Interviews with some of our students

We would like the readers of our blog to get to know some of the people we work with a little better. Therefore we have interviewed some of our students from the different places we work. Meet Tao Jun, He Qing, Yong Hui, Qiao Xiao Hui and Yu Ji.

The Ningxia Red Cross:
Tao Jun (James)

What is your name?

- My Chinese name is Tao Jun and my English name is James

How old are you?

- I am 30 years old.

Where are you from?

- I am from Yinchuan, in the Northern part of Ningxia.

What is your job at the Ningxia Red Cross?

- I work as a district communicator.

How long have you been working at the Red Cross?

- I have been working here for seven years

How long have you been learning English?

- I have been learning English for ten years.

What is your favourite food?

- My favourite food is porkmeat.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

- I like to do outdoor activities and especially fishing. I am also found of tea culture.

He Qing (Anne)

What is your name?

- My Chinese name is He Qing and my English name is Anne.

How old are you?

- I am 27 years old.
Where are you from?
- I am from Zhongwei in Ningxia province.

What is your job at the Ningxia Red Cross?

- I am in charge of the volunteers.

How long have you been working at the Red Cross?

- I have been working four years at the Ningxia Red Cross.

How long have you been learning English?

- I have been learning English for fifteen years.

What is your favourite food?

- Boiled chicken with sauce.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

- I like to play badminton and to travel.

Yong Hui (Peter)

What is your name?
- My Chinese name is Yong Hui and my English name i Peter
How old are you?
- I am 30 years old
Where are you from?
- I am from the city of Zhongwei, in the Western part of Ningxia province.
What is your job at the Ningxia Red Cross?
- I do advertisements among teenagers, and recruit volunteers for the Red Cross
How long have you been working at the Red Cross?
- I have been working at the Red Cross for two years now.
How long have you been learning English?
- I have learned English for ten years.

What is your favorite food?
- Small peeled noodles.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
- I like to watch movies, TV and to play basketball.

Xinhua College:

Qiao Xiao Hui (Alice)

What is your name?

- My Chinese name is Qiao Xiao Hui, my English name is Alice.

How old are you?

- I am 20 years old.

Where are you from?

- I come from Guyuan, in the South of Ningxia.

What do you study?

- I am majoring in English.

How long have you been learning English?

- I have been learning English for eight years now.

Why did you choose to study English?

- Because I like English, and in the future I hope to become an English teacher.

What is your favourite food?

- Rice, fruit, potato and meat.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

- I like reading, go shopping, sleeping and to write in my diary.

Prep School for Ethnic Minorities

Yu Ji (Robert)

What is your name?

- My Chinese name is Yu Ji and my English name is Robert

How old are you?

- I am 20 years old.

Where are you from?
- I come from the city Yantai in Shandong province

What do you study

-I am majoring in Science.
How long have you been learning English?

- I have studied English for ten years.
What is your favourite food?
- My favourite food is watermelon.

What do you like to do in your sparetime?

- In my sparetime I go to the internet bar, I read books and play basketball.

Chinese classes

Last month we wrote about a trip to the desert with the foreign students of Ningxia University. But what we forgot to mention was that these lovely guys are our fellow students. We are lucky enough to have the time and opportunity to follow the Chinese lessons for full time students. In our class of Chinese Made Easier you can, besides the two crazy Norwegians, find two diligent students from Romania and five nice people from the US. Unfortunately, we can only follow 9 out of 15 hours a week, but we still feel that we manage to keep up with their pace of learning. At least that’s the current situation. Since we rarely have the time to study at home, I guess that they will lose us at one point. But luckily for us, the teacher, Diao Laoshi, is very skilled and he takes good care of us. Hopefully we are good enough to pass our Chinese exam January 5th.

The Chinese language is very different from the languages we know and have been taught; Norwegian, English, German, French and Russian. So the characters are very difficult to learn, and we kind of gave them up. We focus more on the oral part of Chinese so we can communicate with people when we are travelling on our own in the Winter Holiday.

We still don’t know if we can follow Chinese lessons next term, because we don’t know our schedule yet. But our fingers are crossed and we hope for a positive message from our schools. Why? Aren’t we busy enough already? Yes, definitely very busy, but learning Chinese is an important part of this exchange, and we really want to learn as much as possible.

Preparatory School for Ethnic Minorities

This school is a preparatory school for those of an ethnic minority whose education has not been sufficient to the demands of the Chinese government.

"Ethnic students whose literacy level is not up to the standard will be enrolled first in preparatory classes to receive one or two years' up-grading training. After passing the qualifying examinations, these students will be transferred to the regular classes. " (China Education and Research Network, www.edu.cn)

So after this one year of preparatory education, they can finally enroll into China's different Universities.

The students at this school chooses a major, for example Liberal Arts or Science and Technology. I have one class from each of these two majors and teach eight lessons a week. Each class consist of about 50 students. In Norway you normally teach classes of 16-24 students, so this is a challenge. But it is also very fun. The students are really eager to learn English. Even though my class of Oral English is just a bonus class for the students, they really put their mind into it and try their best. And, really, that's all I can demand from anyone.

Even though this is a Hui minority region, it doesn't mean that my classes only have Hui people. As a matter of fact, I only teach one Hui. But I have lots of people from all over China. They live in campus, but their hometowns are in Shan Dong, Shan Xi, Sha An Xi, Chong Qing, Ji Lin, Yun Nan, Gui Zhou, Guang Xi, Ning Xia, Hei Long Jiang, Fu Jian, He Nan, Hu Nan, Liao Ning, Si Chuan, Gan Su, Inner Mongolia and Xin Jiang regions, which means 18 of China's 34 in total. So through these classes I meet a lot of China, and it's a great experience.

My classes consist mostly of communicative activities, and different ways of making them speak English. This is partly because these are good ways of promoting oral English, and also because my classes don't have a textbook. So I have to start from scratch every day, finding new and exciting ways of learning English. This is also a challenge, but a very fun challenge. It's definitely worth all the work.

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.