Things are going well in both Inner Mongolia and Jinan. The Inner Mongolia team has just two more days of English Camp left, and they will head back to Beijing on Tuesday, so they can travel home on Wednesday. The Jinan team finished camp on Saturday, and should be back in Beijing today (Sunday).

Here are some notes from our second Fang Shan (July 17) team:

Class 2
Class 2 is an intermediate English class led by Mr. John and his assistants are Mr. Timmy and Miss Samantha. The class is made up of
12 students, all of the students in the class are boys. Their English names are Tom, Tony, Bob, Angus, Tiger, Andy, Peter, Don, Frank, Jack, Ronnie, and Brian. Many of them like to play soccer and some of them like to play American Football. They are ages 9-14. Each of them are special in their own way and they are always a joy to have in class because in the morning they are energetic. Their energy in the morning keeps their teachers and assistants awake!

Class 4
The first day of class we played a fun name game. The students were a little shy at first, but quickly got excited. The second day we practiced English by talking and sharing about ourselves. Our lesson the 3rd day was greetings and farewells and we played a competitive “slap-it” game so the students could remember common replies to common ways to say hello and goodbye. We were surprised by how quickly the students learned. By the first 2 sessions the students had already learned the entire lesson! We taught chatspeak and the students liked it. The 4th day we talked about houses and rooms found in houses. We played house and looked at magazines after going over vocabulary.

Class 1
On the first day the students were extremely quiet, though they warmed up considerably in an active name game. On the second day, we were very surprised at how obedient the students were. It appears that they catch on very fast, though they do have lower listening and speaking skills. The boys started to get very close to Bruce. He is especially popular with students both in and outside our class. Its a good thing he is my assistant. On the third day, there was a small conflict in the class - but because of it I really bonded with the girls. I got the privilege to enter their dormitory where they taught me a card game. Mrs. Lee is doing a fantastic job all the while bonding with the girls, translating, and challenging/encouraging students. We also had a dodgeball game, where many students were quite frightened. We also had the new teachers come in and they are doing a great job. The fifth day, the boys were especially rowdy, but the Gladiator game had a good reception.