Migrant School

 A few weeks ago we had the opportunity to do some volunteer work at a school for children of migrant workers, out on the outskirts of Suzhou.  And because I work with an incredible group of hardworking, giving people almost the entire academic team agreed to come in on their day off and teach English to a group of about 125 middle school kids.

 Disney has a program called "Disney Voluntears" (like Mikey ears you know?) where it encourages its cast members to organize volunteer events in the community.  They supported us by sending us snazzy matching t-shirts, a banner and gifts for all the kids.

 On the playground with the kids before the event starts.

 When we only have a finite amount of time to teach very specific language targets which the kids get assessed on every six weeks.  These assessment results are reported to corporate and to all the parents so it becomes a lot of pressure to fit a lot into each lesson.  The team was super excited to do this event because there was really no pressure for the kids to learn.  We picked the simplest language and then we could just have fun playing some of our best games!  Our goal was really just to spark an interest in English and to give them an exciting learning experience.

We divided into four stations that the kids rotated through learning different language at each one.  Jarod, Joanna and I chose snack vocabulary. (What do you like? I like candy [milk, ice cream, cookies] etc.)  Here the kids are playing a relay game where I hold up a flashcard and a person on each team says the sentence structure "I like cake!" and then runs and picks up the vocabulary word, stacks it on a tower of cups and runs back to their team.  The first tower to fall loses.

 Grabbing the flashcards!

 Cuties!  They were having the best time.  In China there is no such thing as fun in academics. No multiple intelligence theory, no collaborative group work, no active learning.  It's pretty much old school sit in your desk, listen to the lecture, take a test.  These kids were hilarious!  It was like someone had unleashed animals from the zoo!  They were bonkers but they mostly listened to us.   

 Teaching vocabulary about toys.  The students had a race where each team said the word and passed the toy down the line as fast as they could.

Drilling vocabulary about animals, I  love how intently they are looking at those flashcards.  In the end the kids weren't sure if they were learning or playing. Actually they were doing both!

 My group also played a version of Little Sally Walker (a drama game I used back home) where the kids form an inside circle and outside circle.  The inside circle moves and everyone chants the target language, when they hear the word "milk" they run and find a partner in the outside circle and dance with them then switch places and the games starts over again.
We were in a huge echoy warehouse space and I had to scream to be heard over all those groups of kids.  I was a sweaty, horse voiced mess when we were done!

 Nicole and Helen using Gangem Style dance to teach "horse".

You may be wondering about these adorable red kerchiefs. They're standard uniform at primary schools and they represent each child wearing a corner of the red flag of China.

 Hilarious game where they each move around acting like a different family member and speaking the English word (sister, father, etc.) then when Jesse and Ben say, "Mother's coming!" The kids crouch down Ben runs around acting like a mother and scolding them.
Ben and I are the loudest human beings on the planet.  I tired putting my group on the other side of the room but it didn't matter, we were still volume competing.  It felt like a noise war! 

 In the end, we sang goodbye and every single kid got a Mickey or Minnie stationary set.  They were ecstatic! I would be too they were super cool!

Every detail of this event was meticulously planned and then when it was over we realized we hadn't thought about how we were getting home.  The school was way out in the countryside, we had to take a subway and then a taxi to get out there but there was no way we were going to find a taxi to pick us up....so we had to take one of the school buses back into town!

 The kids lined up to get onto the bus.

 Come on kids! Everybody on the bus!

Those kids sat in silence and stared at us for like 30 minutes, totally weirded out that we were on their bus.  Timo tried talking to the kid next to him in Chinese but the stammered out a response and then smiled at him shyly.
We worked our butts off and by the time we got home we were all sweaty and exhausted.  But it was worth it!  So much fun!