Routine as Usual

We began the day with the usual routine: breakfast on the second floor with Baoli. The only unusual thing about breakfast was that Tom wasn’t with us, so we weren’t able to enjoy his idle prattle. Following breakfast, we headed to school. Today, Nora and Geni’s class performed skits from old fairy tale books and learned about American currency. Dia and Fran’s class had a heated debate about gender roles and also practiced their songs for the closing ceremony. Tom’s class read newspaper articles, practiced pronunciation, and sang songs.

After class, each of the three classes took their teachers to lunch. Nora and Geni went to a restaurant that served several dishes, including fish, duck, chicken, soup, and rice. Dia and Fran went to a restaurant that served mostly spicy food, and Tom went to lunch with his class and ate very exotic food.

Dinner was fabulous, as always.  When dinner was over, the Gualtieris returned back to their rooms for a peaceful evening.

- Geni

"The end of one day is the beginning of another."

 Team 203 started the day with a nourishing, healthy breakfast at the Golden Spring Hotel. Lots of coffee for Fran and everyone but Baoli, late as usual. Off to teach class at 8:00 am as usual today.

Tom's class read and discussed newspaper articles today. They also worked on tongue twisters and played pronunciation games. Geni and Nora's class read stories from children's books and acted the plots out after discussing the meanings. There were some real actors and hams in the class. Their day was completed with games and songs. Dia and Fran's class wrote and read compositions that started with a phrase given to them by Fran. The class was very creative and these resulted in a number of new vocabulary words. The class then worked on new songs and games which were brought to the class by the teachers from their personal experience.

Afternoon classes were given in lecture form to the three individual classes. Tom discussed learning disabilities with each class for 40 min and then took individual questions. Geni and Nora discussed life of the American middle school student, high school student and details on university admission and life. They followed up each class with songs and chants. Fran discussed her personal Chinese adoption process for her three daughters and her personal experience owning and operating a small restaurant business.

Everyone went back to the hotel tired but satisfied from a long day. The girls went shopping and Tom and Fran rested till dinner. Another fine dinner was had at the hotel and everyone retired early to work on Thursday lesson plans.

- Fran

Field Trip!

The health and safety report was given at breakfast, and then the journal for yesterday was read by Fran. We planned our day and were told more about the field trip we took this afternoon.

Geni and I taught Geni’s class while Tom taught my class yesterday.  We switched classes today and Geni and I were going to teach the same thing today. The only thing we planned differently was the song we were going to teach them. It ended up taking my class longer to learn the song. My class is louder and more open then yesterday’s class so we played the fly swatter game longer. We ended class with a few rounds of “Ride that Pony”. The game and song took so much longer we didn’t have a chance to teach them cards or look at a few books we brought. Fran and Dia’s class learned about money and pretended to order from restaurants. Dia led some songs and dances. At the end, they talked about Friday’s closing ceremony. Tom was serious today because Geni and my class were very loud. His class read newspapers and discussed them. Not to mention the tongue twisters they practiced.

This afternoon, instead of the usual lectures, we went on a field trip to the Hump Memorial Park. This was the memorial for the “Flying Tigers”. We took many pictures and climbed many stairs. At the end, we all played “Ride that Pony” and a rigorous game of Simon Says.

After resting for a bit, we went to a restaurant across the street for dinner. It was nice to eat in a different place once in a while. I like the second noodle dish and I liked the dumplings the best.

Monday

It’s Monday and Team 203 had its usual breakfast and lunch meeting to plan for the upcoming week. No class was held in the morning so the team was able to spend extra time on lesson plans after their weekend away in Lijiang.

Nora gave the weekly journal assignments while Geni reviewed current health and safety issues during lunch. The team is happy to be back in Kunming eating our usual healthy Chinese diet with lots of vegetables and fruit.

Geni and Nora will lead Ali and Nora’s secondary school teacher’s group this week. Today they quizzed students on pronunciation issues and engaged students in a fun game of identifying and naming animals - a version of the Fly Swatter game. Teachers were rewarded with emory boards, combs, shower caps and other hotel room give-aways. Games and chants followed in a rowdy and fun manner.

Tom led his group in pronunciation exercises, vocabulary games and common expressions and phrases. The class was visited by Nora who reviewed games and chants with the group. Dia and Fran’s group spent the majority of the class time identifying their hometowns on the Yunnan Province map and their favorite vacation sites on the China map. Next the class worked on idioms and Dia led the class in songs and chants. “I’m a little teapot” was a big hit.

At dinner the group listened to Baoli’s review of the Flying Tiger’s history and the importance of the field trip on Tuesday afternoon to the site of the Flying Tigers Memorial. We also discussed other class ideas for Tuesday afternoon.

- Fran

Interviews, Games and Goodbyes

Today was Ali's last day.  So, after lessons, reading passages, and defining words that the class didn't understand and writing teaching goals, Nora and Ali engaged in a dolorous version of the Hokey Pokey, took class photos and said goodbyes.   At lunch, Ali showed us her fabulous scarf, and Baoli decided she wanted one too. Everyone gave Ali a big hug, and then she flew off to face the floods in Beijing.

In Frances and Dia's class, they discussed class goals, and Dia was interviewed about what primary school is like in the US. Of course, Dia’s vision of primary school may or may not resemble what grammar schools really like, but the class enjoyed her answers anyway. Then the teams divided up and answered questions. Dia led a session of Simon Says, and Heads Up, Seven Up. Then they discussed next week's goals and Friday's closing ceremony.

Tom and Geni asked their class what they wanted to do, and they asked for ways to study vocabulary. So we divided up into the usual two teams, and played some different word games. The first was the fluency game, naming as many words as one could that began with a certain letter. The second was jeopardy, and the teams would fill the letters to make words from a common phrase. We were able to do idioms again, like "jump down your throat," and "out of your mind."  We also did a spirited version of the Hokey Pokey.

School was out at noontime, and after lunch the Gualtieri's got ready for their fabulous trip. It was definitely a last-minute affair, but at 830 we finally left the hotel to go to the train station.  We were off to LiJiang.  Baoli decided to stay in Kunming and work.

-Tom

Practice Makes Perfect

At school, my group learned a little bit about multiple intelligences. Ali wanted to give her students the heads up on what this afternoon’s lecture was going to be on. They also reviewed yesterday’s “Ride That Pony”. The class needed a review. The more practice they got, the more people sang along. The group got better and better with each round, they were able to keep up when we gradually went faster. Two teachers in our class have children. When Tom’s class next door sang “Ride That Pony”, one of the kids was singing the song and dancing to it. Tom’s class also did readings and talked about idioms.  Fran’s class was supposed to interview Dia and review the songs we learned yesterday. With Dia out, they worked on vocabulary and played games. They wanted to play “Little Sally Walker” but Fran didn’t know it. She only knew the lyrics, luckily Tom and Geni came in at that time. Fran gave Tom a bottle of water in exchange for Geni helping with class songs. Geni played “Little Sally Walker” and the other camp songs we taught yesterday. Fran’s assistant Bo, came to Ali’s class today.

 Ali gave this afternoon’s lecture on Multiple Intelligences. It was about the way people learn. There are the social learners who learn from talking to each other, nature learner who like the outdoors. The rest were kinesthetic learners, verbal/linguistic , visual/spatial, logical/mathematical, musical/harmonic, interpersonal/intrapersonal. Chris summarized Ali’s lectures into Chinese for the teachers.

Tom and Geni walked back to the hotel. Most everyone walked to a restaurant for dinner which specialized in Yunnan favorites. Ali was able to enjoy her eggplant dish and we all enjoyed the beautiful presentations. Friday is the end to the first week’s session and time has really flown by.

 - Nora

Lots of Dancing!

Today, in Nora's class, we learned the Macarena, reviewed the stories the students had written, and worked on translations. In Dia's class, we also studied the Macarena, played Simon says, and head, shoulders, knees and toes. In Geni's class, we also learned the Macarena, some other songs, and we read stories and poems. We learned that enunciation is a big problem among the English language teachers in Kunming, and we need to emphasize pronunciation training in future sessions.

After lunch, we had a dance/singing session, led by Dia, Nora and Geni. Ali was able to hook up her computer to a speaker, for special dancing. It was surprising to discover how useful are Songs and dances were even among elementary and middle school teachers. In fact, the camp routines were the most popular items during the session. People seem to like to get up and move. They really like the Macarena too, although Tom still can't seem to get moves right.

Tom and Frances walked home from school, the girls took the bus, and visited the stationary store to get new supplies.  After dinner, we were all so tired we went to bed early.

-Dia