Teaching English to small children

I haven't said much about the work I am doing teaching 4-7 year olds English. Christmas was a big time for us -- since, as I like to say: "its always Christmas at Join Kids", just like its always Chinese New Year in classrooms that teach Chinese in the US -- at least from a decoration standpoint. The children attend a weekly 90 minute class with a bilingual (Chinese) teacher. Once a month I see each class for 45 minutes of "oral English". About 10 of Helen's classmates from the Kindergarten are also my students at Join Kids, which is fun, since I feel like a celebrity when they all rush up to me, saying "Huan Huan Mama!"

I think it has been a pretty successful so far. Not every lesson I have come up with suits every group, but most of the time it works, and I always enjoy them, and most importantly, we have a positive experience every time. Some of the children have very good ears and good accents, especially the youngest ones! I have also met several friends of Malinda's girls (last year's Fulbright family).

We try to be game oriented, and the teachers, especially my boss, are very dynamic and engaging. Near Christmas we had a couple of "open classes" for prospective students, and of course I had to be visible as the token native speaker. Since I wasn't teaching I was able to take some pictures. Actually, Thomas and Helen came with me that night, Helen just for fun, and Thomas to "help" in the other class by playing along and calling out some numbers in English during a game. Aren't the kids so cute!

"Santa" is an English professor from Xiada who helped to develop their curriculum and interviewed me..

I really want to try and upload a short clip of them teaching, but I have to wait for the early morning hours!

Just a couple more pictures for you -- Sophia and the Baby Deborahs (all her dolls are named that now, I think she misses Deborah as much as I do)..also her new tiny umbrella, which we bought while shopping downtown today, and Sophia drew the attention of everyone passing by waving it around and saying "its raining". We got off Zhongshan Lu and onto some side streets and found all kids of things, including a store that sells coffee and pasta, cheap clothing and a paper goods store with a whole floor devoted to Spring Festival lanterns and other decorations -- you can bet I went pretty wild in there.