The Welcome Luncheon at Yilong

The headmaster and director of the school hosted the two foreign teachers - self included - at a spectacular and formal "Welcome Luncheon" on Saturday. We met first at the headmaster's office to hear about his goals for our work. Mr. Jang has been with the school for 20 years and is, himself, an English teacher. It was exciting to hear his vision for this generation of Yilong students whom he sees as the future leaders of a new China. In order to ensure that, he hopes that we will integrate lessons about our own culture and about key global issues in our teaching plan. I'll start this week with a series of lessons focused on cultural practices of American teens and high school students, asking my language students to discuss the material in small groups and then build language around how the practices in America contrast with those in their China. These "content based" lessons allow students to acquire new language in a context of material that is meaningful to them. It's a much more efficient strategy for second language learning than doing grammar drills! Teaching here is really exciting! Anyway, back to the luncheon. Take a look at the spread of food which included seafood, chicken feet, marinated pork, eel, Peking Duck, tangy vegetables, Sichuan-style soups, corn congee and rice. We were happily spared the local brew (baijou) and were offered beer or wine instead.