What a Difference a Day Makes!

At the end of Tuesday’s sessions with the teachers, there was some real discouragement. For the most part, the middle school teachers are catching on. The primary teachers’ English is not so good, especially those from rural schools. It was clear by the end of the day that some of them were having a hard time understanding us – because we sometimes talk fast, we use words they don’t recognize, and we are teaching them a skill that is new to them. The responses within our team reflected a real desire to help the teachers along with evident frustration that maybe some of the things we had prepared weren’t going to work. As we left to return to our homes Tuesday evening, there were lots of ideas about what needed to be done, but no consensus.

Today was a lot different. Valerie started with songs and pronunciation exercises. They loved it. We spent the morning singing silly songs and helping them pronounce the V sound ☺! We had a good chance to talk after lunch at our daily 1:00 PM team meeting. We made a few minor changes, but nothing drastic. Susie led off the afternoon session with activities, a few songs, and some theory stuff on brain compatible learning. And they responded really well. There is a wide range of ability among the 81 teachers, and we are, of course, making some adjustments as we go.

I was reminded today of one reality. A teacher walked from the lunchroom to the classroom with me. She said, “This seminar is the first time I have ever spoken to a foreigner. I said hello to some tourists in a park once, but I didn’t have enough nerve to say anything more. Thank you for coming to China.”