On The Way to Yang Si

(December 3)

On the morning of December 3, we took a bus to set out for Yang Si Junior School with the purpose of learning school-running experience from this school.

We 40 teachers left Linzi at 7 am in the morning. And the bus was something wrong because the driver filled two different grades of oil. At last it broke down in Qingzhou city. When it was fixed up it was about 10am. Finally we arrived in Taixing city, Jiangsu province, at 6pm.

Another reason why we traveled so long was that we just started to take the expressway at Yishui county, Shandong province. We had lunch at Linyi Expressway Service Center. And before long we entered the borderline of Jiangsu Province.

Jiangsu is really a rich province in China. With further entry into this province, I found that villages are taking on a newer look. Fishing pools are everywhere by the sides of the Beijing-Shanghai expressway. Rivers are also visible here and there.

To our surprise, when we were riding at Gaoyou section we saw many groups of wild geese flying in the high sky. They were traveling in the shape of Chinese character of “man”. It is said taqht this organizational arrangement is able to produce a special air flow which could make their flight easier. How wonderful! I hadn’t seen such a beautiful scene in our area.

Compared with the southern area of Shandong, Jiangsu northern area, I think, is developing faster.

We had supper in a restaurant in Taixing, and met teachers from Linzi Jinshan Middle School. They also came to visit Yang Si School.

After our checking in a hotel in the center of Taixing, it was 7:30pm.

Alas! It took us the whole day to travel the long distance of more than 700kg!

I watched TV programs of several guests’ talking about the opening ceremony of 15^th Asian Games. An idea struck me that we may make an artificial sun to suspend above the gym that can roll and give off light to ignite the torch for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. What do you think?

A Visit to Yang Si

(December 4)

It was about 7:20 when we got to Yang Si Junior School, which is in the southeast outskirt of Taixing city.

The school is nice and tidy at the first glimpse. And it is surrounded by a river on the west side. The main gate faces to the north. On entering the gate, I stepped across a stone arch bridge under which is clear water. There is a wide square in front of us. First I noticed a big stone, standing on a square grass bed, sculpted in red with its doctrine of “the true, the good and the beautiful”. On the two sides of the square are two rows of students’ dormitories and a dining hall. Continuing to walk ahead, I could see the multifunctional building, where a big electronic monitor displaying the open lessons information to the visitors. On the right and left stand the Culture Exchange Center and library respectively.

Each Monday is an open day for visitors.

The first two were English lessons dedicated for visitors.

The first one was given to a junior one class by Li Yaqin, a woman teacher. The second one was taught to junior two by Dai Jilin, a male teacher. They are both young, around about 30 years old.

I think the good points of their lessons are as follows: high capacity in content; teaching well combined with practicing;  good design of questions; good multimedia demonstration; good lesson preparation; fluent spoken English with the male teacher; as well as active students.

At 9:20 there was a national flag raising ceremony, and then class-break gym exercises.

For the third lesson I took a quick tour of the school. There are three rows of teaching buildings with long corridor connecting them together. On the walls there are kinds of slogans encouraging the students to study hard as well as school regulations and daily checkout forms. And on the ceiling beams are big printed boards on which English words are printed in big letters with phonetic symbols. One slogan made deep impression on me: Enter into Yang Si; Succeed in future. (I think the word “into” is supposed to be crossed out). And a big board standing in the main hall was written in English: Eight Honors and Disgraces.

The school is well equipped with multimedia stuff. Tidy and clean everywhere.

It is said that the school was built into the current situation from a village one. Surprisingly! This school must have an amazing schoolmaster.

For the fourth lesson the vice schoolmaster made a report to the visitors from all over the country to introduce their school running experience, mainly putting emphasis on the school running theory: Learn first and then teach; Practice on the spot.

According to the vice school master, I started to understand its theory better and more deeply. His report consisted of five parts:

1.     Seeking high efficiency in lessons. The old acts are out of date and couldn’t meet the current demand of school education. And they got to develop the theory of their own through practice.

2.     Introduction to “learning first”. Students self-study the materials and raise their own questions.

3.     Introduction to “teaching secondly”. I had thought that this step should be done by teachers mainly. But they still carry out this step on the ground of students themselves. Students teach students. If any hard problems occur, the teacher comes up at last to give a brief explanation with the elicitational method.

4.     Introduction to “practicing on the spot”. This step is based on the teamwork of the students. Not only paperwork is written, but also oral exercises are performed in the lesson. They make a rule of “four-clearance movement”: clear problems on the spot; daily clear problems; weekly clear problems and monthly clear problems. Thus they hope to tackle down any problems.

5.     The function of teachers. A teacher should be a person of three types:

To be Mao Zedong: conduct as a leader in a class.

To be Zhang Yimou: conduct as a director in a class.

To be Yuan Weimin: conduct as a supervisor in a class.

A teacher must shoulder his/her responsibilities when the students are in crying need of a teacher in a class.

After visiting Yang Si, we rode to Yangzhou city and stayed there for 2 hours and paid a quick visit to the Slender West Lake. We got home at 11:30pm.