Two weeks ago, I stopped in the English office to find out exactly when my courses should be finished for the semester. As the foreign language teacher, my testing and classes are always completed earlier than my Chinese colleagues. This is to give students time to concentrate only on their Chinese courses instead of adding mine to the pile as well.
Chinese New Year being so early this year (Feb. 3), I figured our school year would be ending earlier as well.
Sure enough, the official schedule had us finishing up mid-January.
And for me?
January 1st was to be the end of my term.
Heavens! That’s early!
It was a scramble to put together testing information and Xerox copies of what would be expected for the final exams but I did it.
With 280 students, my oral exams always take 3 weeks to complete with the last week being our “wind-down” class. In other words, the entire month of December would be testing, testing and nothing but testing.
With such a rushed agenda, choices had to be made about holiday lessons. Would it be Thanksgiving as usual or would we make the leap into Christmas?
Good question.
Do the Pilgrims take precedence over the wisemen? Does the turkey trump Jesus?
I think you can guess where I was journeying and it wasn’t on the Mayflower.
Yes, it’s been the holy lands all week with our annual classroom re-enactment of Jesus’ birth.
Every class has been enjoying our Christmas skit, performed via a name draw for a live and in-person touch of the Christian religion’s most important story.
As promised to the students, the photo album assigned to this blog is all about them.
Have fun, everyone! Enjoy your photos and memories of our first Christmas lesson together.
Ping An (Peace) from Longzhou
connie's space 