Week 12
on Tina's Journal (China), 14/May/2009 01:35, 34 days ago
Yesterday I returned from another visit to two middle schools where I had been to monitor and continue the training programme of six teachers. This was my first solo visit and also I didn't have the support of the Education Bureau as there was no-one available at that time. I don't think it made much difference as I was able to work quite easily without their support as the teachers were all enthusiastic and eager to listen to suggestions to improve their teaching methods. I visited two schools in the same town and was pleasantly surprised to find the children much more open and less reserved than in other schools I had been to. Many of them were able to ask me questions and were very lively in the classroom. I credited the teachers for this as I could see most of them had a friendly, warm manner with the kids. After one of my model lessons the kids swarmed around me with their pen and paper asking for my autograph! It is so amusing because you really do feel like a famous person, which you are in the children's eyes, because most of them haven't seenwaiguorenbefore. The two days were intense as I decided to stay on the last evening and do some informal visits, just chatting to the kids but I ended up going in so many different classrooms. One evening I was asked by the head teacher of Yi Zhong school to chat to some senior school students as they were preparing for an exam. I happily agreed but it turned out I was to give a lecture in the lecture hall to 300 students. I wasn't prepared so I basically just talked about my role with VSO and suggested they ask me questions. I didn't know what their level of English was but I just hoped for the best! Luckily, they were quite enthusiastic and responsive and the questions I was asked ranged from'What do I think of Chinese food?'to'How should Simao develop economically?'At the end they asked me to singYesterday once morea very popular song here. I reluctantly agreed but I only did the first verse...I think they realised how bad my singing is. I suggested they sing a song and a lovely girl sang an English pop song, despite being nervous and shy, I was quite impressed. Overall I felt it was a productive visit and it was nice to be able to bring up some points which I wouldn't normally do in an informal setting. So in the big feedback meeting in one of the schools I asked them why they allowed students to throw litter everywhere, this is such a problem in China, people just throw their rubbish anywhere with no thought for the problems this may cause. I just got giggles and a response of'this is what we do'. I brought to light an issue that hopefully they might start 'thinking about'. The school toilets were in a dreadful condition in one school, with maggots crawling everywhere. It is the children's responsibility to clean the toilets too!!