Turns out getting featured in local news clips and commercials in Erdenet is as easy as getting on reality shows in America. I’m a business development volunteer, so naturally I’m now best known in my town as an English teacher, thanks to the following story from the local TV news. These lessons were part of an office assistant/secretary training organized by my agency, the Chamber of Commerce.
Some things I’d like to point out about this video:
- Mongolian news anchors read from laptops right in front of them instead of a teleprompter.
- This was a lesson about family, so you’ll see a partial diagram of my actual family members. If you are one of my actual family members, see if you can spot yourself! Then tell me if you had fun playing this game.
- I swear there is actual student participation in my classes. This camera crew didn’t stick around for that part, so you’ll mostly see me just talking at the students.
- My Mongolian colleagues helped me with some of the voiceover translation. We went through it once and I jotted down notes, then tried to fill in the blanks later on my own. As you’ll see, I was not entirely successful.
- A technical note: after much fiddling around with video conversions, I ended up using Youtube’s subtitle feature that lets viewers turn captions on or off. If you don’t see subtitles by default, use the arrow button in the lower-right corner and click the CC button. And if they’re too small, go to the full Youtube page for larger text.
