The International Blog

Since summer 2007 GAG (Global Action Group) have been researching in to China, celebrating Norfolk’s link. Since the beginning of term GAG’s members have been working towards the events of China Day ‘07. Well it’s December, only two month until we celebrate February 7^th Chinese New Year. What have we done so far? Following the Chinese lunch, which involved a quick brief of China Day and staff stuffing their faces whilst we watched in hunger; although we worked hard we realised we had a lot to do. So in the last two weeks we have been working our socks off in the mist to producing a not just fantastic day but a day never to forget! At the moment we are planning on celebrating our link in style. Changing the day completely upside- down from food to lessons. Of course we just had to have a non-uniform day to make the teachers dress up. (Remember prizes for the best costume)

Finished

Well not quite. We have three groups in place organising; lessons, curriculum and admin. So here is our things we have done up to date so far:

• Introducing idea to school (my Mr Devonish and staff)
• Producing posters
• Producing activities for lessons
• Menu for canteen

… Just a list of the few things we need to do:

• Prompt staff
• Talk to members of staff-money & non-uniform
• Finish posters and advertising

In July 2007, four teachers from Shanghai visited Norfolk. They were not from Nangyang Middle school (our partner school in Shanghai), but from 2 secondary schools and 2 primary schools in Shanghai. Two of these teachers spent the last week of term with our cluster: Neatherd High School, Fred Nicholson Special School and Scarning Primary School.

During these four days Cheng Tingting and Sun Li observed and taught lessons in all three schools and ran a workshop for the staff after school one day. They were invited to Neatherd for the opening of the new building and John Horsfield’s retirement party and to Fred Nicholson for their annual sports competition. The workshop was well attended by teachers from all three schools. We learnt various arts and crafts which are typical and traditional in China.

Two whole days were spent at Neatherd High School, where the teachers met with the Language College Directors (Ms French and Mr Farmer), the International Coordinator (Mr Ahrenfelt) and some members of senior management (Mrs George and Mr Silcox). They were given a tour of the schools by a Neatherd pupil from China (Shirley Wang) and they participated in various lessons. During an MFL lesson they taught 7.2W some Mandarin, including a little calligraphy. 7.1W with Miss Adamson were observed learning geography to demonstrate a typical lesson at the school. On the second day we also invited the other 2 teachers to join us as one is a specialist in Beijing Opera. Lan ran a fascinating workshop in the Mr Finnegan’s lesson where 7.4W were joined by a group of students and teachers from Fred Nicholson School and various Neatherd staff popped in and out. We learnt the traditions and significance of the opera and by the end were all able to sing a whole song in Chinese! Later in the day the Samba band gave a resounding performance in the Sports Hall. All classes had been invited to this event and we all thoroughly enjoyed the show. The afternoon was filled with a carousel art lesson, hosted by Mrs Johns and attended by various members of staff. The four Chinese teachers showed us how to make masks (for the opera), to tie Chinese knots, to make pictures by paper-cutting and to write some words in calligraphy. This was a great opportunity to get involved and some lovely work was produced by 8.2W and the teachers. 

The main focus of this visit was to visit Norfolk schools and to strengthen the partnership between the 2 areas, but between all the schools involved in the project we also managed to show the visitors typical family life by welcoming them into our homes. Mrs Philpott and Mr Carvell had guests for a week each. We went out for supper together; Miss Carey invited all involved to supper and on a farm visit. And of course we went to Cambridge, Blickling Hall, Norwich and London at the weekends.

All in all the week was a great success. The visiting teachers said they had had the best week of all three with us and were delighted with their experience of Norfolk and school life here in England.

School starts early here; most students arrive at 7.30 ready to start class at 8.15. As soon as they arrive they go to their classroom and get on with some work. No hanging about in the playground chatting when there’s learning to be done and homework to complete before morning exercise at 7.55. Luckily for us, we’ve not been asked to do anything first lesson and today was no exception. In fact, quite often we find ourselves asking if we can observe more classes, teach more lessons or video more activities. “Oh, you must be tired. Have a rest!” is so often the reply. Today, however, we were more involved than ever in the school day.

We started by observing a geography lesson, which was all about Antarctica. When I say all, I mean all. We have so often noticed that topics are covered in a surprisingly short period of time here and in one forty minute lesson the pupils are expected to learn the same as ours do in 3 or 4 sixty minute lessons. Even as a non-geographer, I found that the subject matter of one lesson varied so greatly that I was getting confused (mind you, it was all in Chinese). On the other hand, the topics taught are pretty much the same as those we teach at Neatherd.

Next up was a grade 6 English lesson. This time is was my turn to teach, to be observed and videoed. The lesson was all about David Beckham, which the kids loved. They learnt some new English words, such as “dating” and “mascot” and they learnt how easy it can be to tackle a reading comprehension in a foreign language. They all laughed in surprise at the idea of the Beckhams having 3 children. In China families are limited to one child each in an attempt to control population levels, so none of the children at Nangyang have brothers or sisters.

Bearing this in mind, we have both noticed how well the pupils carry out group work. They cooperate well and everyone gets fully involved. This was especially true when Miss Hamer taught her art lesson. She had bought, copied and cut up a picture of Norwich Market. Each group was asked to reproduce their section of the print, using tissue paper glued to white paper. At the end of the lesson all the pieces were put together to reconstruct the class’s version of the print. We ended up with a fabulous collage which is going to be displayed somewhere in the school. We both thoroughly enjoyed this lesson and the pupils and other teachers did too.

After a quick lunch in the canteen, we were whisked off in a taxi to a nearby school for a “public lesson”. This consisted of two consecutive lessons, each taught by a different teacher to a different class, but on the same topic. Actually, on the same page in the book. While they do this, about 50 teachers crowd around on stools to watch. Most arrived late, some were eating lunch (KFC), a few were chatting, listening to their MP3 players, or having a quick snooze! The point is not to see who is the better teacher, but simply to see two ways of teaching the same lesson (they were quite similar as they both followed the students’ book fairly closely) and to discuss ideas. After the lessons, we were put into groups to make a list of positive comments and constructive criticism. As you can imagine, I had plenty to say and enjoyed the opportunity to share my ideas and experiences.

This all lasted about 3 hours and I needed to visit the “washroom”. I had the shock of my life when I went to the girls’ loos and saw there were no doors on the cubicles!! Mostly the loos here are squat-style holes in the ground affairs, which I don’t mind as you’re not sitting on anything that might not be clean, but this was something else. There was a tiled ditch running the length of the five cubicles, which I guess you hover over. It all seemed rather incongruous in such a modern, clean building. I crossed my legs a while longer until we got back to our partner school.

We returned to school in time to film the marching band rehearsing for a TV appearance on Friday. It’s a shame we won’t get to see them all dressed up in their finery doing a proper show or competition.

After watching us eat supper, Stella took us to the supermarket to help us buy sweets. You wouldn’t think it would be so tricky, but we knew that most sweets are meat flavour and were most confused by the great variety of packets, all named only in Chinese. I bought beef and crab flavour. Miss Hamer went for chocolate. Stella also showed us the electrical goods store. This is a six-storey building full of little shops and stalls, each selling a different brand. Many we recognised, such as Sony and Hewlett-Packard, some we’d never heard of. I was thinking of buying an external hard-drive. We found a cheap one (350 RMB, about £25), but as none of us really had a clue how much we would pay in the UK and, although they promised to pack it in a Samsung case, we’d never heard of the make, I decided to wait until next time. Instead we went for a coffee before returning to Home Inn to pack. Only one day left now. It seems we have been here such a short time.

Our day was the busiest so far, in school that is. All the teachers keep telling us to rest and are so concerned with how tired we must be all the time. We tell them that we teach 3, 4 and 5 lesson days at home, but they still have that warm hearted concerned look about their face!

Our day started with an English lesson, which Miss Carey taught. It was designed to introduce the pupils to the city of Norwich and to get them thinking about places you find in a city. She focused on the market and played a small video of the fishmonger (a term that is not familiar here), which seemed to go down well. The pupils were just fascinated about another culture. The pitch of the lesson was about right and the pupils enjoyed the vocabulary games they played - much of which I believe is quite new to them. At the end, we were given a lovely painting, which one of the pupils had painted himself and some cards. Miss Carey left the classroom feeling very enthused by the experience, as did I.

Our lovely painting we received
After a bit of preparation in ‘our office’ (which is more like a conference room!), we met Stella and had some lunch in the staff canteen. I don’t know if it’s been mentioned before, but I will say it is rather funny in the canteen. We have these special trays reserved for us, but all I can say about their uniqueness is that they have a whole on on of the handles! We get given a table mat and tissue as well as a tray of cutlery and chopsticks and I think we actually get more food than everyone else, which is a tad ironic seeing as they probably get much more pleasure from it than we do!

Today, it was fish head! That’s all I will say about that!

Still a bit hungry, we went out to buy some ice cream for us and some other teachers. I was just thinking how full I now was, when Stella and Katherine appeared with a whole watermelon. Thinking we would share it between the four of us with perhaps a bit left over was okay, but to our surprise they took out a knife, chopped it half and handed us a spoon saying “here you go”! What a daunting task!

Anyone for watermelon?
In the afternoon, it was my go at teaching a grade 8 class. Now, being a Geography teacher, what better thing to teach them than the geography of the British Isles. After a bit of teacher talk and interaction at the start and objectives of course(!), they did some group work with the target being to complete their map by listen to others descriptions. I was a bit concerned as to how this activity would go, but they all seemed to manage it fairly well, which showed in their answers to my multiple choice quiz. At the end of the lesson, we took questions from many pupils about the UK and other things in general. One such question went something like this:

“I have heard there are many beautiful ladies in the UK like you two. Is this true?”

Well! What could I say? We told him that we were the only beautiful two of course!

Group map work
Our last task for the day was to give a lecture to grade 7 about school life back home. Now, we were becoming pros at this lecturing lark, having already given one to grades 6 and 8. It was a lot of fun again and the pupils participated well, asking us many questions at the end.

Grade 7 lecture
In the evening, we skipped dinner at school and headed out to the Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower. Having already been up the Jinmao Tower, we thought we would just go to the museum underneath the tower. It was a really interesting tour through Shanghai’s past people, transport, buildings and businesses. Some of the waxwork figures were so lifelike, that when trying to get close to one for a photo I kept edging away just in it turned to life!

After this, we went to Pizza Hut for some good old familiar nosh. It was great to sit there and watch the Shanghai masses go past, going about their business.

Pearl TV Tower
An early start tomorrow.

We awoke later than usual today as we did not have to go into school. They had been kind enough to give us a free day, in which we could do as we please. It was a really action packed day filled with bartering and acrobatics!

Yuyuan Garden was first on the agenda, as Miss Carey and I had lots of things we wanted to buy, which we had seen previously when we visited with Ophelia. After a short, but rather dicey taxi ride, we arrived ready for some serious bartering. We met some great characters in the market stalls and shop stands - they were never willing to give up however much we resisted their offers. If you ever want fake shoes, watches, bags and clothes, here’s the place to come. You can’t walk 3 steps before someone steps into your path spouting off about all their fabulous gear!

We came away feeling very satisfied with our purchases and bartering skills - which like our chopstick skills, have improved tenfold! We bought items such as silk table runners, pashminas, sets of chopsticks, paintings etc…..

I will just mention here that we had a MacDonalds for lunch…this was our little break from Chinese food and we thought it would make a nice change to eat what we wanted to eat. I don’t know how this happened, but I still didn’t manage to get what I wanted!
The newly built area of Pudong was our next destination. This whole area was very under-developed until about the mid 80s, when it underwent massive changes. It’s home to the Jinmao Tower (4th tallest building in the world) and the Oriental Pearl Radio and TV Tower, as well as other multi-national companies. After a short mosey around the streets of Pudong, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for the evenings events!
The evening was really special. We met with Stella and Katherine and went for a meal in a Thai restaurant. The food was extremely good and so different - we even had some baked chicken, which arrived in a pineapple shell!

Chicken baked in a pineapple shell!
The main event was a trip to the Shanghai Theatre Centre to see the world famous Shanghai Acrobatics Troupe. It was an absolutely amazing performance and I was totally mesmorised by most of what I saw. I believe Stella and Katherine loved it too, as they had never been before.

The amazing chair balancing!
A great day!

The weekend. Time to go sightseeing outside of Shanghai. First, on Saturday, Katherine and Stella took us to Tongli, a canal town 80km west of Shanghai. Stella collected us from the hotel with a taxi and plasitc bags of pancakes stuffed with spring onions and coriander. Odd to our British taste buds in the morning, but quite good. To wash it down we were handed warm cartons of sweetened Soya milk. Not so good.

We met Katherine at the bus station and took the bus to Tongli. On the way we saw more high-rise buildings, Shanghai’s branch of IKEA (lots of Shanghainese are buying their own homes for the first time and need to furnish them somehow), then smaller buildings with farmers working out in the fields with the traditional pointy hats to keep the sun off.

Tongli is an old town where the old buildings have been left standing, unlike Shanghai where everything is modern. We started our tour with a boat trip to an island in the middle of a lake, where we saw a Buddhist temple with many statues of Buddha. Lots of people were buying incense sticks, great big bundles of them, to wave about and leave burning in the temple so the air was sickly sweet with the smell of their smoke. In another place many candles had been lit and left to burn, much like in a church at home, except these are enormous red dripping candles. Everything is so colourful and bright here. It was very similar to the temples in Thailand.

Upstairs we found a large bell. You can pay to ring the bell if you wish for “boundless benefice”. Miss Hamer did. Outside, by a small lake in the island, was a tree with golden leaves glittering in the sunshine, covered with the red ribbons left by people making

Miss Hamer ringing the bell

wishes. Lotus flower grow in the lake, but they are not in flower at this time of year, and there were lots of Koi carp waiting greedily to be fed by passing tourists. The bridge in the photo is zig-zagged to prevent the bad spirits, which can only travel in straight lines, from crossing it. All the tourists on our bus were Chinese and throughout the day we saw very few other westerners.

We missed the ferry back, so took a speed-boat instead. It felt very James Bond.

Back on dry land we found a little tourist bus to take us into town. Here we visited Tuisi gardens, a 19^th Century garden built by an official as a country residence. We dressed up in traditional Chinese costume and had our picture taken around the lake. We seemed to be the only ones doing so, so I think lots of the tourists there that day will have taken home photos of us too!(we didn’t get to choose the colours.)

The stories we heard were intriguing. The daughter of the family had her own rooms upstairs, with a large magnolia tree outside. This gave her something pretty to look at, because, although her room was large and very cool and comfortable, she was not allowed out of it. I imagine it was small compensation to have a “beauty balcony” where she was allowed to watch visitors enjoying the beautiful gardens. And it wouldn’t have been easy to escape wearing all that clobber – the stairs were hard enough to negotiate in cotton trousers and flip-flops.

While we had lunch an opera performance began at the open-air theatre outside. We finished our pork and vegetables and hurried outside to join the crowd of old people and tourists enjoying the show. The music was incomprehensible to us and most modern Chinese, but the costumes and make-up were impressive.

We spent the afternoon wandering about the lanes along the canals, crossing rivers for luck and fortune and admiring the craftsmanship in the various shops. We popped in and out of another museum and watched locals playing mah-jong while enjoying green tea under the shade of the trees. It was wonderful to visit such a peaceful unhurried town and to escape the hustle and bustle of city life for a day. We returned to the bus station, full of cake and ice-cream on the back of a three –wheeled bike with seats for passengers.

The following morning we had an early start. Again a taxi and breakfast – this time ham and tuna sandwiches made with two types of bread and rather unappetising looking pink ham. It didn’t taste nearly as bad as it looked! The taxi dropped us off at the new train station. It looked more like Stansted airport, built of metal and glass in a dome. We had to hurry down the escalators to catch the high-speed train which would take us to Hangzhou in 1 hour 40 minutes. Inside even seemed like an aeroplane, but with leg room and a decent sized aisle.

Hangzhou looked similar to Shanghai when we first arrived. A short taxi ride, though, and we were at the shore of “the most beautiful lake in China”, West Lake. There are many lakes in China with called West Lake, but they all take their name from this original one. The Song dynasty established Hanzhou as their capital in the 1100’s and the Italian explorer Marco Polo passed through in the 13^th century, describing it as one of the finest and most splendid cities in the world. I don’t think he would say the same now, but the lake is lovely. Nothing like the wild, natural beauty of places in Britain, such as Lake Windermere, it is a hugely popular tourist attraction and has been developed to accommodate the droves of people who descend on it throughout the year with walkways large enough for pedestrians, bicycles, taxis and even tour buses to drive along. We started by escaping the crowds on a small boat for the 4 of us (Katherine and Stella had given up another day of their weekend to be our guides) and floated out into the lake. Our boatman was friendly; he told us lots of stories about the lake, which Katherine and Stella translated for us. He took us for a tour around an island and pointed out all the bridges and buildings of interest, avoiding all the ferries and other water-craft bobbing around us. All the bartering and arranging to get the boat proved worthwhile.

Bai causeway connects Gushan Island to the West Lake’s northern shores and on it can be found the Zhejiang Provincial Museum, on the site of Emperor Qianlong’s 18^th century holiday palace. We walked the causeway and stopped at a famous restaurant where lots of diners were ordering claypot chicken and every table had a dish of fish from the lake. It’s hard to eat the enormous amount of food we are given when we are melting in the heat, we tried everything to be polite, but still our hosts worried that we didn’t like the food! There’s not much like the food we think of as Chinese at home, but most of it is very tasty and we are enjoying trying new things. Some of it is a bit too different from what we are used to, and the whole experience is quite a change: the host chooses everyone’s food and orders it, all the dishes come when they are cooked and everyone shares everything. Of course this is all done with chopsticks! We’ve got to grips with the wooden ones, but plastic is a little slippery, especially when you’re trying to catch tofu, or a pea!

We spent the afternoon visiting the silk market. There are silk farms in the province and it is said that this is the best town in the area to buy silk. We saw an enormous range of items and qualities. Eventually, we bought a dressing-gown each and I got a nightie too. Eventually, as in we went to every shop on the street, bartered, got thrown out of the shop, went and looked at a few more shops, then returned and paid the price they asked for. Debenhams seems much easier in comparison.

As well as a whole street of shops dedicated to silk, we also went down the tea street, where every shop sold green tea, another speciality of the town. After a while we went into one shop, where we found the tea we wanted, talked about all the other tea in the shop, and then completed our purchase. Nothing is straightforward, people love to talk and it’s a good idea to spend as much time as possible in the air-conditioned shops when you feel like you’re melting on the streets.

Katherine bought us some strong smelling flowers to pin to our clothes, to make us smell sweet and fresh.

After another interesting meal we returned to Shanghai by train. Only this time we had to get the ordinary train. The high speed one gets booked up early and it was full. From the moment we arrived at the station we could see that this was clearly going to be a very different experience. There were hundreds of people sitting on the ground outside the station with their bags and suitcases. Inside we had to stay together to find waiting room 4 which was full of hundreds of passengers waiting for their trains. After a not very pleasant trip to the smelly loos, our train was announced and we joined the giant queue to “check in”. Queueing is a fairly novel experience for most Chinese, and is not taken nearly as seriously as in the UK so you have to be on your toes to keep your place. Bags were thrown through the x-ray machine and hastily grabbed as they appeared at the other end. Again, this showed how little crime there is here and how trusting people can be. I would have been terrified to let go of all my money and passport in such a crowd in any other city in the world. Can’t say I felt relaxed about it, but no one seemed to be losing their stuff.

We were swept along in the surge down to the platform where a huge train was waiting to take us back to Shanghai. After walking and walking we found carriage 14, then realised we were meant to be on 16. With only 10 minutes till the train left, there was no time to get off and on again and the door between the carriages was locked. All the seats were taken and there was a big fuss about what we were to do! In the end we were saved by a stewardess who let us through to what must have been first class. It was certainly not as classy as the high-speed train. My chair kept collapsing, the bright lights were left on the whole journey, the other passengers talked and joked loudly, the younger couples were listening to tunes on their mobiles at full volume (actually it was nice to hear some familiar music) and the train stopped at lots of little stations. The journey home took twice as long as the journey there, which goes to show how good the new train is. At least we had seats and weren’t still locked in carriage 14 with the smokers and crowds – and the train left on time!

This morning we went into a maths lesson and sat at the back of the class doing our best to work out what was going on! Now I will admit my maths is appalling, but in Chinese I feel you may cut me some slack. If any of you teachers or pupils can tell me what the answers are to the problem below then you have my utmost regard!

Have a go at this!
We then met with a grade 8 English teacher to discuss our plans for teaching her class next week. We wanted to do a lesson about the British Isles, which contained active, kinaesthectic and group learning…….perfect I hear you cry! However, we left the meeting utterly baffled, by her request for leaving out the games and adding a bit of France and a bit of the Euro tunnel into our lesson plan! Learning objectives do not seem to be as apparent here and the pupils seem to cover in lessons, what we might take 3 or 4 lessons doing. Does this make us silly?….I don’t know. All I will say is that because the behaviour is so good here, most of the pupils seem to get on with work set.

The lads at the back of the maths lesson.
Meeting the bridge teacher was a highlight of the day. He is such a lovely man and his spoken English was very good. He talked us through the school’s many achievements in the game and showed us photographs and certificates. We then had a go at playing it, but I must say I’m not sure how much of it was sheer luck on my part! He has challenged us to a game online with him someday! Whenever we see him in his office he is always playing bridge…I think that’s great!

I think most of the bridge lesson went over my head
The final part of our day was to give a lecture to the teachers at the school. This was great fun and they all seemed really interested about what we had to say about teaching and school life back in the UK. Catherine translated for us, so it was a bit of a slow process…and the computer broke again, so we were ad libing again….yikes!

We must have said something funny!

The first lesson of the day was music. The class had put together a programme of songs to be performed by various students. The girls sang pop songs, one boy sang a beautiful song about love and a lemon tree in English, one group performed a jazzed up long version of jingle bells (which also happens to be the tune of choice for the school bell. No shocking ringing here, just a nice gentle tune to bring each lesson to a close.) All the time, one boy stood in the corner at a desk painting chinese characters onto large paper. He wrote 2 posters, both saying May China be Proseperous and Wishes for World Peace. Most of the songs were backed by music and video played on the TV set behind the performers, but one girl chose to play a traditional chinese instrument. For plectrums she had pointed metal nails strapped to her fingers with sticky tape. At the end of the lesson, Miss Hamer and I were presented with the posters made by the very talented calligrapher. THEN we were asked to sing a song to the class. Well. After a quick discussion we came up with, yes I know, Angels by Robbie. I hid the video camera and tried to hit a note or two. The children all clapped politely when we finished, but I have a feeling it was from relief that we had finished rather than any true appreciation of our vocal talents.

Next was PE. We’d both packed our trainers for the day, so went and got changed quickly. Today is the first day we’ve had rain, but fortunately it stopped and we had no need for brollies while learning to kick-box. The class lined up in neat rows infront of the teacher and counted aloud so he knew they were all there. It all started with a warm up, which was then done to music. This was followed by very controlled kick-boxing movements in rows and then in pairs. I think the lesson was a Chinese Wushi lesson. Miss Hamer and I both decided to join in with the Tai Chi part of the lesson. This is a martial art, although it looks very slow and calm. Apparently, the masters of this art appear very slight and calm, but are actually extremely strong and powerful. The end of the lesson was all about balance. Poses were struck, volunteers stood on one leg on stools at the front (that’s the teacher in the photo) and some pupils walked from stool to stool carrying water while trying not to spill a drop. And yes, as you may well have guessed, we had a go too. I think we let a couple of droplets fall to the ground, but we couldn’t really show the pupils up, could we? We both declined offers to walk the stools with a bowl of water balanced on our heads. A couple of pupils went to their next class rather soggy!

In the afternoon it was time for the next Neatherd lecture, this time to grade 6 (11-12 years old.) Again we were on the platform in front of 258 kids. They are all fascinated to hear about school life in Dereham. Although it may seem dull to us as we are so familiar with it, to them it is a completely different world and they had lots of questions to ask us at the end. We had made some games and quizes for the pupils throughout the “lecture”, to stop them snoozing while we talked for 40 minutes. Every time we asked someone a question, they didn’t just tell us the answer, they came up to the front to take the microphone and answer to the whole year group. Many stickers were won. I think the comparison to Harry Potter went down particularly well.

Stella’s grade 6 class invited us in for a question and answer session. They had spent the morning decorating their classroom and some parents had got together to buy us each a magnificent bouquet of flowers - the last lot were looking rather tired! For any students reading this, I do like chocolate too… Some of the children had made us cards and drawn pictures to present to us. They copied down the school address, so hopefully we will be getting post soon.

Tonight we went to Starbucks. Can’t think of any cultural importance or significance, but it was a treat to have a frappacino in this heat!

Today was a later start for us, which was nice after staying out rather late the night before. We were invited in to watch two new English teachers who had recently graduated.  It was all rather scary for these poor teachers, as the whole English department and us were watching them teach (about 20 teachers in all). Oh yes! I can’t forget the usual photographing of us wherever we went. The lessons were a very interesting insight into the style of teaching over here. The pupils were learning so much vocabulary and quite technical language structures, but at a very low level (repetition and a lot of closed questioning).

We stopped and spoke to some of the children and one of them wanted to show us something he had in a shoe box. He had had to bring his pet duckling to school that day as there was no one at home to look after it. When the duckling was lifted out of the box, I don’t know who was more puzzled - me or it!
We next joined the English department to discuss the two lessons and give our feedback about them. We kept things very positive and tried to give constructive criticism. I found it very difficult to do this because we are by no means experts and our teaching is very different. Some things the teachers did in the lesson are not encouraged in Britain and vice versa.

Later on in the day we were lucky enough to watch the marching band who were great! A very talented bunch of pupils who seemed to take great pride in it. At one point they had football practice and the marching band using the playground - not a good combination perhaps, but they seemed to know when the next ball was flying their way!

In the evening, Stella and Catherine took us shopping. First we went to Silk King to discuss the possibility of getting a dress made. The tailors were all very keen to sell us as much silk as would fit in our suitcase. I’m still in two minds as to have one made as it’s silk and although beautiful, the way it hangs off me is not a good look!

We had dinner in a Chinese restaurant (to be different!), which was a very trendy looking place with many young professionals in it. The food was extremely tasty and we had some input in choosing the dishes this time. After that it was a long walk around all the shops in the new shopping mall - the Grand Gateway! It was definitely that……so many floors and swanky shops to choose from.

Tomorrow, we will give a lecture to grade 6 students about our school.

The famous duckling

Miss Hamer and Miss Carey in class!

Some of the marching band

Some of Shanghai’s lights (the big globe is the cinema).

Started today with a tug of war. Well, we didn’t join in, just watched this time. Some of the kids were really strong and worked up quite a sweat and all at 7.45am. We watched our first English lesson today. 40 kids in a class and the teacher didn’t once have to tell them to be quiet. Imagine. At the end we were asked for our autographs and had many photos taken. We will expect to be treated like celebrities on our return to Neatherd.

Late morning, the maths department came to meet us in our office. We discussed the possibility of running a joint project with the 2 schools. They are very proud of the standard of maths in their school and are keen to share ideas and good practice with Neatherd’s maths department. In contrast to our school, the whole department is female.

In the afternoon we were asked to present a lecture to grade 8 pupils. All of them. We had already prepared a Powerpoint and a video tour of Neatherd. We were ushered into a huge conference room, with a platform at the front. It was rather like a press conference room. About 250 children, with their teachers and us at the front like news-presenters with our microphone and lap-top. Everyone was very interested to hear all about Neatherd and to compare it to Nangyang. The kids say they much prefer Neatherd uniform and would love to wear a blazer. Not sure I would in this heat.

I’m glad I came to Shanghai with a geography teacher. In the evening we spent about 2 hours searching high and low for the 4th tallest building in the world. Eventually we came across it and ordered martinis in Cloud Nine, the highest bar in the world. Luckily the sky was clear of smog and cloud so we had an incredible view of the city. On the way up we had both felt rather wobbly looking down from the 85th to the 56th floor.