What I wanted was to get better at Chinese. My main job was English, and by the third year, they had incorporated me into their music and dance program and I was teaching Irish dance lessons as part of my curriculum.

Q: As far as teaching English, what did you do exactly and what kind of students did you have?

A: Every year was a little different. I had over 500 students that I taught. You had maybe three or four different classes every day with 30 students in each class. Primarily I taught anywhere between second and fourth grade. A couple years I taught fifth grade, and one year I taught ninth grade.

Mainly, they wanted us there as an example of better American oral English to actually let the students apply the things that they had learned with their Chinese teachers learning English to actual English speakers. We weren't teaching so much grammar, unless we were correcting little things that we noticed, little bad habits. But for the most part, it was mainly just to get them talking and get them to use their English and to hear a native speaker using English.

Q: Once you got there, you got involved in teaching Irish dance. Talk about that.