Team  172, Xi’an China, March 29 through April 18, 2009

Global Volunteers

Second Day of Teaching

Today we embarked on our first full day of teaching with assignments to work with groups of twenty in morning and afternoon sessions.  We taught in the library, and open and light filled space and we all discovered a range of English skills in our students.  The chapter on “Global Warming” contained both a challenging theme as well as vocabulary, so all three teachers spent time explaining the concept of greenhouse gasses and what is causing the problem of global warming.  We all used different techniques, answering questions, providing explanations of vocabulary, sketches on the board, and using the services of our assistants for Chinese translation of some concepts.  The interest and skill level of the students varied from “disinterest” and total lack of comprehension to a few “stars” in each group.

 

We all used introductions to break the ice and then encouraged our students to read from the text.  Wes found the students were more effective if they could pronounce words in a sentence immediately after listening to him, so he would read a sentence then ask the student to repeat it, and then asked the entire class to read the sentence together.  Nan adopted this technique in her afternoon class, while Annette spent time working on the vocabulary to provide meaning and translation for her students.  Another technique that Nan experimented with in the three hour morning class was skits around an imaginary conversation that President Obama would have with President Hu to solve the global warming in the two countries.  This was new to many students, so some more advanced students responded quickly and well, while other students had more difficulty practicing their conversational English.  The Obama poster created for the occasion was received with interest and many questions were asked about Mrs. Obama and her two girls.

 

A special luncheon was provided by college President Liu in the middle of the day.  We went to a local restaurant and tasted a banquet of three varieties of soup, three preparations of bean curd, meats, and early spring vegetables.  Wang Baoli normally selects the most delicious dishes for our supper, but at the end of the day we were full so we sampled lotus, radish, and chicken followed by carrot cakes and watermelon.  Wes added a bottle of Great Wall wine to the festivities, but beer may be the drink of choice going forward.  As usual, conversation at our dinner table was lively, ranging from politics to economics to our students to inquiries about Xi’an.  We are especially looking forward to the weekend, traveling to the West to the largest Buddhist temple in China (Famen) and the mausoleums of Qianling and Hanyang.

 

Submitted by Nan

Nan teaching her class.

Date: 03/31/2009

The team at the entrance to Xi’an Biomedical Technical College.

Annette teaching in the library.

Xi’an Biomedical Technical College President Liu greeting the Global Volunteers.