Volunteer's Story:  Annemarie, Holland   

During my stay in China, I taught English in Ming Hang Kindergarten for 8 weeks. I would like to share my teaching experience with you, since it was an amazing experience which I will not forget.

Every day I start at 9 a.m. I give 3 lessons per day of 35 minutes each. The kindergarten has 4 grades, K1 (youngest group) through K4 (oldest group). I teach English in K3. The children in this grade are 5 and/or 6 years old. It is really fun to teach English in this grade, because the children already know some English and they learn new words very quickly. It can happen that the children do not understand what you are saying. Luckily, most of the teachers understand English, so they translate it in to Chinese. This works very well and is very convenient.

Every week I try to come up with a theme. This theme covers approximately 8 new words which I teach during the week. Themes I have used, for example, are animals, rooms in the house, figures like square, triangle etc., body parts and clothes. I repeat these new words with the children every day. Also, the words of the previous weeks are repeated. This is very rewarding, because after a few weeks the children learned a lot of new words and you can see their progress.

Besides teaching the children new words, I let them draw and colour a lot, which they really enjoy. Furthermore, I do a lot of games with them, for example "Simon Says" and "Doggy, Doggy Where's Your Bone?" The children also like to sing. We sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" very often. They will have so much fun when you sing the song very quickly in the end. I also teach them numbers and math in English or tell them a short story.

Usually, I finish teaching at 11.00 a.m. Then, you can have lunch at the school. The food is very good. From Monday till Thursday, you get rice with vegetables, meat, chicken or fish and soup. On Friday, you get noodles or dumplings. Some days, I stay until the end of the day, which is around 4.00 p.m. After lunch, the children will take a nap till half past 2 p.m. While the children take a nap, the teachers usually sit together to play cards or you will stay in one of the class rooms and chat with the teachers. The teachers were very interested in me and asked me a lot of questions. Furthermore, we watched a lot of movies together. At half past 2 p.m., the children will have Chinese kong fu, chest, harmonica or taekwando lessons. This is fun to watch. You do not need to stay every day till 4.00 p.m., but it is nice to see what the children do in the afternoon and it also shows your i nterest in the school.

To conclude my story, I have to say that I was really happy with my placement. I liked teaching at Ming Hang Kindergarten a lot. The teachers were very helpful and friendly. Every day, the children gave me a warm welcome when I enterd the class room. There was a very positive atmosphere at the school. For me, it was a good experience to teach in a foreign country. I believe it is so much better to do voluntary work in a foreign country instead of just being a tourist, because in this way you learn so much more about the country and its culture. If you want to learn more about the Chinese culture and you like to work with young children, I can highly recommend the Ming Hang Kindergarten.