Liren Middle School

No. 151 Mingyuan Road, Zhaobaoshan

Zhenhai District, Ningbo 315200

Zhejiang Province

My arrival at the school on February 25, 2014

As I arrived at the school, I am greeted with immense enthusiasm. Both teachers, the staff and the students have welcomed me as if I was a family member they haven't seen in many years.

This semester I am teaching in a middle school. The school itself is well equipped with every piece of technology a teacher could ask for. I am able to teach using PowerPoint presentations. I have access to the Internet in every classroom. Anything I need to make my teaching easier is available.

My schedule consists of twenty-two classes, with on average thirty-five students per class. Each class is either forty-five or fifty minutes long. Divided up between seventh and eighth graders, the students range in age from fourteen to sixteen years old.

As of this writing, I completed my second week here at this school. In my first visit to each class, I introduced myself with a PowerPoint presentation that allowed the students to rapidly get to know me. Most students in China are very shy at first. Unless they feel comfortable with you, they will not open up and talk. I am able to get each class to warm up to me using the PowerPoint, showing them pictures of myself and my life in America. This gets them to ask questions that I am happy to answer. Before you know it, the whole class is involved.

Then at the end of the class, I shock them informing them they have a homework assignment. The sudden silence and the look of horror on each of their faces, I ask for a written paper about themselves. Of course it is to be written in English. As I did last semester at the previous school I taught, I will have posted some of their papers for you to read. Click on the dragon to access those papers.