Xinhua College

8 hours a week I (Chris) teach at Xinhua College, a part of Ningxia University. The school was build in 2002.The whole school has approx. 4000 students and around 200 teachers. The school has it's own cantine, dormitories for the students, a student information center and good sports facilities.

Here I teach 3 classes with approx. 30 - 35 students in each class. The classes consist of students who each will take an English major, and the classes I'm in are 1. year students. I teach Oral English there. We have a textbook that the class has to follow, but it is filled with alot of good communicative activities. In the beginning the students seamed unfamiliar with talking in the class, but they are slowly getting more used to having conversations in class. They also seem to understand better the importance of speaking as an English skill aswell as writing, listening and reading. The fact that they now have to use spoken English to communicate with their foreign teacher is a motivation factor for the students at Xinhua. Alongside the book, I also use communicative activities I was tought back home.
6 hours a week I teach single classes, and 2 hours a week I teach all three classes together. This is a new experience for me as a newly educated teacher because when I have all three classes together they are over 100 individuals. Teaching at Xinhua is challenging but very fun. Most of the students are higly motivated, and want to become eighter English teachers or interpreters.