No one can leave until he or she asks me a question.

Last night came and went in a blur. I've rewound the tape and played it back in slow motion, and I still can't account for all the time, but a sizable portion of it was spent contemplating my future career in academia. Specifically, I was for the first time really seeing things from the other side--that is, not as a student but as a professor.

This sudden insight comes from rateyourstudents.blogspot.com, a blog I discovered after an interesting Techdirt post. It seems that while China hurtles itself toward the West culturally and economically, France continues to lead Europe toward socialism and totalitarianism by blocking ratemyprofessors.com. I've used the site to determine which section of a course to enroll in and to leave feedback for my favorite teachers. In particular I remember contradicting one girl who claimed professor Ip had an accent too thick to understand. Another time I mentioned that Mr. Wanke，a poor adjunct, was one of the most thought-provoking and funniest teachers I've ever had. I did what I could to help him on the official course evaluation but found it insufficient and took my appreciation to the 'nets too.

It's fascinating to realize the kinds of concerns and issues professors face teaching at a university setting. We students get whiffs of frustration while reading syllabi underlined and bolded until a white page is black and from listening to our professors start stories each class session with "every term at least one student...." But these are professional cautions. They lack the candor of what's on ratemystudents: the stomach-turning vitrol; the dejected, jaded, and hopeless rants; and the darkest fears a student could entertain.

The first hour was defeating. My rosy future turned a sickening shade of Beijing smog. I've only been teaching English for a few weeks, but I could already sympathize with a post which referred to the manor in which a class stares back at you like "caged animals." Rather, my caged animals are fiercely domesticated Korean kids too embarrassed to speak up in a classroom, let alone in English. They spend most of class locked in a staring contest with their desk, and I'm not even lecturing. I'm asking them questions, making wild hand gestures and being funny. But when they laugh they suppress it and nuzzle closer to the teat on their desk.

I suppose that means they're listening and I should be happy. But my real challenge isn't that they listen, because there isn't a single sound in the building which could prevent that, but that they're comprehending. You see, I teach TOEFL speaking and writing. It's a college admission test for studying in the US and other countries, like a language SAT. All of my students are 16-18, and they have been studying English on average for, get this, 3 months to 1 year. Some of them can barely understand directions in the classroom like "I'm going to read the sample now, take notes, listening for the five problems and their solutions." As a result, teaching this class is much different than I envisioned.

It's still very rewarding though. When one of them sputters out something that might actually pass for English I am elated. Particularly when they sputter, and I give them five minutes to write down what they're going to say, then have them read it off the page, it comes very close to being something that might score on an actual TOEFL test.

But the kids aren't to blame. I'm learning on the job, but my job isn't to teach English, it's to teach TOEFL. Which puts me in an odd place since English should be a prerequisite, but it's not. The only prerequisite is that parents pay the school money so the 20something guy running it can not provide books for the students and not pay me. Then their children sit in fear for 3 hours a week, and everyone is happy.

In order to facilitate a warm environment we circle the desks each class. I'm trying to break the conception that a teacher talks down to students which is the paradigm in Korea, Japan, and China. Afterall, if they one day succeed on the TOEFL they will be studying in a Western country, so I may as well give them a more Western classroom environment now. So that they'll get comfortable asking questions I don't let anyone leave until they ask me something. Anything. What my favorite color is. What I did this weekend. What I think about China. Where I bought my pants. So far this creative and funny strategy has not encouraged a single question about English, not even over email.

Fortunately new students are trickling in, and so far none of them have had less English than a month. So if the trend continues eventually the average might be somewhere around 1 year, which is about how long it takes 16 year olds to get college-level proficient in a foreign language.

Anyway, after reading more and more at ratemystudents I've gotten pretty angry and determined to be a good teacher should I one day become one. I find the perspectives expressed in many of the posts horrendous and lacking in the skills we expect of college students, like recognizing logical fallacies and failing their critical thinking roll. But I'm also unfortunately old enough to know how fleeting idealistic zeal can be, so I'll cross my fingers and keep my eyes on the pie in the sky.