The trip to Zhuzhou No.2 HS to teach Chinese high schoolers was a fun experience. I traveled to Zhuzhou in Mid-June with 10 other students to teach 9 lessons to Chinese 1st Years.
The school had a large campus, with an extremely large dorm building. For the boys, we got split up into 2 rooms, with 5 people in each one. Living with 4 other people in a cramped space obviously came with the downsides of the lack of space, the lack of privacy, and even a surprise attack from mosquitos on the first night, but I still found living with 4 other people to be a good experience to have under my belt. The cafeteria food was simply amazing, they could not make a bad meal. In addition to the good food, the campus also had a convenience store and a Boba Tea shop, which added a ton of convenience and comfort to our stay.
Prior to the trip, we had monthly meetings, each having each group present a short excerpt of their lesson, allowing us to practice and hone our presenting and teaching skills, which ultimately let us become better teachers. I originally was skeptical about teaching high schoolers, and if they would even be interested in what we were teaching, but I found teaching a fun and fulfilling activity, and toward the end of the trip, I was even looking forward to teaching some of the classes.
As teachers, I believe that we managed to expose the students of Zhuzhou No.2 high school to interesting and foreign concepts that they would be interested in. Some classes began slowly, but slowly became more engaging through the encouragement of rewards in the form of candy, but also some clever tactics to encourage engagement. For example, whenever a student participated, they would be able to choose the next student who would have to answer the next question, providing a fun extra activity to the lesson while also boosting engagement.
Outside of teaching and the numerous hours provided to us to prepare, we also engaged in lessons about Chinese culture, like: Calligraphy, 3D Printing, Tai Chi, and Tea Tasting, which I found to be interesting and fun. We also took the weekends to tour some of the attractions near us, like the Train factory, Malls, and a Pottery Factory. While we were supposed to visit ZhangJiaJie on the weekend, we were unable to due to the poor weather.
However, I would argue that the best part of the trip was the people and friends we met at the school. Every night, we would hang out with them, whether it was off campus eating food, in the gym, or in our dorms. Once, we even went to light fireworks outside of the school. Without these amazing people that we met, this trip wouldn’t have been near as enjoyable as it was. I want to thank every single one of the people I met who made this trip as fun as it was.
For these reasons, I am extremely grateful to have been part of the 1000 mile initiative, and to the people who made this trip possible. If I had to choose to do this again, I would say yes 10 times out of 10.