Week Five in China

Starting on September twenty-seventh we had a weeklong vacation which started with a sports meet here at our university which all foreign teachers participated in. Mark took second in the Basketball shooting contest and the high-jump. Carrie took part in the 100m, 4 x 100m relay and the long-jump. She placed first in all three. After the sports meet everyone separated on their own adventures. We were planning on traveling south along the east coast to a beautiful city called Qingdao to visit an old student who graduated from our university last year. But with all of China going on Holiday we were not able to get a seat ticket and were unwilling to stand on a train for twelve hours. So, we ended up staying and doing some site-seeing here in our town.

On Tuesday, September 30th, we went to the local zoo and were able to get within feet of many dangerous and not so dangerous animals. It was very exciting. On Wednesday, October 1st a few of us foreign teachers and one of Carrie's old students went to People's Park. People's Park has a bunch of theme park rides and food, as well as open grass fields and beautiful ponds. We spent most of our time playing frisbee and teaching the chinese who passed by how to throw a frisbee. Other than that we spent most of our time lesson planning and visiting with students.

We started classes the week of the eighth and have been busy ever since. Like we said in the last newsletter Mark is teaching six hours right now until the freshmen start and then he will be teaching twelve hours or eighteen hours a week depending whether it is an odd or even week. Carrie has only six hours the whole semester. But, on top of classes our group here at this university has decided to do a weekly English corner on Thursday for two hours for those students who may not have a foreign teacher but would like to practice their English. We have enlisted some students who are a part of the family to come and help us build relationship as well as to give them the opportunity to help speak and translate English.

We have also made a list of bigger events that we will put on each month. In September we will not be doing anything, but in October we will have a Halloween party at our university for all the students. Last year it was really successful. November first we will have an open mic night at a local coffee shop for all three of the universities which ELT Edge is located at. Then in December, we will have a Christmas party. Somewhere in these months we will also have a spelling bee. Last year we had the first spelling be here at our school which went very well. Now that the students have a better idea of what to expect we are thinking it will be that much better this year.