Well thank goodness it is the weekend! I need a break!
I will start where I left off, Thursday. Thursday's lesson
was at Jia Xiaozhuang elementary school and the lesson went ok, I guess. I got picked up by my contact (don't
even remember her name...) but we walked through a beautiful park; there were
caged song birds everywhere, the teacher said that old people bring them to the
park so they can sing together, it was amazing!
The kids in this school don't have as good a grasp of
English as the previous two. I was actually teaching them how to introduce
themselves, it was very challenging. Plus the classroom I had been given was
basically a lecture hall, I couldn't even reach half the children; this made
interaction very difficult. So naturally I got out of the classroom and into
the play ground, we did the name game, we boom shi boomed, we did the okey
cokey and played lots of games; there was even a crowd 3 people thick along the
fence watching me! I am going to have to work on the vocal confidence of this
class, I guess we will see how it goes next week then!
It sucks because everyone else had a good day, especially Alex, according to her every day was 'AMAZING'...
Friday took me to Gu Chengtai Elementary school, my contact Kant picked me up
and we drove to my final school. They had bought and installed a digital
projector for me to use but we turned it on and one of the lights was in the
way! So I had a big black shadow in the middle of my power point (where my pictures
all happened to be...) this was a challenge! However I did really appreciate
the thought! The next shock was how young the children were! Usually the kids I
taught were aged 9-13 but in this lesson they were aged 7-11. At age 7 they
learn how to form English letters... So I had a no projector and a class of
7-11 year olds, I had to think fast! We did a lot outside (boom sh boom, okey
cokey, huggy bear, head, shoulders, knees and toes, name game etc.) they loved
that! We did some written work (with a lot of support from the English teachers
and me). Show and tell went well too! They all brought in toys and photographs
of their families and we talked about them, it took up a good 20 minutes! We
finished the lesson early because the kids had lost all concentration but the
teachers seemed to be happy with what I did! They even gave me a handbag full
of stationery!
So teaching this week has been filled with ups and downs,
there was dancing, singing, hugging, boom shi booming and even a little bit of
learning (I hope!). I met some amazing children but I know that for next week I
am going to have to do a hell of a lot of differentiation! Planning next week's
lesson will be a bit of a challenge!
Yesterday we had our field trip day! I went with Bei Dajie Elementary
and scary Lisa to Xining Science Museum. We were joined by the Colourful
Swallow (Xing Yan Yan) which was a lot of fun. The kids were really eager to
show me around, getting me to try all the exhibits (half of them were out of
order though). I was just pressing buttons which were labelled in Mandarin and
laughing with them. Being silly all morning! When we got to what was called 'Water World' I ended up getting people wet!
I had so much fun! A really great
morning, we had so much fun that we lost track of the time and missed lunch!
The teacher asked the children to give me a bit of their lunch so I quickly
found myself with 20 different snacks raging from biscuits, to fish paste, to
weird jelly things. Talk about authentic Chinese snacks!
The afternoon took us shopping, more snacks bought and I got
a memory stick (16GB for 90 RMB - £9) not bad! Went back to the complex and
Alex and I watched James and the Giant Peach, love that film!
Today we are escaping to the city again! So stay tuned!
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