Teaching

Sorry for the lack of communication but we have been pretty worn out over the last two days, our first two days teaching - ever.   It is quite an experience and effectively communicating with the students (and teachers) can be a significant challenge and takes lots of pictures, gestures and acting.  The flip side is that our attempts to pronounce words in Mandarin are good experiences to empathize with what our students (and fellow teachers) are going through.

Our school has about 900 students and between Julie and I we have one class with every student in the school each week.  Julie covers grades 1, 3 and 5 and I cover grades 2, 4, and 6.  Each class has 35 - 40 students and each grade is made up of four classes.  That adds up to each of us teaching 12 classes a week at our school.  On Thursday's we will be going to different 'sister' schools.  Our school is the Yongding branch and on Thursday's I'll go to the Shimenying branch.  I can't remember what branch Julie goes too!  Finally, on Friday morning's we will both go to the kindergarten that is sponsored by our school.

Here are some pictures from around the school:

Front Gate. The stairs on the right are still being built.

The clock tower and stairs that are being built.

Lobby (picture 1)

Lobby (picture 2)

English Corner (picture 1)

English Corner (picture 2)

This is one of many signs heading into the playground.

Water Wheel, it is very sunny today.

Fountain (not on!).  English Corner is above and to the right.

Sitting area below the English Corner

There are 4 statues of famous Chinese teachers. This is is only one of them.

View from the parking lot.  Our apartment is just to the left of this picture.

Back to work.  Talk to you soon, Ryan.