Letter of Gratitude - Director Guo Peng, ZhengZhou Middle School #42

August 11, 2009

Dear Teacher Jessie,

Hello! I’m the office director of Zhengzhou No 42 Middle School, Guo Peng. With your great support and direction, the one-month summer campaign was successfully completed. Though it was only four weeks long, everyone who took part in it learned a lot from it.

Your two volunteers showed their dedication to their class. From preparing class to having class, from raising kids’ interests to playing games with students, from buying Chinese-English dictionary to making Dutch food for children. In all of these I saw their passion and efforts. They gave our students a new way of studying English and a new style of English class. Children now have the courage to speak English as their oral English has improved a lot. They are really attracted to western culture and have been more interested in learning English than before.

On our last, closing-camp-ceremony, the students performed the drama “Snow White,” a poetry reading, and some interesting games with the help of Heidi and Laura. A few students also talked about how they felt about this summer camp. Though the ceremony only lasted for about one and half hours, it really made clear that the teachers, students, and parents sincerely felt the success and happiness which were brought from the two foreign volunteers’ efficient teaching. The goodbye talk from Heidi and Laura brought tears to many students' eyes. Afterwards they gave their presents to these two respected and lovable teachers.

During the summary of summer camp, one of the students said that from this one-month studying with the foreign teacher, they can truly feel the conception of foreign English teaching, and that they became more serious, worked harder and became more dedicated. Because of the foreign volunteers, our classes were very exciting and fun. The ideas of “students are the most important” and that “learning English is for using English” influenced us very much.

Another student said, all of these are just the happy beginning of my English study. For the first time, during this month, I became very interested in English. That’s why I want to learn. I appreciate this camp for bringing me this desire to learn more. Also there was a student who said "..this summer camp left me a wonderful memory. The memory is full of the communication with foreign friends. We played together, we learned together. Though it was not a long time, every time I answered a question it gave me more courage and self-confidence."

Our English teachers also learned a lot from this project. They learned the way of foreign education, communicated with foreign people, felt the vividness of the foreign class. The good atmosphere in the classroom created by the students wanting to learn and the teachers wanting to teach really opened their minds. This experience will greatly improve our English teaching capability.

On the whole, in about one-month-summer-camp, both our students and our school learned a lot. We are sure the activities we aimed at for the summer camp were a success.

Sincerely thank you once again,

Guo Peng