Education China Project #24235

Teaching English to 180 Children in Rural China

by Stepping Stones China

Project Report | Mar 20, 2018
Videolink Spring 2018 Report

By Ross Pitcairn | Training Director

In the fall semester of 2017, we achieved our aims of scaling up gradually and further refining our processes. We trained and supervised 40 volunteers to teach 220 videolink classes at five sites in Anhui, Henan, Sichuan and Fengxian. That’s a total of 323 students. We also introduced better systems in terms of scheduling, communication and curriculum distribution, as well as investing in better Internet connections for our sites and more videoconferencing hardware and software equipment.

We acontinued to work with Bloomberg, whose Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York and Princeton offices provide an excellent pool of motivated and talented volunteers for us. We are currently training over 20 new Bloomberg volunteers to add to our existing roster.

In spring 2018, we will continue to scale up gradually in terms of number of volunteers, students and sites. We are also embarking on an exciting new collaboration with the Chi Heng foundation, which we hope will be fruitful for both sides. We at Stepping Stones have the curriculum and expertise, Chi Heng have excellent resources and contacts, so our aim is to team up to provide more disadvantaged students with better quality English education. We will begin this semester in Nandawu school, Shancai County, Henan.

Regarding new sites, we are excited to be entering into a partnership with Taohuajiang school in Taojiang County, Hunan province. We have already worked with this school on other programs, including our rural trips and online teacher training, and they have always been extremely supportive of our mission.

To conclude, we are seeing signs that our program is gradually beginning to mature; we are fostering long-term relationships with like-minded sponsors and partners; we are increasing our roster of sites at a sustainable speed; and we are reaching more and more isolated and disadvantaged students then ever before.

Links:

http://steppingstoneschina.net/english-teaching-programs/videolink-program

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Dec 20, 2017
Videolink Fall 2017 Report

By Ross Pitcairn | Training Director

In our Spring 2017 report, we described our aim as: “Grow a little, improve a lot”. Thanks to the ongoing support and commitment of our schools, classroom teachers, volunteers, and students, we are happy to announce we have achieved this. In Fall 2017, we scaled up a little, starting one new program in Sichuan province at Kaijiang County, Baoshi Number 2 Primary School, at the same time continuing the programs at our other four schools in Anhui, Henan and Fengxian.

We are extremely excited to welcome Baoshi Number 2 Primary School to our videolink roster. In some rural areas of Sichuan, there are no English classes at all for students of primary school age due to a lack of English teachers. This means that many children start middle school with zero knowledge of English, and find it difficult, often impossible, to catch up with others who already have some knowledge of the language. At Baoshi Number 2, we found one teacher, Yang Yalan (English name ‘Jey’), who was teaching English to her students despite a lack of support and resources. We are thrilled to be able to help Jey and her students via videolink. English being one of the three core subjects of the national curriculum, giving these children early access to the subject can make a huge difference to their studies and their lives.

In terms of our processes, we have continued to build on our curriculum - we now have a full set of 120 PPTs for grades one to five; we found a cloud-based solution for the storage of our PPTs, through which our volunteers can access their lessons more easily; we have bought new internet lines for the schools; we are investing in more Zoom videoconferencing software accounts so each school has its own account; we have refined our scheduling processes; and we have experimented with different classroom seating arrangements, so the students have desks to write on but are still sitting near the microphone.

Now we are confident that we have a stable and sustainable program, we are ready to scale up more rapidly. This, of course, brings its own challenges, in terms of finances, resources and manpower. We will continue to search for solutions, as we believe the Videolink Program has the potential to change the lives of thousands more children. Thank you for your support!

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Sep 21, 2017
More Video classes are replicating in remote China

By Ross Pitcairn | Training Director

Last semester (spring 2017), we rolled out our videolink program to four schools, two in Henan province, one in Anhui, and one in Fengxian. We trained over 100 volunteers who taught over 300 students. These numbers were a huge increase from the two limited pilot programs we had done in the fall of 2016, and we really learned a lot about running a successul videolink program.

Firstly, we learned that it is actually possible to rely on the internet to conduct live English classes using remote teachers. Our biggest fear was that our volunteers would suffer too many connection problems and teaching English online - which relies heavily on audio and video - would not be possible. However, we estimate that around 80% of our classes were completed without too many problems, which was a great result.

Secondly, we learned that, despite the focus on technology, it is the human element that makes a videolink program truly successful: a huge thanks to all our volunteers, classroom teachers and, of course, our wonderful students, who all took part with great positivity and commitment.

This coming fall semester, our motto is simple: "Grow a little, improve a lot"! As I write, a videolink colleague is visiting a very remote rural school in Sichuan province in the hope that we can partner with them and add one more school to our roster. At the same time, we are working hard to iron out some of the bumps we experienced last semester, such as in scheduling and communication. With one more school, and more volunteers than last semester, we hope to show steady growth this semester and, all being well, expand more in spring 2018. We have a list of schools who need and want our help, and believe we can sustain and expand our program to teach English to hundreds or even thousands more students.

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