The Students of Zhejiang Yuyao Experimental School

Students who attend Zhejiang Experimental School come from families who can afford to pay around per year for their private education. There are also some very top students (about 10%) who are given scholarships. Another interesting fact is that with few exceptions, each child is an only child. This means that each child has 6 doting adults in his/her life, two sets of grandparents and one set of parents. Needless to say a lot of loving pressure to succeed is felt by each student.
The summer program is an enrichment program. Students live in dormitories. They attend 7 classes every day from 7:40 until 4:40. They get up at 5:45... I need to find out what they do before classes begin. There is a 2 hour lunch/rest break. Lights out at 8:50. Approximately half the students are girls and half are boys. Uniforms consist of navy trouser and white collared shirts with blue trim.
There are 7 foreign teachers and we each have a different schedule. The two couples have been assigned morning schedules and the rest of us will alternate between a morning and an afternoon assignment. This first week, I don't start teaching until 2:00. Sunday, July 15th, was the first day of classes. This brings up the fact that there appears to be no sense of weekend. Starting on a Sunday,we teach 5 days and then have one day off. This repeats itself 4 times. After the last 5 day block, the school will take the 'foreign' teachers on a three day excursion, place to be determined.
So, I really have no idea what day it is!!!
On the first day of classes, the students attended a large assembly. Mr. Tao, one of the lead math teachers, spoke to the students and then we were asked to introduce ourselves. I happened to be first. I took the mic and said Good Morning and paused for a nano second. A resounding
"Good Morning" erupted from the crowd. After a few sentences about myself, I ended with "It's nice to meet you." They quickly responded, "It's nice to meet you, too!" Lots of smiles and good vibrations.
Students stay in the same classroom for most of their subjects and teachers move from classroom to classroom. Music over the intercom signals the end of a period. There are 40-50 (closer to 50) students in each class sitting in 7 rows with very narrow space between each row. Classrooms have a large chalkboard in the front of the room and most appear to be equipped with some kind of LCD projector. (We've been told that students will help us learn how to use them...) Also of note are the morning and afternoon eye exercise breaks. A soothing voice and music come over the intercom. Students immediately close their eyes and spend the next 5 minutes massaging their eyes, temples and neck. We could all learn something from this!!
I decided to start each period with a quick "Hello" song and end with "So long, farewell, it's time to say goodbye. I hate to leave, but I'm not going to cry... goodbye, goodbye... goodbye." They all chime in on the goodbyes!!
They love call and response and pronunciation is quite good. More difficult is open ended conversation which is typical. We've had some good laughs with short role plays on introductions and "You look nice today. I like your shirt. That's a good color on you. Where did you get it?" and so on. Thank you to Cindy Wright Delanave for her suggestion to use Action English Picture stories. Lots of great verbs and real language opportunities.
Well, that about it for now... I've got the morning to myself as everyone else is over at the school. There is no internet for me at the hotel, so hopefully, I can post this later today. It turns out access to gmail is difficult for me, so I have no way of checking out the blog, but Anna and Maria tell me they are coming through. Terri, I know I should be including more photos and will try to do so...
The hotel provide breakfast. Now, I am going to go eat a boiled egg, some white looking tea, a bowl of soupy rice and some assorted pickled accompaniments.
The lady in the breakfast area is very sweet and gives me some salt for my egg!!
Next blog topic: The Efficacy of the Jibbigo I-Phone Ap!
Good byeL Zai jian




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Location:Yuyao