ETTP 2015 Pu'an | marcocheng

ETTP 2015 @ Pu'an, Guizhou

"With the use of interactive games, hand gestures and most of all, constant encouragement and support in English class, our trainees feel more relaxed in class; there wasn't any sort of pressure at all. Thank you!"

Eve Liu, primary school English trainee of ETTP 2015 Training @ Pu'an

Group photo - people in the front row are officials and trainers of ETTP 2015 Pu'an.

Group A (senior secondary): Benedict Ng (team & group leader), Jeff Chung, Wendy Ho, Patra Au

Group B (junior secondary): Dorothy Kehl (group leader), Dr Frank Kehl, Lily Li

Group C (junior secondary): Dr Elizabeth Walker (group leader), Shirley Wong

Group D (primary): Dorothy Lai (group leader), Shirley Tam, Marco Cheng

Group E (primary): Steely Chen (group leader), Sophie Su, Marco Cheng

Brief Introduction

Pu'an (普安), or Qianxinan (黔西南) is the most southern county in Guizhou bordering Yunnan Province, and nearly 350km away from Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou. Surrounded by mountains and no proper roads, Pu'an is a rural area where water seems inadequate, if not, pretty much impossible to find. Standard of English is below average, or even, worse than Luoding. We also spent a day in Anlong, Guizhou, which is 160km away from Pu'an. You may browse through the photos in my album by clicking here.

Panorama view of the school in Pu'an

A view of the hills and the hotel in Pu'an

Day 1 - 26/7/2015

Arrival day - it was a long day for me and some of the trainees, as we set off for Pu'an early in the morning from Luoding at 7:10am. We arrived at Guangzhou Airport around 11am, then a two hour flight to Guiyang Airport and another 4 hour journey on the car from Guiyang to Pu'an Village. We met our new colleagues in Guiyang and had a feast with the Pu'an Educational Department officials at Pu'an Wenquan Hotel.

My hotel room in Pu'an

Breakfast

Opening ceremony - the officials and group leader of ETTP

Programme Manual - Pu'an
Group D and E trainees
Afternoon Session by Ben
Working after dinner

Day 3 - 28/7/2015

Grouping - I was in charge of Group D with two of my other partners starting from the 27th to the 30th, but I was still entitled to making sure that the trainees' progress in Group E were okay.

Lessons - In the morning we focused on learning basic classroom language in English (taught by Dorothy), basic speaking drills (taught by me) and introduction to lesson planning (taught by Shirley). At the same time I had to teach phonics to trainees in Group E. In the afternoon all of the trainees watched their first movie 'Mr Holland's Opus'.

You might be thinking why on earth have I got the opportunity to teach two groups - well I don't know, really!

And again, food after all the hard work is probably the most amazing thing. We went out for dinner in a so-called Muslim restaurant with the trainers and some officials,

Day 2 - 27/7/2015

Opening Ceremony - 8:30am; all trainees settled down at the Multimedia Learning Centre (MMLC) followed by the trainers. The opening ceremony lasted for an hour before trainees were separated into different groups; there was 1 senior secondary class, 2 junior secondary classes and 2 primary classes.

Morning Session/Lunch - We don't normally teach on the first day of teaching - we get to know each other by playing some games and songs. Both primary groups were combined together (60 trainees in total), and so were the trainers. Lunch starts at 11:30am and all the trainers were driven back to the hotel for a nice meal; to be fair that's how I gained a few kilos. Guizhou cuisine is mainly hot; suitable for me but not for most trainers!

Afternoon Session - starts at 2pm with our group leader's singing session. They are mostly old songs back in the 60s, and trainees seem to enjoy it. It is then followed by a Plenary Session on Common Pronunciation Mistakes heard in China, and ended with a conversation session with trainees allocated to us from different groups.

Summing up - Lessons ended at 5:30pm and of course dinner, again with all the hot food and such that makes me feel exuberant. Meeting is then followed after dinner and we continued on organising our teaching plans and modules for the next day.

Day 4 - 29/7/2015

Another day of teaching; more guidance on how to write a good teaching plan. We did a few language games: such as tongue twisters, stress mazes etc. to interact with the trainees. I had to conduct a lesson on Stress and Syllables to the trainees in Group D. In the afternoon we continued watching the end of 'Mr Holland's Opus' and wrapped up the day with post-movie discussions. As usual, it was a tired yet fruitful day for all of us.

PS: This was the day which my trainees asked about my age. Most of them guessed that I was 26 to 28 ish, and one of them said I was 36. How unfortunate of me.

Day 4 - Trainees discussing about their lesson plans

Day 5 - 30/7/2015

Lesson Plan Demonstration - trainees in Group D had to demonstrate what it takes to be teaching English in of course, English but not Mandarin. Some hesitated at first, but managed to wrap everything up nicely. Most demonstrated their teaching skills by providing us games, songs and tried very hard to interact with the other trainees. Great effort, me thinks!

Afternoon Session - That was my big day. We organised a mock wedding for the trainees so that they get to experience another wedding style. I had to marry one of the trainers, Sophie Su, and trust me, I wasn't at all nervous because I felt like I was 'experienced'. However, due to eating too much within the past few weeks my tuxedo seems to be a tad bit tight. Who gives a damn about losing weight anyway when you're not at home? And of course, the trainees were all very buoyant and kept taking photos for at least 10 minutes. Tiring indeed.

Dinner - another great feast treated by the Pu'an officials. We arrived at the restaurant pretty early than expected, so we decided to take some photos just to kill time. Rest at last, but not for all; I had to continue sorting out teaching materials for the next day!

PS: This was my second mockwedding in one year. Perhaps you should be a bit jealous...or probably not.

Mock wedding group photo
Dinner treated by officials

Day 6 - 31/7/2015

Swapping groups - From this day onwards Dorothy, Shirley and I were in charge of Group E, and Steely and Sophie were in charge of Group D. Basically we retaught the teaching materials, as Group D and E are both primary school teachers and it would be wiser for us to teach the same modules.

Afternoon - all of us watched a new film called 'Front of the Class'. It isn't a very long one; the duration was only about an hour and a half and we finished the day with another post-movie discussion with the group.

By Day 6 we all were pretty much exhausted and looking forward to having a day trip to Anlong on the 2nd, which is a 2 hour journey from Pu'an.

Left: Wendy (Group A trainer) teaching food vocabulary and expressions

Right: Me teaching syllables; syllabication and segmentation

Day 7 - 1/8/2015

Group E - The trainees were given a sheet of paper to describe the trainers' physique and characteristics. Funny enough, many of the trainees wrote I was a 'sunshine boy' (I think it means easy-going and optimstic), handsome, muscular (not that I am!), and a little fat (very true). One was brave enough to write about how quick I talk and she told me to 'slow down a wee bit'.These descriptions aren't totally wrong, they do make a lot of sense! The part where 'Marco has a manly voice' made me chuckle, perhaps I actually do have one when it comes to teaching...

Dinner - Everybody was pretty excited to have a day off tomorrow. Let's be honest - if we had to teach on a Sunday, a little part of me would definitely just die due to the arduous work!

The Lotus Pond

Waterfall in the Buyi Tribe Village

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Day 9 - 3/8/2015

Back to teaching - The trainees created English poems and did a bit of artwork. Pretty neat and creative I must say, they were a bunch of creative people.

Photo taking - Dorothy, Shirley, Steely, Sophie and I had a group photo with Groups D and E in the classroom and outside the spacious area whilst the rest of the groups A-C were having lessons. Perhaps it was a better idea to let them take a break after going through such a tough week learning English!

Costumes - A few of our trainees actually brought their Buyi / Miao tribe costumes and encouraged us to wear them during the second part of the lesson. Well, here's a thing, we all wore on the costumes and I was so glad that the Miao shirt fitted me perfectly. Another size smaller and I might've ripped the shirt by accident. Those costumes looked absolutely wicked though; they were very traditional but wearing it for the whole day was slightly uncomfortable.

Dinner - The trainers and I had lamb offal hot pot; it does taste of lamb but salty enough to cock up my kidneys. It had loads of liver, blood and meat, and an extra lamb's penis (apparently it's purpose is to add up the flavour of the soup, according to locals). That thing wasn't even appealing at all especially when served.

Day 8 - 2/8/2015

Day off to Anlong - All of the trainers got up at 7:30am and set off for Anlong on a bus. It wasn't too long - around 2 hours and we made it there. Lucky for me, I didn't feel nauseatic at all, otherwise shit's going to go down without any further doubts.

Morning @ The Lotus Pond, Anlong - There weren't many lotuses unfortunately, since they haven't even started blooming yet. We managed to capture a few photos though - some were beautiful but nonetheless it was just plain green. For lunch, we went to a very deserted place in the middle of nowhere; they served traditional Guizhou cuisine which was of course, very hot and spicy. Unbearable to some, satisfactory to me.

Afternoon @ Buyi Tribe Village - One of the ethnic minority groups that still exist in China, this place is situated literally outside Anlong city. Their homemade bags and costumes are beautiful, yet heckie expensive and I couldn't really afford them. Eventually I bought a huge hand fan for just 15 RMB (bargain!). We walked past a beautiful pond and a waterfall; the beauty of Guizhou was on our hands.

Aftermatch - Weather changed drastically from good to bad, but we still wanted to go to the notorious Double Breast Mountain in Jingfeng, which apparently does look like breasts dangling in mid-air. However, on our way there we nearly lost our lives as the bus was driving down a slippery slope; it was few inches away from falling off the slope and if so, that would've been the end of us and I wouldn't be creating this blog. We also encountered a few bumpy roads and we were literally just sitting on our seats, groping the handle in front of us tightly just to make sure we don't get killed instantly. 2 hours later we finally got back to the hotel, had dinner and called it a day.

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Day 10 - 4/8/2015

Presentation Day for Trainees - Each representative from each group will take part in presenting their lesson plan during the afternoon session. After 10 days of teaching how a good lesson plan should be executed, the trainees showed more confidence in expressing themselves to the trainees and the trainers.

Dinner - We treated ourselves to a great feast for dinner even without the presence of officials. Honestly, why not? All the hard work has paid off!

PS: This was our final teaching day as Day 11 was the singing/verse speaking competition for trainees and the closing ceremony.

From left: Steely Chen, Sophie Su, Shirley Tam, Dorothy Lai, Marco Cheng (Group D & E trainers)

Day 11 - 5/8/2015

Singing Competition and Verse Speaking Competition - All the trainees had to participate in the competition. Every trainer was responsible for training the trainees - their gestures, pronunciation and creativity. Everyone paid a lot of effort into it and of course it was a great success.

Talent Show - Optional, but trainers were kind of 'told' to perform because apparently, we were 'talented people' according to trainees. So yes, most of the trainers sang, and even though I am not much of a singer in public, I went for it without hesitating. Dorothy, Shirley and I sang a rendition of a Chinese traditional song in Cantonese, which was hilarious but at the same time embarrassing. Oh well, yolo I guess!

Closing Ceremony - As usual the most touching part of the whole ETTP, because once again trainees start crying after singing 'Auld Lang Syne', and I had to prepare tissues for them just in case someone started crying on my shoulder (just kidding, that never happened).

PS: By the time when the talent show ended, my voice began to crack and I started coughing and sneezing; yes, that's flu. What karma.

Day 12 - 6/8/2015

Conclusion - It was a great experience and I enjoyed teaching the primary school trainees - they were willing to accept new ideas for their teaching plans and hopefully they can continue on learning and teaching at the same time.

An email by one of my trainees from Group D - Eve Liu:

'7 Aug 2015

Dear Marco,Tomorrow is your birthday, happy birthday! I'll never forget you as a teacher and friend, you may not believe that was my first time to learn phonetic symbol in your lesson although I passed TEM-8, you have taught me a lot , thank you .'

Without doubt, I am fortunate enough to live in a place where I am educated well; there are people in the world who don't receive proper education, hence the standard of English is below par in places like this.

As of 29/08/2015, 4 of our trainees whom I have taught have been promoted to teach junior secondary students in the city. Fact: They were previously primary school teachers in a remote village.

Learn to live, live to learn.

M xx (29/08/2015)

PS: The lady on the right is Eve. I don't know how on earth did she make me look so young.