Teaching English to 180 Children in Rural China

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!