Today we began the day with a meeting with a teacher trainer from the Beijing Chongwen District, Ms. Di Di Yan. Together we discussed how the English teachers are being trained to teach English and what their classrooms might sound and look like. Some of the main things to note are that their semester grading breakdown looks much different than ours. The mid term exam can be worth 30%, the final exam 40%, and the class activities, participation, and homework may only be 30% in total. Also, there are not many discipline issues in class and students tend to be very quiet. Asking a lot of questions and taking up the teacher's time can be considered a waste of class time by the other students. To wrap up our meeting with her we practiced eye exercises which are often times performed several times a day to maintain attention and focus.
Eye exercises, not many discipline problems... I guess I am not shocked by hearing some of these things, but I can't imagine such an environment here.
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