Once again I taught Grade 2, this time about shopping and eating out. I thought back to when I first came to China; what did I first need to know and learn? The first thing I learned was how to order food, as it's often the first practical use of a language you'll have when going to another country. As such I taught them things such as “I want….” and “How much is….?”. They all picked it up really quickly, and at the end of the class I got a mock menu up on the board so they could all practice ordering different things and asking for prices. I'd like to do a similar lesson with the older grades, perhaps with them having to come up with their own vocab and sentence structures.

This week I also took part in a Chinese culture event for foreign teachers in Shuangliu. We watched some traditional Chinese dancing, and did some traditional Chinese art as well. This involved learning to paint, knit, and Chinese paper cutting. Safe to say I was terrible at all of these! Despite my complete lack of talent it was really interesting to see all these traditional Chinese art forms, and the dancing was absolutely beautiful. Spending the afternoon learning about Chinese culture really helped all us all appreciate the amazing history this country has to offer.