I took three weeks off of e-tech to go travelling in China to visit some former students. Don't worry I am not about to blog about my holidays, there is educational relevance. I was given an amazing opportunity while staying in provincial China, with a school teacher, to visit schools in her small city and I feel that as an English teacher visiting students learning English I must make some comment. First of all the reception I was given from my friends students (middle school kids) gave me a little bit of an insight into how it might feel to be Justin Beiber. I was terrified. In an informal setting they were all squeals and excitement but when it came to being allowed to ask questions and speak to me in English they were instantly very shy. Understandable I guess, most of them will have never had the opportunity to speak with a native speaker. From what I gather from talking to their teachers there is very little focus on speaking the language, they must pass exams and that is that, on top of that a lot of the kids view English as less important than their other subjects because it is not relevant to their lives at all. They are very lucky to have a teacher who speaks very very good English, many kids are not so lucky the language and pronunciation skills of a lot of the teachers I met were not that great. I can only hope that meeting me inspires at least one or two of these kids to see that learning a language can be a way out and a great opportunity for them to travel and that this will make them try harder with their own language learning.

I am trying not to judge the Chinese school system, it is very different from ours and while I find it hard to stomach a system which has kids in school from 7 am to 7 pm and then piles on the homework I am quite sure that people from around the world also think our school system is ridiculous. Although you would never see kids in an English classroom sitting so still and quiet for such long periods of time, or English parents suggesting that the teachers use more physical methods of punishment. I cannot say is this is good or bad, just different.

I also got a chance to visit another school on some kind of open day where the kids were all doing other activities such as art and music. Again I was struck by how much like a university physics lecture they all resembled. Expert at the front talking, kids sat in silence listening or practising. I did get to have a go at paper cutting.... terrible at it.. such a bad student. I would never fit in at a Chinese school (I only got the giggles once).