BUGS!

[cheekygal]

I already said in another thread that I am going to teach full time in my afternoon primary school. I don't have the book in my hands but it is called BUGS - it tells students about bugs and insects and seems to be quite interesting. It is both in Chinese and English. Little bits of natural science. I did some research online and found more interesting activities on the subject.
That book is one of the series - yet to find out what it is called. But there are some pretty cool stuff there and if you come across these books I would recommend them for your teenagers. I am teaching now my other class made from grades 5 and 6 about Dinosaurs and before I taught them about Stars and our Galaxy and out planet. They seem to love it and I was told that this year my class (some of them are from last semester - the class I didn't like at all) is much more successful, I have full attendance, less tardiness and almost 100% involvement during the class.

[Lotus Eater]

You mean they like learning about real things rather than propaganda and the great history of China? That's a jolly interesting observation. Do you think you could tell their Chinese teachers?

[cheekygal]

Well, this is a Chinese school but has an International department and local department. I will be teaching students at the International department and after school classes are for both local and international departments. Dinosaurs and all I teach to local students, they get to learn words and expressions for things they already know in Chinese - they have Natural Science and simply history classes already.
Their Chinese English teachers use some oh-not-good-at-all books but foreign teachers try to educate them on different subjects in English. It includes the above and also simple math, physics, geography etc.
When I was in Qingdao the company I worked for had a cooperation with the Ministry of Education's Local Department. So every year they would implement different subjects in English in schools in and around Qingdao. I was teaching Natural science and the teacher before me taught Math. I don't know what was next. Their Chinese teachers would follow up on the material that I would give. They had my English class only twice a month but I must say it was quite effective - the whole idea - as students got to actually learn indeed REAL stuff instead that would interest them more than just oral English or grammar classes.
This project is relatively new but accepted very well by schools. Well, when it comes from *above* - sure the school administration would welcome it!

[cheekygal]

Oh and I forgot to add, in my primary school the director of studies is Canadian and in total there are 6 full-time English teachers for International department. Plus myself and one more lady teach after school classes. So basically, English classes curriculum is made by English teachers and not by the Chinese school administration.
Now, this school is NOT an International school and English is NOT a primary language. Chinese is. And the Chinese base is really strong. Only grade 1 and grade 6 get FT's English classes nearly everyday plus their Chinese English teacher's classes. The rest have 2-3 FT's sessions a week.