July 9 - 10
Teaching in Jinan - Part I

Monday morning we started with the opening ceremony for the Summer English Program. We heard some welcoming speeches by various officials, including Professor Li, the president of the Shandong Institute of Education, who is to Sylvia's immediate left. Sylvia, as our team leader - a  role we pushed her into, gave a nice talk on our behalf.
 

Each of us then said a few words introducing ourselves to the Chinese English teachers in the audience.
 

Our "students" in this program are Chinese teachers who teach English in their primary and middle schools. In China, they have six grades in primary school, 3 grades in junior middle school and 3 grades in senior middle school. English instruction starts in primary school. Our "student body" for this program was about 125 teachers; they were at least 75% female, and are mostly from middle schools, with only a few from primary schools. This program was originally set up for middle school teachers, but some sites have been letting in a few primary school teachers, which is the case here. We were told that all the teachers majored in English in college. All the teachers are from the Shandong province. Shandong Province is about 430 miles east to west and 260 miles north to south, so it is maybe twice times the size of Wisconsin in land area. But Shandong province has a population of 93 million, which is much greater than our 5 million in Wisconsin.

After the opening ceremony we started interviewing each Chinese teacher so that we could place them in classes of similar ability. Working in teams of two, it took us about four hours to interview all the teachers. An interview was very short - five minutes max. That was also very instructive for us, since it gave us our first exposure to their ability to communicate in English.

The morning teaching schedule is that all six of us teach three 50 minute periods each morning and we also have a 30 minute period with one class, to create a homeroom period. Sylvia and Linda are teaching a formal English course (grammar, writing, etc.) with a textbook provided by the Amity Foundation, while the rest of us don't have a text book per se, but draw on our knowledge of American culture. Bob and Vern are teaching a course on People and Relationships, while Nancy and I are teaching a course on Daily Life. Each of us give the same class three times, with adjustments for class level. The main goals of the courses are to (1) improve their ability to communicate verbally in English (listening skills, conversation, pronunciation, etc.), (2) promote better understanding of each other's culture, and (3) present Western teaching techniques that they can adapt for their teaching conditions. Those of us who are not trained teachers can perhaps work on goals (1) and (2), but feel that goal (3) is beyond us.

Our morning classes are in smaller (non-air-conditioned) classrooms with about 20 students per class. Because of the heat, Shandong Institute wants us to have the entire group in a single air-conditioned lecture hall. in the afternoon, when we have two class periods. For the first afternoon period one of us gives a  15-30 minute lecture on some topic and then engage them in group activities that you can do in a room with 120+ students. The second afternoon period is called English Corner, but it is also in this same lecture hall, which constrains what you can do. For the first week of the English corner we organized group activities; this week we are having the more advanced classes plan and carry out the English corner. If that goes well we will continue with that model for the third week. Actually this can be a good experience for them. We have learned that middle school classes in China are typically 60 - 80 students, and can range up to over 100 students. So finding interactive activities for groups this size is relevant to their teaching situation.

The schedule above is our normal schedule, but our first day of classes (Tuesday) was irregular since final exams were still going on at the Institute for their regular students and our classrooms were not yet available to us. So we adjusted (Amity told us to "Be flexible!) and had the entire day in the large lecture hall. Linda is leading singing while the rest of us are working the aisles and encouraging them.
 

We used the opportunity to introduce ourselves in more depth. As part of my talk, I told them about my photography hobby and then picked up my camera, pointed it at them, and said (in Chinese - with some coaching from my helper beforehand) "One, Two, Three, Cheese!", and took their picture (shown here). Maybe they are laughing at my "broken Chinese". Vern, in the back row, is signaling me to slow down and talk louder.
 

Working in small groups in a 126 seat lecture hall with almost every seat filled. It can be done.
 

I don't recall what this group was working on, but they are really digging into it.
 

The teachers come from many different schools around Shandong province and usually don't know each other, so our first English Corner activity was to have them introduce themselves to each other in pairs. We had them all stand and get in two rows using the aisles and the front of the hall. After a few minutes of introducing themselves to the person facing them, we had one row shift a few places so that everyone was facing a new person. They then introduced themselves again. Our job was to listen in on the conversations to make sure they were speaking to each other in English, not Chinese. Imagine the noise level with 60 conversations going on simultaneously. It was sheer pandemonium, but it worked.