abstract has been assigned to whom

If you don’t, contact the Precis tech team and get step-by-step instruction.


III. Effective Communication

Timely, accurate and effective communication is the lifeline of the proposal review.

• Make sure all communication channels are open and every reviewer has access to you at any time during the review process. Give your team members both your primary email and your secondary email addresses just in case you have problems with your primary email address.
• Tell reviewers before the review starts that it is important for them to reply to you to acknowledge receipt of each of the email message you send to them so that you can be kept posted on the ongoing progress and have a full control of the process.
• Conduct a test-run before the review process starts to ensure all the email addresses provided by the reviewers on their application form is accurate, updated, and that the recruited reviewer has not dropped out.
• Clearly lay out the review process to your team members so that they know what to expect and what they are expected to do at different stages of the review process.
• Be precise, clear, brief and straight forward when giving instructions. Avoid vague, redundant, misleading words and phrases.
• Be quick in communicating changes and responding to reviewers’ queries. Check your email at least twice a day during the first 4 days, and every 6 hours during the last 3 days. Reply to every email within 12 hours.
• Pick the right time to send your email. Timing is very important in effective communication. If an important email message is sent out too early, the recipients may forget it. If sent too late, the recipients may not have enough time to respond, to prepare or execute the command.
• Be efficient in responding to the queries. If more than 3 reviewers report the same problem, email the answer to the whole team. If condition permits, set up a Wiki site or online forum and let all reviewers post their questions and answers there. But again, make sure the true identity of reviewers should not be revealed and the questions should be limited to technical ones and should not involve specific details of the abstracts being read and graded.
• Be polite, friendly and personal in communicating with your team members. Don’t cram all your team members email addresses into the “To” box when you try to send them an email. Put them into the “BCC” box instead so that the recipients will only see your email address alone in the “From” box. This will make them feel this is one-to-one communication and thus feel personal and warm.
  
  

IV. Technology Concern

To successfully complete the proposal review, a good review team leader should form a strong partnership and maintain close contact with the Precis tech support team. However, the most efficient way to use the Precis tech support team is not to encourage every reviewer to communicate directly with the tech team members, but rather to identify the most common problems early, work with the tech support team to find out a solution, and then send the solution to everyone on your team. So it is very important for the review team leader herself/himself to understand the nature of the problem and has the solution to the problem. This will save time, reduce confusion and therefore increase efficiency.

Here are a couple of common problems many reviewers are likely to come across during the review:

1. Log-in problems when reviewers try to log on into the Precis system

Reviewers are often confused about which email address they should use when trying to log on into the Precis system. This happens most frequently to those reviewers who has more than one email addresses but forgets which one or ones they put on their reviewer’s application form. If they put only one email address on their application form, email them and remind them of the email address they gave you. Tell them this is the one they should use to create an account. If they put two email addresses on their application form, tell them which one they should use. They should use the one you picked and entered into the Precis system. Reviewers must understand that the email address they use to log on into the Precis system must match the one you, the review team leader, entered into the system. Otherwisw thaey are unable to log into the Precis system. As to the password they should use to log into the Precis system, it doesn’t matter which one they choose so long as they can remember it. So they can pick any password they like when they create their account, but the email address should be the same one they provided on their application form. And they have to make a note of it and store it in a safe place just in case they forget it in the future. Once they forget their password, they have to create another account and email you, the review team leader so that you can delete her/his old account, and add a new account i nthe Precis system. This will certainly increase your workload. Therefore it is necessary to tell your reviewers before they create their account that it is very important for them to take a note of their password and put it in a safe place just in case they will forget it later.

2. Switching to the reviewers’ page from the submitters’ page

By default, when reviewers successfully log on into the Precis system, they automatically land on the submitter’s page. This happens because the Precis system is set up for both submitters and reviewers. Since submitters by far outnumber reviewers, so the system is set up first of all for the convenience of the submitters. That’s why anyone who enters the system first land on the submitter’s page.

Tell your team members not to worry. Find a button on the black menu bar that runs across the page which is titled “Close” (This may sound weird since you don’t want to close and exit), click it, and they will be taken to a new page, the reviewers’ page, where they can start to read and grade abstracts.

The above are a few points I summed up from my own experience in leading EFL-IS’s proposal review team last year. Due to the difference in IS contexts and IS leaders’ individual preferences and styles, what worked with me may not necessarily work with you, but I do hope they can be of some assistance to you in leading your proposal review team.

I wish everyone of you good luck with your proposal review!

(This is a speech I made at TESOL's Interest Section Leaders Planning Meeting which was sponsored by TESOL Central Office and TESOL's Interest Section Leadership Council on Saturday, March 28, 2008)

Two People Who Influenced My Career Choice

Three people influenced my career choice.
Two people influenced my career choice.

The first one was Mr Zhao Huiqing, my English teacher in high school. He became my English teacher when all the schools just started to teach English after Deng Xiao Ping was put back to the nation's leading position as result of Premiere Zhou Enlai's strong recommendation to Mao Zedong. In a still tense political environment in which learning a foreign language spoken by the the nation's number one enemy still ran the risk of being accused of treason, there was virtually not much a school English teacher could do except leading the students to chant the translated version of the then popular political slogans such as "never forget class struggle" "Forever remember to settle the accounts of blood and tears with class enemies" and so on. I wasn't interested in learning English before Mr Zhao became my English teacher. Although I didn't learn much in the class, I soon became interested in the subject through the time I spent with Mr Zhao out of class. One of my best friends was a teacher's son and lived on the schooll campus next door to Mr Zhao's home. Therefore I had many opportunities to visit Mr Zhao's home and talked to him. Mr Zhao had just graduated from a teachers' college and had a passion for teaching. He told me many stories I had never heard. From him I also learned many things about the world outside China. The stories he told me was exotic and fascinating. By the time I graduated I regretted that I had not met him earlier. Upon our graduation, he gave me a few English story books which were then a little too hard for me to read. But I carefully kept them all the time. It was through the contact with Mr Zhao that I got to know that there were so manh wonderful things out there apart from all the boring stuff we were learning in the class, and that one of the important accesses to this entirely different world was English. I must learn English! I told myself. But is it too hard for me? Is it too late for me to learn it now that I have alreaday "graduated" from school? "Sure you can! You are smart, and your pronounciation is one of the bast in the class!" he patted me on the head and said while smiling to me. I remembered what he said then and made up my mind despite my ignorance about all the hardship and obstacles ahead of me. One year later the chance came for me to get a start. Radio Jiangsu, my home province, started to teach English over the radio. I was wild with joy of course when I heard the news. I took a bus to a city 50 miles away from my hometown tring to get the textbook the radio program would use but was not in luck. Then I asked my dad for help. He called an old friend of his who lived in Nanjing, capital of my province, and asked that uncle for help. Two weekd later, I finally got the book mailed to me via post office. You can imagine my excitement when I opened the mail. For the first time in my life, I carefuly wrapped the book with a piece of calendar papar, holding my breath, and wrote "English" on the front cover of the book.

The second person who influenced my career decision was Mr Chen, a country elementary school teacher. That was the second year since I started to learn English. I had by then already been assigned to work in the contryside and had worked in the fields for 6 months. Then I was transferred to work in the Village Management Office. I was the only person who lived on the premises of the office which was next to the elementary school of the village. Most of the school teachers were locals and went back to their own homes every night. One family, however, lived on the school campus. Mr Chen, the husband, was a Chinese teacher of the school. Mrs Chen was a math teacher. They had a lovely dauther.

The first time I saw Mr Chen I was very impressed by his physical appearance. He was tall and handsome. In my eyes, he looked more like a college prefessor, an orchestra conductor, or an artist rather than a country school teacher. The way he talked to people, walked around, everything. Who is he? I asked myself. What is he doing here? I somehow had a feeling that he didn't belong there. It must have been a mistake.

My intuition was right. Later on I heard that Mr Chen used to be a Russian translator serving in the army near the sino-Russian border. He was an honor student majoring Russian in one of the best teachers' universities in China: East China Normal University. Actually I heard that he entered that university with a full mark (Russian) in the college entrance examination.

While he was on the peak of his career, however, misfortune fell on him. He took a vacation and came back to his hometown, a small town in my county to visit his parents. His parent arranged him to meet a pretty girl from that town. He was not interested at the beginning. But his parents were so anxious to find him a wife that they did a stupid thing which, without their knowledge, ruined their son's future. They locked their son and the girl in a room for 3 days. The result you can guess. The poor man couldn't resist the temptation and they did what a man and a woman would do. Then the man was shocked to find out that the prettey girl he took to bed was the daughter of a former landlord, the very target of the political persecution at that time.

News soon spread out and the army found out about it. Mr Chen was kicked out of the army and was sent back to where he came from before he entered college. The local government was too scared to give him a decent job. No schools in the city dared to accept a person expelled by the army. He waited six months before a village school finally accepted him on the condition that he had to teach Chinese and music. That was how he ended up teaching Chinese in that small village school.

Mr Chen got very emotional each time when we mentioned his past. "Forget about it," he would wave his hands while his eyes got red," but then he would continue his story. Once when I visited his home aftr dinner, he was listening to the radio. The broadcast was in a foreign language which I didn't understand. It was a male's voice, I remember.

"What language is this?" I asked in curiosity. " Silence. I reepeated my question. "What?" he seemed to have just waken up from a dream. "Oh, I'm sorry, " he apologized. "It is Russian." "But you can't," I said in a voice as low as I could since USSR was listed as the second enemy of the nation as the "New Tsar" and listening to this kind of broadcast could get us into jail. "Don't worry," he smiled and patted on me on the head. "This is Radio Beijing's international broadcast." Sure enough, soon I heard Chinese songs and music. "Do you know this voice?" he tuned down the volummn of the broadcast a little. I shook my head. "Do you?" I asked him. "Of course. Only too well," he murmered to himself. "Really?" I got more curious."But how come?" "This is my best friend," he looked into the speaker of the radio, "We shared a room for two years when we worked together." His eyes turned red again. I dared not ask him what happened to him so that he ended up teaching Chinese in this village school while his friend was still working with the radio. It was not until several months later that learned about his sad story.

But one night he told me his story even before I asked him. I was reviewing my lesson after I finished listening to my English lesson on the radio. He walked into my room and looked through the pages of my textbook. "Good work," he said while checking the notes I took in the class. "Keep going, young man," he patted me on the shoulder. "Don't stop. One day you will make it, I am sure." "But how? I am not even sure," I answered. "The whole country is now in a mess. Who needs to learn English?" I continued. "Don't say that," he grabbed a chair and sat down next to me. "Some day," he looked out of the woindow, "things will change. " Then he told me his story. "I am a gone case now," he sighed in a deep breath," but you still have future. Go for it, young man." From then on, I visited him more often and talked to him more often. Each time I talked to him, I felt more encouraged and became more confident in him. Although he majored Russian in college, his English was good as well in my memory, at least good enough to give me advice.

When the cultural Revolution was over in 1977, his case was re-opened for investigation. Two years later, his case was officially readdressed and was offered a job to teach Russia in a city. But the good news came a little too late. He was already in his 50's and was sick. His children were soon grduating from high school and would soon have to fight their final battle - taking the tough college entrance exam. They couldn't afford further interruption in their study. So he decided to stay in my hometown. The only diffence was that he was transferred to teach Englihsh in a high school at township level.

How I Started to Learn English

Ke Xu
Ke Xu
I started to learn English in 1974. The Cultural Revolution was not over yet, but the political control by the "Gang of Four", the radical leaders including Mao's wife Jiang Qing, had loosened up their control a little as the result of the resistance from its opposition side represented by the Premier Zhou En Lai. This was also the period when Deng Xiaoping was put back to power position to rescue the country's failing economy. It was this year that my hometown, Jiangsu Province, started a radio program teaching English. I was staying home at that time waiting to be assigned a place in the countryside to go to receive my "re-education". So I decided to seize the opportunity and therefore started to learn English. I was originally interested in English when I was in high school although I didn't learn much English then. By the time I started to learn English, the only book available to me was the textbook for the radio program. Since the first day I started to learn English, I got strong support from my parents. Every time my dad went on a business trip to a big city, he would search the bookstores for anything that would help me. I still remember the excitement I had when my dad brought back an English-Chinese dictionary from his business trip to Beijing. Their salary was not high, but they never hesitated to spend money on books and dictionaries.

One year later, I went to the countryside to work with the farmers. I was less than 18 then and had never worked in the fields before. The villagers were very nice and friendly to me and took good care of me. But even so, I still had to work 10 hours a day in the fields. After work, when other people went home, I had to ride bicycle for about an hour to get home. I was so tired that I often threw myself into the bed and would fall into sleep the next minute. The radio English program usually started at 10:30 or 11:00 at night. When the broadcast time came, I could hardly open my eyes. Many times, I almost wanted to give up. But my parents told me not to. "You have already been doing this for more than a year. Giving up now means to give up what you have tried so hard all the time to achieve," my dad said. So I stuck to it and didn't give up. I don't know how long I could hold up without my parents' support. At that time we didn't have anything like a tape recorder yet, so I had no choice but to follow the radio broadcast schedules.With extremely limited resources, it was very hard to learn English all by myself without being able to talk to anyone in English. I read the text aloud after the teachers again and again, trying to pick up the correct pronunciation and intonation. To get more exposure to English, I sometimes had to listen to the same broadcast twice from two different radio channels at two different time. The pronunciation and intonation of the two teachers, a male and a female, was the only source for my imitation. I did all the exercises in the book with the little grammar knowledge I learned from the two teachers, and then checked the answers with the teacher.

After I was transferred to work in the Village Administration Office, things made a turn for the better. I had more time to work on my lessons. I had a small room in the Office so that I no longer had to ride bicycle home every night. The Office had a very nice radio-amplifier (meant for the purpose of amplifiying when the Office held big mass rally or broadcasting) which I could use for my study. It was from this time that I began to secretly listen to VOA (Voice of America). For the first time in my life I finally heard authentic English which was spoken by native speakers. I was thrilled by this change. I began to see hope and felt greatly encouraged. At that time iwas ilegal to listen to broadcasting from a capitalist country, not to say America, the number one enemy country of China. I could go to jail, or even ruin my family if I had been caught for doing that. The political risk was obvious. But I couldn't help myself as if I were drawn by a hidden force. I was fortunate to have a very understanding boss, Mr Chen, the Party secretary of the village. Despite of the risk to get himself involved, he turned a deaf ear to someone's report that I might be using the Office radio listening to radio broadcast from foreign country, asking them for the proof. "How do you know it was foreign broadcast he was llistening to? Do you speak Egnlish? That was Radio Beijing's international broadcast, you fool. Don't make a fuss as if you know what you are saying". I was so grateful to him when I heard about this. He was protecting me. Being a very promising high school gradate himself, his dream to go to college was smashed by the Cultural Revolution. "I have long lost my hope of going to college, now that I am married with three kids and this job that keeps me busy with all these stupid things we are doing" he spoke to me in private, "but you haven't. You still have the hope. Keep going, and don't let anything stop you." The great support he gave me in my study of English joined that from my parents to become the major source of encouragement to me. I worked harder at my English and my pronounciation intonation also improved as the result of listening to VOA and BBC.

One thing that happened accidentally gave me a chance to see my own achievement and let me tasted what it was to succeed. The principal of the village school, which was located next to the Village Office one day came to me and asked me for a foavor. The English teacher of the school was giving birth to a baby and they needed a substitute to teacher English. "Me?" I doubted myself. "But I have never taught before!" I told the principal. "Why not?" said the Party secretary. "Nobody knows how to do things the first time he does it. why don't you give it a try. This is the best way to find out how well you learned your English?" "Sure you can do it!" Agreed the principal." The kids let out a cry of surprise when I walked into their classroom. "Hey, what's going on? what is this Office boy doing here? Where is our English teacher?" I cleared my throat, and greeted the class in English "Good morning, boys and girls," the class quieted down right away. That first sentence of English was the first one I had ever used for real communication purpose. That must have surprised the kids. "Wow, he sounded like the man in the radio!" I heard soomeone commented. The class went very smoothly. It was a success, to be exact, since I heard later that the kids were asking about me when their English teacher came back. A Chinese teacher who had only had a summer training at township level before becoming a part-time English teacher. That was the first class I taught. The start of my career as an English teacher. By the time I started to learn English, I had never expected that one day I could come to the United States, not to mention that I whould teach English here in New York city.

After the Cultural Revolution was over, all the colleges and universities were re-open and I was fortunate to enter the college to study English. Upon my graduation from the college, I was assigned a job at Nanjing to work as a researcher for the Department of Education of my home province - Jiangsu Province.

One day in 1990, a white-haired old man with a pair of thick glasses walked into my office to meet me for a discussion regarding the partnership betweeen Jiangsu TV station and Education Department in joinly sponsoring an English teaching TV program. I couldn't believe my ears when the old man introduced himself to me. He was no other person but one of the two teachers who taught me English over the radio in 1974! When I told him that I was one of his first batch of students learning English from him over the radio, the old man was moved to tears. "I never dreamed that only two months away rom my retirement, I could meet one of the earliest students I taught during the Cultural Revolution. I thought I was wasting my time then teaching English on the radio at a time when learning English was still running the risk of being accused of "treason".

The Cultural Revolution
Ke Xu

One thing people of my age in China will never forget is the Cultural Revolution which I personally went through.

The Cultural Revolution, formally known as The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was launched by Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 to renew the spirit of the Chinese. During the early 1960s, tensions with the Soviet Union convinced Mao that the Russian revolution had gone astray. Fearing that China would develop along the lines of the Soviet model and concerned about his own place in history, Mao threw China into turmoil in a monumental effort to reverse the historic processes underway.

Programs carried out by his colleagues to bring China out of the economic depression for which Mao was partially responsible, also made Mao doubt their revolutionary commitment and also resent his own diminished role within the party leadership. He especially feared urban social stratification in a society as traditionally elitist as China.

Thus Mao set four ultimate goals for the Cultural Revolution: to replace his previously designated successors with leaders more faithful to his current thinking; to rectify the Chinese Communist Party; to provide China's youths with a revolutionary experience; and to achieve some specific policy changes so as to make the educational, healthcare, and cultural systems less elitist. He initially pursued these goals through a massive mobilization of the country's urban youths. They were organized into groups called the Red Guards, and Mao ordered the party and the army not to suppress the movement.

All schools, colleges, and universities were closed down to allow students time to participate in the campaign. Then the Red Guards were encouraged to attack all traditional values and "bourgeois" thinking and to test party officials by publicly criticizing them. Mao believed that this measure would benefit both the young people and the party cadres that they attacked. The movement quickly escalated; many elderly people and intellectuals were not only verbally attacked but were physically abused. Many died.

By the time the Cultural Revolution started, I was only ten, in the 5th Grade, and too young to be accepted by any Red Guards organizations. I was so jealous of those bigger kids who could get out of the control of their parents, wear army uniform and red bands and travel all over the country free, spreading Mao’s thoughts and gaining great experiences in participating in an unprecedented revolution which would transform the world.

I truly enjoyed the fun of not having to go to school at the beginning. No classes, no books, no homework. I had a lot of time to kill away. The longest vacation I had ever had since I started to go to school. I could stay in bed for as long as I wanted without having to get up early to catch the first class in the morning which usually started at 8:00, which I really hated since it was often still dark outside in winter. I got up at about 10 o’clock, ate something my mom had cooked for me and then went to streets to read “big Character posters” which were handwritten, wall-mounted posters using large-sized Chinese characters, used as a means of protest, propaganda, and popular communication. Big-character posters were ubiquitous across China since then until 1976 when the Cultural Revolution was over. They were used for everything from sophisticated debate to satirical entertainment to rabid denunciation; being attacked in a big-character poster was often enough to end one's career. Some people who attacked people using this form were in turn attacked by others later. In fact, the big-character-posters were so popular then that they boomed the stationary businesses that became one of the major sources of revenue for the government. Thousands of tons of paper were consumed every day which gave rise to another business: the recycling of used paper.

After the initial excitement I had in enjoying the fun of not having school, I soon felt bored with staying home having nothing to do. I started contacting my friends who lived in the same neighborhood and then went out with them. When my parents saw me hanging around with other kids on the streets, they became worried and decided to give me something to do to kill away the too much time I had. My dad started to teach me cooking. The first thing I learned to cook was fish. My dad was very good at fishing, and he was lucky to be removed from his position without being put to jail by the Red Guards. If the Cultural Revolution did anything good to my family at all, that would be it gave my dad several months of “vacation” during which he often went out fishing with me. We rode bicycles to suburban areas looking for small rivers to catch fish. My dad knew different ways of fishing. We used fishing rods, nets, or sometimes when the river dried up and became very small, we jumped into the river, built a dam in the middle of the river, drained out the water on one side of the river to catch the fish, and then the other side. It was a lot of fun. I remember once there was a big fish which was so smart that when we finished draining the water from one side, it jumped over the dam into the water on the other side. When we drained water of the other side, it jumped over the dam back to the first side. By then we were too tired and had to give up. We were not able to catch that smart fish eventually.

Every time we went out fishing, we would most likely bring home some fish, which would give me another chance to learn how to cook fish. My dad wrote a recipe for me with detailed step-by-step instruction. He was also a very patient teacher and gave me a lot of chances to experiment and make mistakes and then learn from my own mistakes. When I look back now, it was then that I felt my dad was the closest to me. Other times he was just an ordinary dad typical at that time, always too busy to take care of me and my sister and brother. Every time we had problems at school, it was always my mother who went to the school and waited in the long line for her turn to be “educated” by our teachers. I didn't realize until now I have become a parent myself, how hard it must have been for my mother, a teacher herself, to meet her naughty children's teachers with the kind of forced smile.

The second thing I learned was hand-wash my own clothes. My mom taught me how to do it. This skill actually helped me a lot since I had to depend on myself a few years later when I was sent to the countryside and worked and lived with the farmers.

By the end of year of 1967, many top government leaders of the country were removed from their leading position, including President Liu, Shao Qi, Mao's designated successor until that time, and Party General Secretary Deng Xiaoping. Governments at all levels were paralyzed. The Red Guards splintered into zealous rival factions, each purporting to be the true representative of Maoist thought. Mao's own personality cult, encouraged so as to provide momentum to the movement, assumed religious proportions. The resulting anarchy, terror, and paralysis completely disrupted the urban economy. Industrial production for 1968 dropped 12 percent below that of 1966.

In February 1967 many remaining top party leaders called for a halt to the Cultural Revolution, but Mao and his more radical partisans prevailed, and the movement escalated yet again. By the summer of 1967 disorder was widespread; large armed clashes between factions of Red Guards were occurring throughout urban China. Then the armed forces had to be called in to help maintain the order of the country.

By the fall of 1967, all schools were finally re-opened. After one year’s hanging around, I was so glad that I could get back to school. But I was soon disappointed to find out that most of the courses available primarily focused either on the need of the Revolution, such as writing an essay to debate on a certain political issue or on the too narrowly specified practical skills needed by local industries or agriculture, such as how to manufacture chemical fertilizer used for the local crops. All these were part of the curriculum which aimed at preparing us to become future revolutionary successors or “useful” skilled workers or farm workers.

I got bored with the lessons and started to cut classes again. Sometimes I went out with my friends fishing, or watching adults play basketball or football, or painting. The only thing I learned from school during that period of time as I can recall now was perhaps painting. Since there was a constant need for each class to regularly publish wall-mounted student newsletters, the head teach of my class picked a few students to work for the newsletter. When he accidentally found out about my interest in playing with colors, I was chosen to work for this newsletter.

Remember I mentioned earlier that fine arts (drawing) was one of the subjects I hated most in elementary school? Now things totally changed and I fell in love with painting. The reason was quite simple: I had a nice teacher (the class head teacher)who gave me enough opportunities to practice and kept encouraging me. The teacher himself was an art lover only he didn’t have a chance to become an artist. So he did everything he could to create a relaxing environment for me to create. Nobody told me how to paint. I just learned it from the newspapers and journals, or from the posters on the streets. He provided me with the resource books, paint, and place – his own home. His kitchen became my studio and his bowels and plates became my color mixing trays. The walls, floor, and sometimes even his bed was covered with my paintings. I never imagined at that time that painting should later become a skill I could depend on for living when I was sent to work with the farmers in the countryside.

A couple of years later when my school's dancing team decided to stage a show, contemporary ballet "Red Detachment of Women", I was assigned a job assisting my fine arts teacher designing and painting the stage setting. I worked very hard on the project and learned a lot from the teacher. When the rehearsal was over and the show started to be staged, I got another assignment to be in charge of the slide projector at the back of the stage. It was a hot summer and I had to kneel on the floor near a projector as hot as a smoking grill throughout the show. Nobody else would do it even if the job was paid for. But I did it for nothing and yet truly enjoyed that. Many years later when I talked about my high school life with my former classmates, among a few things that we believed we did learn from the school, this was one that we can still remember.

By the time I finished high school in the summer of 1973, we became an unwelcome labor force too large for the country's job market to digest. The past seven years of the Cultural Revolution had almost paralyzed the country's industry, drained its revenue, and brought the nation to the very brink of bankruptcy. We became unemployed. No job, no school. All colleges and universities remained closed since they had been shut down in 1967. Once again, I was home having nothing to do, or wandering on the streets with my friends, feeling disillusioned about the Cultural Revolution, which, after its initial excitement, left us nothing but a bleak prospect of the future. People depicted us as "gold fish in the fish tank, with a bright future, but no way out."

The government soon found a "solution" to the problem. We were all sent to the countryside to live and work with the farmers, to be "re-educated" by the local farmers, to join them in an effort to build a "socialist new countryside". Millions of school graduates, former "Red Guards", packed up and took trains, buses to the countryside, totally unaware of what was waiting for them ahead of them. Many of those from major cities were sent to remote regions such as Xing Jinag, Gansu, Qing Hai, Inner Mongolia, Yun Nan, or Hei Long Jiang. The state policy then was that parents from each family in the city were allowed to pick only one child from all children to stay in the city. All the rest of them had to go to the countryside. Since the early 1950's, Chinese citizens in the city had been given a different identity from those living in the countryside. People holding a countryside ID couldn't live and get a job in the city since, without a city ID, they couldn't get food and other daily necessities which were provided on the basis of ID origin. Once you lose your city ID, you can only stay in the countryside, which was poorer and disadvantaged in many ways.

The majority of these young people worked and lived in the countryside until after the end of the year of 1976, when the Cultural Revolution was over. They spent the best part of their life fighting physical hardships and emotional stress. Those working the in the poorest part of the country was making only 8 Chinese cents a day, an equivalent of one US penny. After their long battle to get back to the cities after 1977, the country was still suffering from the economic depression. Most of them, with little or no education or skills, and the excessive supply of labor force, couldn't find a decent job when they got home, and ended up becoming workers in community-run small factories, or even street peddlers or flea market vendors. Those who married the local farmers were not allowed to go back to the city, thus creating many sad stories of husband wife divorce or break-ups.

Being the eldest son of my family with a brother and a sister, I was of course to be sent to the countryside first. My brother joined me two years later. We were both lucky and didn't have to go to very poor regions or remote areas. In stead, we went to a village in the suburban area of my town. During the first 6 months after I started to work in the village, I didn't live in the village. In stead, I rode bicycle to work and went back home every day after the work in the Fields was finished. It was a 30-minute bicycle ride from my home to the village. The work was physically demanding and I got back home very exhausted. The village where I worked was not very poor and I could make about one Chinese dollar (12 US cents) a day which was well above the average income level of the whole country then. Even though, my income was barely enough to cover my living expenses and I still need my parents' support. I actually only worked for about 6 months in the fields with the villagers before I got a job to work in the village management office. I became an editor for the village newsletter, a messenger for the village leaders, and a security guard at night. I moved to live in the village management office. I was lucky to get this job since it became increasingly harder financially for my parents to support both my bother and I after he joined me. I was very fortunate to have have met all the nice people in the village. The villagers were very friendly to me, teaching me how to do all sorts of work in the fields. Even if they were poor, they sometimes invited me to lunch at their home. I am still in contact with some of them after so many years. I will never forget those who helped me out when I desperately needed that help.

My Childhood

Ke Xu

I was born in a small town on the east coast of China. My parents were both too busy working to take care of me after I was born so I was sent to my grandparents (on my mother's side) when I was 6 months old. My grandpa was home all the time since he was blind. He lost his sight when the Japanese bombed my hometown in the mid 1930's. My grandma had to take care of my grandpa and me at the same time. She was busy all the time, inside and around the house, handling all the cooking, cleaning and washing, and sewing. My grandparents basically depended on my parents for living since my mother was their only daughter and my grandpa's pension was very much limited. My grandpa was a man of few words. Whenever the weather was good he would move a chair to the sunshine, put me on his laps, and then started to hum some tunes only he himeself knew. While he was humming, I used to touch and play with his beard and sideburns. He died of a stroke when I was 10. I cried my heart out at his funeral. Even now, I still remember his humming when I was sitting on his lap. The deep voice and the melencholic tune.

During the years from 1959 to 1961, China suffered from serious flood in some regions and draught in others which caused famine across the whole country. To save food for me, my grandma got very sick until my parents found out about it and sent us some food which my father managed to find through his connections in other government agencies.

When I was two, I had a little sister and two years later I had a brother. They all joined me and added much fun to my life. Although both my parents worked for the government, their salary was barely enough to cover the expenses. We didn't have much good food except the kind commonly found then in lower-middle class families. I remember if someone gave my parents some food, such as a box of cookies or some apples, we would all be wild with joy and excitement, thinking abou them even in my dream. The excitement could sometimes last as long as a month. When moon fesitival came, the whole family often had to share one or two moon cakes. My brother and siter would sometimes fight for a bigger cut of the moon cake. Once, a bigger boy in the neighborhood was eating a carrot and promised to let me take a bite of it if I could catch him. I chased himm all the way onto a bridge and then fell into the river through a hole on the bridge. I was lucky to be rescued by a passer-by. When my motehr learned that I fell into the river just for a bite of a carrot, she cried.

Despite the deficiency of food, I still enjoyed the time I spent with my sister and brother. I used to play with them around my grandma's house. Of course the game we played most often was "Catching the Bad Guy", a kind of hide-and seek game. We needed someone to be the bad guy, but none of us wanted to be the bad guy. Then we had to draw lots to decide who would be that unfortunate person. Of course we also did all sorts of things that scared my grandma and my mom to death. Once, my brother and sister both fell into a river at the same time time and would have been drowned if they hod not been saved by a passing boat. Another time, I almost blinded my sister by asking her to look at me through a hole on the wall and then poked a screwdriver into her eye. She was lucky that I missed her eye by half an inch.


My grandma's house was sorrounded by a small river on three sides. It was actually dug when the house was being built to elevate the gound so that the house would stand higher to avoid the damp moisture from underground. So it looked like that the house was built on a small hill. On both sides of the river were growing tall reeds whose leaves I often used to fold some little boats. The house, which had a thatched roof and brick walls, was also surrounded by many tall trees, among which the biggest one was a peach tree in front of the house. The tree was as old as the house and it was so big that two people embracing its trunk couldn't reach each other's hands. In spring, when the tree was in full blosom, my grandma's house looked like a little boat sailing among all the pink clouds (just like what we saw in some fairy-tale movie) Whenever the season came for all the peaches to turn ripe, we would hear birds chirring in the tree all day long, and breathe the sweet fragrance in the air which was tinged with smell of the mature peaches. Peaches were perhaps the only luxury we could afford during that time. Even though, the biggest and the best peaches were still kept out of our reach. My grandma had to sell them on the market so that she could make some extra money, which she would then use to cut some fabric and make some clothes for my sister, brother and me. Although my parents told her she didn't have to do this, she insisted that we should have some new clothes made at her expenses. She was a woamn with a strong character and would never let anyone look down upon her.


I loved my grandma a lot not only because she cooked us tasty food and loved us intensely, but also because she never forced me to go to school or do my homework. Whenever I did anything wrong and my parents decided to punish me, she would always stand up for me and find some excuses for me to escape the punishment. Some of the excuses were actually so lame that my parents would sometimes laugh at them. One thing, however, my grandma didn't do well when I was in her care. That was my education. When I reached school age, she sent me to the only elementary school in the small town where we were living. I didn't like the school and all my grades were so poor that it looked like I was going to fail at the end of the year. When my mother found out about it, she decided to take immediate action to rescue me. Then I was picked up by my parents and taken to the city to live with them. Then my mother started to teach me to read and count. Being a school teacher herself, she was very strict on me. I remember that it took her quite some time to bring me on the right track. I was often rewarded with cookies if I pronounced a sound or spelt a word correctly, and punished with a slap in the face sometimes if I repeated the same mistakes despite my mother's instruction. At that time, I really missed the days I had spent with my grandma. But now the good time was over.


I was sent to an elite school, the best in the whole region, where, by comparison, I was even poorer in academic performance than my peers. I felt discouraged and even frustrated sometimes. One of the subjects I hated most was drawing. We were given some pictures and were told to copy them. I tried so hard but could never make it. So I gave up completely. Then I started to play truant. I went to school early in the morning, but in stead of going to the class, I stayed outside the school gate and played under a big tree. I waited and waited, until the school was over, and then I would join other kids to go home. One day, however, I was caught by one of my father's colleagues and got a good beating by my father. For whatever reasons, that was the last time I ever played truant. From then on, even if I didn't like the school, I still chose to go there since I didn't like to be left alone at home or on the street. You need some company even when you play truant.


From the first grade to the third grade I was blacklisted as the top 5 naughty kids in the class. But my grades were not that bad somehow. Both my teachers and my parents found it hard to understand. I had a terrible time in my third grade particularly. My teacher was a newly graduated young man who had just startd teaching. In his eyes, every bad thing I did was a direct challenge to his authority. So I was repeatedly singled out for punishment. He often wrote letters to my parents listing every single thing I did which was regared as "misconduct". What I hated most was that he always wanted me to be the messanger to deliver the letter to my parents. Knowing exactly what would happen to me when my dad read the letter, I would toss the letter in the garbage bin on the street. Having failed to getting any response from my parents for a while, the teacher suspected that his letter had never reached my parents' hands and started to demand for a reply in writing from my parents. This really got me and I thought hard to find out a way to "work around it". I went to my father's office and asked an uncle there to sign the letter for me. When my dad found out about it, I got another beating.


Things took a turn for the better, however, when I moved up to the fourth grade. This time I had a very experienced teacher who was very nice to me. He respected me and encouraged me. When he found out that I loved to read, he asked me to set up a small library for the class. It was the first time that I was given such responsibility and I felt being trusted and respected. As the result, I took all the books, magazines from home and shared them with my classmates. My dad soon found out that his collection of books and magazines was shrinking and started to complain, but my Mom laughed and told him to shu up. It was only a few books and magazines, my mother said, no big deal. You are too busy to read them anyway. Besides,this small sacrifice is worthwhile if it can change our son, she added. From then on, I started to behave better,and worked harder at my lesson. My grades imporved. So did my image. My teachers, classmates and especially my parents were all happy to see the change that had happened to me. I then started to work for the class wall-newspaper and soon joined the Young Pioneers, China's version of Boy Scout. By the time I entered the 5th grade, I was elected as the vice class president. I was also a member of the school recitation team and an editor of the school student newsletter.
student newsletter.
student newsletter.
student newsletter.

About Me

Ke Xu

Welcome

to my blog. I come from China. My first language is Mandarin Chinese. I came to the United States in 1992 and I have been here for more than 16 years. Before I came here, I was an English teacher in China. I was also a researcher, a textbook writer, a test designer, and an administrator. Now I am teaching ESL at Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York. I am also a columnist for Essential Teacher, a quarterly journal for TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other languages), an international organization of English teachers all over the world (for details see my complete profile on the left)


I have a wide range of interests.

I like music, basically neo-classic type. My favorite ochestras include Mantovani, James Last, and Paul Mauriate. I am addicted to the classic pieces played by these bands. I download music and collect all albums by these bands and my collection is among the largest and the most complete all over the world.

Every time I am online downloading music via WinMX, there is often a long line there waiting to download music from me. Many neo-classic music lovers thought I am German or France because they believe Europeans like this type of music more than people from other parts of the world. Of course they were surprised to hear that I am Chinese. My favorite pianist is Richard Claydeman who is a genius in giving classic pieces new life by playing them in a new way that fascinates people. His album “Golden Heart” never fails to appeal to me. I like to play piano although I have never taken any classes or received any formal training. Play for fun. That’s how I see it and enjoy doing it.


I like painting as well. It was once my dream to become a painter when I was in high school. I took some classes or tutoring learning Chinese ink painting, water color and oil painting. I love to paint landscape and nature. I often watch “Paint with Ross” on channel 21. When I was studying at college, I did some oil painting during my leisure time. I started to learn painting in high school when we didn’t have a heavy workload at school and had a lot of free time. I was one of the 4 members of a group responsible for publishing the class wall-newspaper. Most of my best friends were amateur painters. So we spent a lot of time checking each other’s latest work, commenting on each other’s work, discussing on the works we saw in the museum or recent art magazines and inspired each other. Unfortunately, I was born and grew up at a wrong time and my dream didn’t come true. I didn’t have many choices by the time I finished my high school and I eventually became a foreign language teacher.

I am also an amateur photographer (see my photo gallery web site). I particularly like to take landscape pictures. I love nature. I love big mountains, rivers and lakes although I also like flowers and plants. Every time I go on a trip to somewhere, cameras are something I never forget to bring with me. I don't remember how much money I have spent, or wasted, on photographing, but I truly enjoy taking pictures. Apart from taking pictures myself, I also collect landscape photos and nature photos.

I like to travel. I have been to over 10 countries including Australia, England, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the Philippines. Everywhere I went, I couldn't help being amazed by the breath-taking scenic views, the architecture I had only read about in books before, the people wearing colorful clothes, speaking a different language; the music, the customs and the food of the country. I walked on the streets or sat in the park trying to communicate with the locals with the few phrases I picked from a little travel guidebook I always carried with me. Even when I couldn't express myself clearly with my extremely limited vocabulary, I could always exchange a friendly smile with them. I tried different kinds of food, of which some I enjoyed and some I didn't, but without regret. I actually enjoyed being surrounded by an exotic atmosphere and being immersed in a language environment where virtually nobody spoke my language. The mixed feeling of fear and excitement and the burning desire fired by curiosity to find out about the mysterious culture. I have also been to most of the national parks in America, such as the Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Arcadia, the Grand Teton, Zion Canyon, the Great Smokey Mountain. I like to walk in the winding paths in the woods, hearing the birds chirring and breathing the fresh air in the morning; or to read a book sitting on a rock while washing my feet in the clear water at the foot of a waterfall.


Another hobby of mine is cooing. I believe food is a very important part of a culture. I seldom dine out. In stead, I cook my own food. Whenever I have time, and in good mood, of course, I would cook some food of my own choice, and then take time to enjoy them. I often watch cooking programs on TV and try something new by myself from time to time. I have read many books introducing all types of Chinese food. It is a nice way to invite my friends to dinner at my home and cook a few dishes which are testy and healthy. Every time I am invited to a dinner party in a well-known restaurant or someone's home, I will not only enjoy the food, but also try to learn a few tricks to cook the food I eat.


About Me About Me Abou

About Me