On Monday, after I returned from my customary trip to the Bookworm, Lee and I ventured out into the city with the intention to explore one of Chengdu's other landmarks, Haunhaxi park, which contains the ancient thatched-roof cottage of the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Fu_Thatched_Cottage
We took the metro North to Tianfu Square, which I would revisit later during the course of the work week, and took the second line West which deposited us several blocks away from the park. Thankfully the map function on my phone does wonders for navigating unfamiliar city streets. So we were able to find our way to the park quite easily. We opted out of visiting the cottage itself given the 80 RMB admission fee and our lack of extra money. We did however walk through the rest of the park, which was pleasant enough despite the oftentimes ear-splitting shrieking of the huge, local cicadas.
We took the metro North to Tianfu Square, which I would revisit later during the course of the work week, and took the second line West which deposited us several blocks away from the park. Thankfully the map function on my phone does wonders for navigating unfamiliar city streets. So we were able to find our way to the park quite easily. We opted out of visiting the cottage itself given the 80 RMB admission fee and our lack of extra money. We did however walk through the rest of the park, which was pleasant enough despite the oftentimes ear-splitting shrieking of the huge, local cicadas.
My biggest priority this past week has been teaching a pair of V.I.P. classes. These are one-on-one classes provided separately from the regular curriculum. Each of the two students are around 18 or 19 years old, have finished high school, and are taking English classes from EF in anticipation of traveling abroad for study.
The first class centered around getting to know the student and assessing their language needs and goals. One of the girls, Lucy, hopes to study journalism at Columbia University in London. So the first class involved discussing different occupations and the responsibilities of people in those profession, along with daily routines. I struggled at first to focus on how to structure the lesson to maximize focus on speech practice, since her reading and writing abilities were strong. When I asked her questions she gave clear answers, and while I was easily able to understand her one word responses outside of context, the primary focus is helping her build the confidence in her ability to speak in grammatically correct complete sentences. It wasn't until near the end of the first lesson that I figured out a lesson structure that I have since settled on. When we were discussing the frequency of daily routines, I had provided her a list of words such as 'always','usually','never', etc. to aid her descriptions and it was at this point that she began to construct satisfactory sentences for her responses. Giving her basic requirements for the framing of her responses proved to be just the approach I was looking for.
Because of her interest in travel, much of the second class revolved around watching video tours of London and New York, and having discussions of the similarities and differences between life in China and life in the West. The second hour was spent discussing the various social issues that she wished to write about, including China's pollution and the issues of food and water quality. Afterward comparing and contrasting various similar issues in America. Again, giving her basic required words for her responses prompted more complete discussions.
During the third class for the week, which I felt was the most successful, we started to focus on reading and responding to news articles. I asked her if there were any local stories she wanted to discuss, and we spent the first hour covering the most recent earthquake in the Gansu province of China. We discussed the format for writing a news report, starting with the most essential 'wh-questions' of an informative article: who, what, where, when, why, and how. As well as the additional material to clarify or provide context for the essential information. Once she understood this format of essential information. We moved on to a second article about the recent train derailment in Spain. This time, she read the article before I did and had to tell me what the article was about. While she understood the information she needed to pull from the article she was still quoting verbatim from the text. So next week I will have her find news articles in Chinese to read so she will be forced to quote the information to me in her own words.
The second girl, Sarah, wants to travel to Australia and America, so much like the second class I taught with Lucy, we watched travel tours of various cities and discussed which landmarks she would like to visit.
In addition to my V.I.P. classes, I was also required to make a trip to the downtown branch of EF to meet one of the staff assistants who was scheduled to take me over to the local international tourism and affairs office to extend my temporary visa. This gave me the opportunity to briefly explore the area around Tianfu Square on my way to the school and during the trek over to the tourism office.
The first class centered around getting to know the student and assessing their language needs and goals. One of the girls, Lucy, hopes to study journalism at Columbia University in London. So the first class involved discussing different occupations and the responsibilities of people in those profession, along with daily routines. I struggled at first to focus on how to structure the lesson to maximize focus on speech practice, since her reading and writing abilities were strong. When I asked her questions she gave clear answers, and while I was easily able to understand her one word responses outside of context, the primary focus is helping her build the confidence in her ability to speak in grammatically correct complete sentences. It wasn't until near the end of the first lesson that I figured out a lesson structure that I have since settled on. When we were discussing the frequency of daily routines, I had provided her a list of words such as 'always','usually','never', etc. to aid her descriptions and it was at this point that she began to construct satisfactory sentences for her responses. Giving her basic requirements for the framing of her responses proved to be just the approach I was looking for.
Because of her interest in travel, much of the second class revolved around watching video tours of London and New York, and having discussions of the similarities and differences between life in China and life in the West. The second hour was spent discussing the various social issues that she wished to write about, including China's pollution and the issues of food and water quality. Afterward comparing and contrasting various similar issues in America. Again, giving her basic required words for her responses prompted more complete discussions.
During the third class for the week, which I felt was the most successful, we started to focus on reading and responding to news articles. I asked her if there were any local stories she wanted to discuss, and we spent the first hour covering the most recent earthquake in the Gansu province of China. We discussed the format for writing a news report, starting with the most essential 'wh-questions' of an informative article: who, what, where, when, why, and how. As well as the additional material to clarify or provide context for the essential information. Once she understood this format of essential information. We moved on to a second article about the recent train derailment in Spain. This time, she read the article before I did and had to tell me what the article was about. While she understood the information she needed to pull from the article she was still quoting verbatim from the text. So next week I will have her find news articles in Chinese to read so she will be forced to quote the information to me in her own words.
The second girl, Sarah, wants to travel to Australia and America, so much like the second class I taught with Lucy, we watched travel tours of various cities and discussed which landmarks she would like to visit.
In addition to my V.I.P. classes, I was also required to make a trip to the downtown branch of EF to meet one of the staff assistants who was scheduled to take me over to the local international tourism and affairs office to extend my temporary visa. This gave me the opportunity to briefly explore the area around Tianfu Square on my way to the school and during the trek over to the tourism office.
Perhaps tomorrow I might decide to explore the museum there at Tianfu Square. They apparently have an exhibit of skeletons from Zigong Dinosaur Muesum, one of China's foremost dinosaur museums.