On November 19, 2015, teachers Euro and Jacob from the Lu'An IEP visited the students and teachers in Tianchang for a few days as part of our teacher-exchange arrangements. The weather was cold and rainy, but the students were incredibly warm and excited!
They were able to give cultural lessons to the year 1 and year 2 classes, for a total of 4 classes.
For year 1, they taught a lesson about Thanksgiving. In it they learned useful vocabulary and customs. with ppt slides and a short film. Students enjoyed the tongue twister activity to practice pronunciation, and the lesson ended with students producing answers to vocabulary questions with a worksheet.
For year 2, they also taught about American culture, but with a twist. They had a lesson about the largest minority language in the United States: Spanish. In this fun lesson, students learned how easy it was to learn Spanish as it has many English cognates. Students learned and were able to present themselves in Spanish, learn about common cultures and traditions that latinos bring to the United States, especially the "Day of the Dead", in which students learned vocabulary and then watched an academy award winning short cartoon where the vocabulary was present. Finally, students answered questions about the short film and also were able to find similarities and differences between their respective Chinese holiday celebrating those who have passed on.
They were also able to share ideas about lesson planning and also talked about the English book that TC students were currently using They talked about class discipline and also ways to keep student motivation throughout the duration of the term. Also discussed were ideas about our respective English Corners.
To sum up, we believe that the visit was very worthwhile, especially for the students, but also for themselves as teachers. Students were very welcoming! One of the things the Lu'An Team also learned from teachers Cecelia and Craig was that one can make cookies in a rice cooker!
