China, Learning and Loving: Teaching, and Learning the Basics

Hello lovely readers,

I do not even know if anyone is left out there reading this, because I have been so terrible and being frequent with it. The last couple of week have been busy, busy, busy! As you know, I have begun to work with Golden Kids International School. The last two weeks have been filled with acclimating myself with being an International teacher and all that entails in China.

To begin, We have one student right now and his name is Xiaobao. He is our one faithful student everyday and he learns a half hour of English with me a day. I do a structured lesson based on one letter with him that is formed of six 5 minute activities. That lesson is the same for one week. We do songs to warm up, we have a special song specific to the lesson each week, we explore items from our magic box, we act out verbs related to those items, we read a book based on the letter of the week, and we learn a finger-play. It really is a great plan and it creates structure in an otherwise unstructured day. The first lessons were a little tough, because Xiaoboa has not really met a foreigner. Now I think he is warming up to me. We have done the letters lowercase a, b, and this week c.

Flying like Airplanes

Reading Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom

Singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"

Pretending to drive a bus

Reading Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

Talking about a bus from our Magic Box

I know it might seem silly that I have pictures of each lesson like this, but I am actually required to. Each week, I write a newsletter, due by Wednesday, that has very specific guidelines. I must have three pictures at the bottom in which the students are interacting with the lesson and they must be clean and nice looking. I submit it for review, receive corrections, and then give it to my Mandarin co-teacher for translation. After that, the principal reviews it before it is given to the parents. So much work!

Nonetheless, because there is only one student, I spend an additional half hour in the classroom or outside playing with Xiaobao. My co-teacher, Sherry and I, have all sorts of fun with him and have even found a secret spot where Xiaobao can be as loud as he wants. At the top of our building there is a rotunda and we can get into it through a window. Once you are inside, there is a floor and a very high hexagon ceiling that causes a crazy echo. He loves it! We will have to work on his sharing though, because at some point, there will be more students.

Xiaoboa peeking through our window to the Secret Room

Block tower, Peace!

In all of the spare time I have had, I have been assigned a project to complete. I was given 2 giant boxes of books. I then had to check them off a list, number them, and sort them into themes. After that I had to shelf them, record all the numbers on each shelf, and post them on a that shelf. After that was said and done, I had to label all of the shelves and then match the first list to a master list for all of the schools. SO MUCH WORK! I am proud of the result though (I made labels that turned out so cute!)