Back to class for Our Second Week

Today was the first sunny day we have experienced in Dangtu.  The sun was filtered through the haze in the sky, but it was still very hot.  Today we also were able to use the air-conditioners in our classrooms.  This made everything easier! 

 Although many of the teachers live here in the city of Dangtu, there are many from nearby towns and from  rural areas.  Since most do not own cars, getting home during the week is impossible.  So today it was fun to talk about what the students did during their weekend.  

We have approximately 90 students in total and we have divided them into three classes according to their ability. However, we often have visitors in the classes also, sometimes children or relatives of the teachers, sometimes their best students, sometimes friends, so we never know how many will be in the classrooms.  If you look in the picture of the classrooms you will see that they look similar to classrooms at home, but in the same space they can put up to 75 students in traditional rows.  This size of class is not unusual here.  Since we only have 30 or so students in our classes, I have moved desks around the outside of the room to form a circle, giving us room in the middle to play some games but also allowing me to look right at each of the students. I hope this helps with comprehension. During our teaching day  we each teach 3 classes in the morning. The material is similar between the classes, but must be adjusted for the level of comprehension.  Sometimes we hit the nail on the head, sometimes we accept what is and resolve to do better the next day.  In the afternoon we are working on an information exchange about our respective countries. Each of us takes on basic lesson and teaches it at different levels for three days.  The last period of the day is “English corner”.  We conduct it in a large room with a power point projector.  This is to be a more informal conversation time that we share in leading. 

Today in English corner, Debbie had one class share a poem they had written in their morning class time. It was about a beautiful mountain about 4 hours from here called Yellow Mountain.  Afterward we talked about the mountain or where we would like to travel. 

I have finally figured out how to post pictures, so hope to post more pictures this week. 

Blessings from Dangtu,  Jan Hazlett