Contents

Local Contest Highlights Guan Ai Teacher's Style
RCEF English Teaching Coach Kiel Harell reports on a contest won by a Guan Ai teacher

“My Hometown” Community Research
RCEF Executive Director of Programs, Sara Lam, describes a social studies class she is teaching at Guan Ai School.

Guan Ai Primary School Through the Eyes of a Teacher
An interview with third grade teacher Pei Weifeng.

RCEF is Looking for Experienced Teacher Trainers
RCEF is seeking professional educators to take part in the upcoming 'Summer Teaching Training Program'

List of Donors

Local Contest Highlights Guan Ai Teacher's Style

RCEF English Teaching Coach Kiel Harell reports on a contest won by a Guan Ai teacher.

On the 13th of March, Guan Ai teacher Yang Lina participated in the annual Puzhou Township English teaching competition. Last year, Teacher Yang was a township runner-up but this year she won the contest and moved on to the next stage. The competition included eight English teachers from other schools in the township. Teachers were required to prepare a lesson from the fourth grade Oxford English textbook and present it to a classroom of students. Each teacher taught for 25 minutes and was evaluated by their peers. Having watched all of the sample lessons, I think Teacher Yang proved herself as one of the strongest teachers. I’m not only saying this because I’ve been working with her for the past 6 months. Her lesson was very different from the other teachers. All of the teachers chose to teach lessons from the first unit of the textbook. A few teachers taught vocabulary on musical instruments; one teacher taught words for extended family members; another on animals and seasons, and there were other teachers who taught from the same section which Teacher Yang chose.

Teacher Yang's approach differed from the other teachers in two very important ways. First, she extracted clear objectives. Textbooks in China do not have explicit written objectives for each lesson. This is a big problem when implementing lesson plans because teachers often weigh each component of the content with equal importance. The truth is, each section does have precise objectives, but the teacher is left to identify what these are. In Teacher Yang's section, she identified the prepositions "in", "on", "under", "beside", and "behind" as the key vocabulary for her lesson. Having identified these, she was able to focus mainly on teaching those words, instead of spending time on the vocabulary, which is easily substituted within sentence structures. This is important for moving students toward creating their own sentences.

Second, Teacher Yang chose to present her material in a way that was both interesting and interactive. Instead of drilling the words using simple recitation, she taught the students corresponding hand signals for each preposition and had students practice these in pairs and small groups. Teacher Yang learned this technique from the RCEF Winter Training at Guan Ai School. She frequently employs it in her class and it worked equally well during the competition. After the students had mastered the hand signals, they worked on creating their own sentences with the new prepositions. It was clear by the end of the short lesson that the majority of the students were able to synthesize this new knowledge into their spoken English with ease.

Over the next few months, Teacher Yang and Teacher Li, the other English teacher at Guan Ai, will be assisting me in training English teachers in Puzhou Township. We have been invited by local education officials to teach a bi-weekly course for teachers that will improve their teaching methods and English abilities. They will demonstrate and share methods that have been effective at Guan Ai and we will support the other teachers to begin adapting these in their classrooms. This is an exciting first step in expanding RCEF's network to teachers from more schools in the area. We will report on the progress in the next newsletter.

“My Hometown” Community Research

RCEF Executive Director of Programs, Sara Lam, describes a social studies class she is teaching at Guan Ai School.

There are two units in the fourth grade Social Studies curriculum that teach students about their community and hometown – a perfect opportunity to have students conduct community research!  I was happy to see that the textbook included activities for students to interview community members.  However, from our experience, students don’t just learn how to do community research through practice.  Research requires specific skills and the teacher needs to carefully design instructions to guide students.  Our goal for this unit extended beyond having students learn about their hometown to helping students learn how to become good researchers. 

Step One: Identifying a Research Topic

The most important step is motivating the students and letting them see the purpose of conducting research.  I asked the students if they think they have more or less knowledge than children in the United States.  Many students just called out “we do” or “they do”, but one thoughtful girl said, “We know more about things here.”  I gave them a quick quiz with questions like how many people are in their village or what month corn is planted.  The students were embarrassed that they didn’t know the answers.  This was followed by a quick discussion about the importance of understanding our hometowns.

After that, the students brainstormed and discussed aspects of their hometowns, which they could research.  In the end, we came up with five topics and each group was assigned one of these topics.  The topics were: agriculture, customs, professions, education and art.  Each group then filled in a form with the questions: What do I know about this topic? What do I want to know? How can I find out? 

Step Two: Conducting an Interview

The first research task was to conduct an interview.  In the second lesson, I gave students some guidelines about writing good research questions.  For example, all of the questions should be closely related to our research topics, and they should be clear and specific. Then each group had to decide whom to interview and what questions to ask.  I gave them suggestions and helped them revise their questions during this process. 

The students went out to do their interviews the next day.  (Beforehand, I had contacted all of the interviewees to make sure that they would be available.)  In class, we talked about how to conduct an interview, including basics such as safety and courtesy, and techniques for asking follow up questions and taking notes. 

Step Three: Writing a Report

To begin, I read a sample community research report to the students, which gave them a few pointers for turning interview notes into an essay and then gave them time to write individual reports.  After giving feedback, some students read parts of their reports.  One report was chosen from each group, and typed and printed for each group member.  Every group member edited and added additional information to the report.  In the end, they put all their revisions together to make a comprehensive final version. This is also a good writing exercise for students because they practiced organizing information and editing, and obtained feedback from their research material. 

Next Steps

In the next few lessons, students will study other research methods such as observation and surveys. Each group will use these methods to conduct further research on their original topics.  For example, the group researching professions might survey the whole class about their parents' professions.  This would complement a previous interview report about a local woman who went to a northern city to start a small restaurant, a very common business venture for villagers in this area.  It will also give students a chance to put the math skills they have learned into practice.  The final product will be a class book with pictures, essays and statistics about their hometown.

Guan Ai Primary School Through the Eyes of a Teacher

An interview with third grade teacher Pei Weifeng.

Pei Weifeng (裴卫锋) teaches Mathematics, Science and Physical Education at Guan Ai. Like many teachers at Guan Ai, he was born and raised in the region and graduated from the Yuncheng Teachers College about 100 km from here. He is a young teacher who had some teaching experience at another rural school before arriving at Guan Ai.

At first sight, Teacher Pei seemed to be a bit strict because of his piercing eyes behind blue glasses. Once asked why he wanted to become a teacher, he started smiling kindly. “I like children. I think I was 7 or 8 years old, when I realized that I wanted to become a teacher.” Teacher Pei has been teaching at Guan Ai for almost two years.  What he likes most about this school compared with other rural schools is its innovative and student-centered approach.  “Students are the most important”, he explains. “Guan Ai is a boarding school and both teachers and students eat the same food, which is not common in China. The students appreciate and respect this.”

This is also reflected in the teaching style at Guan Ai. “Take the Science classes for example. Most rural schools don’t pay much attention to this subject, because it’s a non-core subject. We take this seriously, as with all our subjects, and we try to trigger the student’s curiosity and interest in a particular subject. For example, I used ice cubes to teach students about liquids and condensation. We don’t use ice cubes in daily life, and I don’t believe that many rural teachers would go through the trouble of making them like I did.”

Teaching coaches who observe and advise teachers in real time are not common in China. Teacher Pei had never heard of any schools that had worked with teaching coaches. “Usually rural teachers need to solve the problems themselves. It is even uncommon for teachers to share experiences with each other like we do at Guan Ai. I have many meetings with my teaching coaches and other teachers with whom I can discuss any problems I encounter. The advantage of this method is that it’s a good way to improve my teaching, since I receive feedback on my teaching. The disadvantage is that conflicts sometimes occur when we have different opinions about a certain class. In most cases, we manage to reach a compromise. If not, we consult other teachers.”

“It’s not easy to teach rural students who are not always that easy-going!”  According to Teacher Pei, “This is partly because many students at Guan Ai lack a stable family life.” He continued to explain: “Most of their parents work in the city and they are basically raised by their grandparents who can’t always handle them. Nevertheless, most of the students are very lively and enjoy interaction. They are not afraid at all to ask questions. This can be very tiring since we practically live with the students.”

But what does Teacher Pei enjoy most about his job? This is what he said: “Not the results, but the students’ appreciation, such as a colorful drawing. I also feel proud when I hear them speak out loud in public, full of confidence. We encourage them to speak out, regardless of whether their answer is right or wrong.  There is this tall and shy boy in the 3rd grade who was afraid to talk to anyone. You would always find him alone in a corner. He always began mumbling when speaking in public. So one day I gave him a book and asked him to read out aloud alone in a room. I pretended to leave but after a while, I went back and told him that he did very well and that I was able to hear him from outside the room. This gave him more confidence and we practiced regularly. Six months later, he had no problems in reading and speaking out loud in public."

RCEF is Looking for Experienced Teacher Trainers

• Do you enjoy working with eager students and teachers in rural China?
• Are you looking for firsthand knowledge and experience about rural education in China?
• Are you ready for an unforgettable teacher training experience in rural China?

Then RCEF's Summer Teaching Training Program might be the thing for you.

The summer training allows experienced educators to devote their energy to the professional development of teachers of Guan Ai School, the main partner school of RCEF. You will also have the opportunity to interact with educators from other parts of the country or the world to contribute to the improvement of the quality of education for rural children.

Click here for more information. 

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The RCEF Newsletter is a monthly publication about the educational experiments being carried out at Guan Ai School in rural Shanxi Province, China.

Read more about RCEF's mission and program site Guan Ai Primary School.

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