This semester, in and effort to get students to use their English skills more, Amanda, Christina and I came up with a plan called the EOC: every student is has to attend three. EOC stands for Events Outside of Class.
The idea is that students have 3 options every week to do something outside of class. 1) Wednesday night free talk, where we have any number of students over to our house between 5 and 50 (usually on the high side). The activities vary every week but some English is always involved.
Yes, that is Jenga (the speak-English-every-time-you-pull-a-block version though)
2) Office hours: Amanda, Christina and I each have office hours at the teaching building where students can visit us and again chat it up with their English.
3) Friday night Movie Discussion night. Every Friday, we show a movie in a large lecture hall on campus, and all our students are invited. We watch part of a movie and have discussion about some moral and ethical pre-planned questions with a few junior and senior students helping as facilitators.
This night we had about 150 students show up! WOW!!
Guided discussion helps keep the students on track!!
Students also have a fourth option, which is my favorite. Option 4 is the Student Proposed Activity. They can propose any activity they wish as long as they talk English with us while we do the so-called activity. So far this semester, I have played ping pong with several students (who by the way I all beat. Better practice up, Matt and Mom!)
Also, Amanda and I went the the Gansu Provincial Museum with several grad students last Saturday.
The museum was a blast. Very well put together exhibits with lots of English placards we could read. If you ever come to visit, I highly recommend we make a visit to this museum.
A little after-outing lunch! And in Lanzhou what would you eat??? Noodles, of course!
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