The Chinese Educational System:
The Middle Schools

We are teaching four classes per week in Middle School Number 1.
Jim teaches every week, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and Anita goes with him every other Tuesday. Each class is self-contained, and as far as we understand, we are to teach the students English for forty-five minutes per class. (Are you ready for the ultimate culture shock? Imagine a classroom of fifty-six 11, 12 and 13 year olds sitting quite attentively, IN THEIR SEATS, for the entire class period! Believe it or not, but they do just that!)

Their grasp of English is pretty limited. We have been given no resources, and no direction. What do we do to enrich their experiences? We dig into our bag of tricks (and the internet), and make educational assumptions and decisions. Last week we put together a rather jazzy Power Point show of "How to Make a McDonald's Hamburger," stressing simple, related vocabulary.

This week it will be "Bicycle Safety," inspired by our concerns about the horrific biking/driving situation here in Zibo.

Chinese students are expected to complete at least nine years of schooling. If you are interested in learning a little bit about their education system, the following web link gives the details of the educational structure in China. For the most part, it accurately reflects what we have observed here. The exception is the reference to "junior high school" in the blurb versus the term "middle school" that we have seen used rather universally. So, if you wish to read more, click on this link. . .
http://www.index-china.com/index-english/education-s.htm

p.s.
With the start of the fourth week of classes, the entire campus had to adjust to a new class meeting time.  Each of the four class block times have been pushed back to meet a half an hour later each day. All the 7:30 a.m. classes now begin at 8:00 a.m., etc.  Can you imaging trying to implement a universal class schedule change like this, partway into a semester, in the United States?  Not only that, we think there will be one more such change, later on in the semester.

HAPPY EASTER!

The Easter holiday was not at all apparent around here. We took it upon ourselves to boil eggs, use some makeshift props, and deliver these to each of the foreign teachers here in our complex, just to get into the spirit.

We actually left for Qingdao (see map, Qindao is on the coast, due east of Zibo) on Saturday morning for an overnight in this wonderful city on the coast of the Yellow Sea. We have met a wonderful couple, who live here in Zibo, and they invited us to travel with them for the weekend.

Qingdao is a community that has been largely influenced by the German occupation around the turn of the last century. The architecture reflects this influence - Bavarian style buildings, church steeples, all with a distinctive Western look. Qingdao (pronounced "Ching-dow") is absolutely beautiful with its scenic views, clean air, and picturesque seascapes. A major contrast to the industrial city of Zibo.

NOTE:

About our request last week...

Last week we ended our letter with the following request:
Printed materials (magazines, etc.), VCDs Wanted

We are actually looking for classroom items. Our students hunger for western culture, so magazines of any kind would really be appreciated. Used ones are fine, but obviously keeping in mind propriety. VCD is just DVD. Sorry for the confusion, but they seem to refer to these as VCD here. Everything here is in Chinese; so not very helpful for our use teaching English. We are managing with what little we have here. We take quite a bit off the internet, and bring our laptops into the classroom on occasion, but the rooms are not set up for any kind of technology. There are two multi-media classrooms on campus. Booking them and rearranging classes is usually too challenging to bother.

I am not sure about the mailing procedures, but for our colleagues at SUNY Ulster, Marty Jordan knows a lot. He helped us get our boxes mailed here before we left. You could contact him for information. We would not recommend taking the proverbial "slow boat to China", as that could take up to three months.

It can be expensive, and take long to mail things here, but just in case you might want to send some material to us, here is our mailing address.

James Hadley and/or Anita DeFina
c/o International Coop. & Exchange Dept.
Shandong University of Technology
12 Zhangzhou Road
Zibo, Shandong 255091
P. R. China

Qingdao and the Yellow Sea at Sunset

One of Our Middle School Classes

Attentive Students

At the Chalkboard

Qingdao and the Yellow Sea

Qingdao Commercial Kindergarten

Christian Church in Qingdao

On the Pier, Qingdao

Note:
To enlarge and/or clarify these photos using Microsoft Photo Editor, right-click on the photo and save it to
a file, then open it as a jpeg with MS Photo Editor.