teaching, drilling, playing, loving, laughing

we began teaching on tuesday and finished on saturday. i don't think anyone on our team has ever experienced a quicker week (or a more exhausing or hot one) in their lives. our days consisted of teaching them playground games like red light/green light (which reinforced their colors), duck duck goose (challenging our squatting skills since chinese people never sit on the ground), a tag game that they LOVED, four square (reinforcing numbers), hokey pokey (body parts and right/left recognition), and lots of other nonsense games that were just fun. they loved every minute of it, even if the concept of "you're out" was completely lost on them. . . they just loved to play.

after 40 minutes of playground time, it was the american teachers (that would be us) who would introduce the day's lessons. we began with introductions (hello, my name is ____, etc), on wednesday, the children learned about family trees (we taught them a song to help them remember) and body parts (they learned "head, shoulders, knees & toes" or what sounded more like "head-ah, shewders, knees and toast"). thursday, they learned about colors and fruits, friday was emotions (when i am tired, i need to rest, etc) and actions (clapping, stomping, running, etc). after their first fourty minutes of class, it was time to break for lunch.

we mostly ordered out, and our food was delivered on a three wheeled motorcycle and the food was served on china dishes (again. must be the norm here). the chinese teachers sat at one table, the americans at another. one day they served us sweet & sour cricket... mean pork. the cricket was an unintentional add on, but we removed it discreetly, and no one had a heart attack. actually, they must be getting used to life in china. . . they didn't bat an eye and ate it! after lunch we had plenty of time to plan for the afternoon or just chill. lunch (and nap) time was 2 hours. oftentimes the children would arrive back to school early just so they could hang out with the teachers. language was a huge barrier as neither side spoke the same language, but it was a sweet time of just hanging out. they got a kick out of teacing us chinese, and our team proved to be eager students!

after lunch, it was the chinese teacher's time to teach. it was really interesting to see their style of teaching. my particular teaching partner must have been a cheerleader in a past life. she was hilarious and had the students chanting their vocabulary words and made up a little cheer song for just about every concept. the kids loved her, and so did i! it's interesting how the chinese teachers were looking to us for direction and teaching techniques. perhaps they didn't know that all we know is how to SPEAK english. 80% of our team had never taught before and those that had are not exactly pros!! it was a sweet time of sharing ideas, pronunciation tips and just good fellowship. i came to really love my team teacher, lilly.

after 40 minutes of chinese teachers teaching the material, there was a short break and the US teachers would reinforce what was learned that day and drill drill drill. even though the students had very little, if any, knowledge of english, they made tremendous progress for five days!!

school was over by 3:30 and the teachers would stay after (each in their own rooms--english in this one, chinese in that) to plan for the next day and then would meet together to exchange ideas. this was serious business for the chinese, and i was really proud of how our students embraced their intensity!

all of this happened during one of the hottest weeks in sw china. the temperatures were near, if not at, 100, and we had no air. water was a huge blessing. i never heard our team complain of the heat, chelsey was out every lunch playing basketball with the boys (in a skirt, mind you), becca played chinese jump rope with a bunch of girls, kathryn and molly took informal chinese from john and his friends, and the rest of the team played games with the kids or relaxed in the office. the heat could not get in the way of making the most of every minute we were together.

i'll post pictures later, and get you up to date on our going away ceremony and our sunday activities.
thanks for your patience, and women ai nimen (we love you in chinese--at least i think that's how you say it plural.) :-)