Freshman Class Four

I think that some my favorite students in China were the Freshman that I taught Oral English to. They were English majors and mostly girls as is shown in the photos. They were very bright, enthusiastic, energetic and ready to learn all they could about English and also about American Culture. This blog is specifically about Class Four, which met early every Monday morning. They met at the new campus, which was about 25 km from our hotel. I rode the bus that the university provided which was jammed full of Chinese teachers, as well as me and maybe one or two other American teachers. When we arrived at the campus, I was always met by two or three of my students, ready to escort me to the classroom and carry my briefcase, CD player, and corrected journals that they had written. They would not let me carry anything, no matter how heavy it might have been. On the first day of class, I took individual photos of each student, and then had them fill out "Student Information Cards" for record keeping and grading purposes. The University does not provide any class rolls, etc., so it is up to the teacher to do this. Then I had each student get up, introduce themselves, and tell me what they wanted to learn from the class. Besides  wanting to improve their oral English, almost every one of them wanted to learn more about American culture. Then I talked about the syllabus, what I expected from them and what we would do in the class. To make a long story shorter, here are some photos of the class:

The individual photos are some of my students giving presentations, debates, etc. Most of them had never stood in front of a class before, so it was a totally new experience for them. At the end of the semester, many of them thanked me for giving them the opportunity to speak before the group. They were very competitive, especially during the debates that I assigned them. This was a fun class, and I think I helped them improve their English speaking skills. I also took the opportunity to teach them about American culture, which I think they were thankful for.