WHS Staff in China, Spring 2009

Over 30 hours after arising in our hotel in Beijing, we touched down in Omaha on Monday, March 16. Weary from the long plane ride, but grateful for all of the wonderful experiences we had on our trip, we are happy to be back at home with our families and are looking forward to seeing all of our students and colleagues at Westside again on Wednesday. Thank you to everyone who read our posts during our ten-day adventure. We appreciate all of the comments and questions we received and feel very fortunate to have had this amazing opportunity!

One of the highlights of our last full day in Beijing was a visit to several venues with which we became familiar during last summer's Olympic Games. Our tour guide, May, purchased tickets for us to tour the inside of the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium, site of the opening and closing ceremonies as well as the track and field events and the finish of the Olympic marathon. We also toured the inside of the "Water Cube" National Aquatic Center. It was truly inspiring to be in the same locations where such superstars as Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt mesmerized the world with their phenomenal athletic feats last summer!

Tomorrow morning, Saturday, we will be leaving Tianjin to spend some sightseeing time in Beijing. We will be taking the Bullet Train which will have us in Beijing in about 30 minutes. Normally it is at least a 2 hour drive in a car from Tianjin to Beijing. I'm sure it will be exciting! We do not have our itinerary yet for our stay in Beijing, but we have been told we will be visiting The Forbidden City, The Great Wall, and the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube Aquatic Center which we all saw on television during the Olympic Games. We also do not know if we will have internet access in our hotel in Beijing so it might not be possible for us to keep in touch as we have each day. Otherwise we return to Omaha Monday evening (3/16) after leaving Beijing Monday afternoon! (Remember there is a 13 hour time difference between Omaha and China.)

After our morning at the school we had the opportunity to visit the Tianjin Museum. It is a very modern looking building of glass and steel that opened in 2006. It was built on the Yinha Plaza to resemble a swan spreading its wings as if flying from the lake (Swan Lake) located in front of the building. The museum is a collection of fine arts and Tianjin history. Inside we found Chinese calligraphy, paintings, bronzeware, ceramics, jadeware, and bones with the inscriptions from the Shang Dynasty. There were also coins, historic documents and local folk art. Some of the displays had English descriptions, but many of the descriptions were in Chinese and had to be translated for us by Zhang Chaoxin, our guide, the Director of the IB program at TEHS. She was also able to add some history for us, too. The citizens in Tianjin are very proud of this museum that tells us so much about this city's long history. Several of the students told us we should take the opportunity to visit this museum. When we left the museum there were several people flying kites in the Kite Park located in front of the building. Zhang Chaoxin also told us large number of women gather on the Plaza each night about 7:00 to do aerobics to music.

We then walked to a large department store. Again, it was very modern looking and very open. The front door to enter was opened for us by a young man in a red coat and white gloves. Each "store" is really a brand of clothing that opens to the walking area. You do not walk through a door to get in-it is open. ( It appeared there was a dressing room in each of the clothing areas.) We saw all the major brand names we are familiar with-Pierre Cardin, Nike, and even Tiffany's. There was quite a variety of merchandise throughout the store. We were told that students don't typically shop in this "mall."

Zhang Chaoxin decided we should go to a "western" restaraunt for our dinner. You look at the menu, which has pictures of typical American food, and point what you would like to the waitress. Zhang Chaoxin did order a Chef's salad, liver pate, and something like a beef stew for us to try before our dinners came. Four of us ordered a Club Sandwich and Brenda had spaghetti. The Club sandwiches were close to ours, no mayo, but the addition of a small section of a fried egg. Mike ordered fried onion rings for us to share which were very close in taste to ours. We had Zhang Chaoxin try a section of the sandwich and an onion ring. She wrinkled up her nose and went back to the liver pate! At each restaurant we have gone to, our host has taken home uneaten food in "to-go" boxes just as we do.

We then took a cab ride to a typical, neighborhood store. The store was huge and full of stores. Many of us were looking for tea to bring back as gifts and the tea store at this center is where Zhang Chaoxin buys tea for her family. There are many young woman who work in the store who quickly, and nicely, go into their "sales pitch". They have you sit at small tables, brew the tea you are interested in buying, and then let you taste before you buy. They also provided samples of "tea food" that is also sold in the store. The sales clerks did a nice job since most of us walked out with purchases! I wonder if the sales clerks had been marketing/DECA members in their high school????

Today we observed an English lesson taught by a third-year Chinese English teacher to students in grade 11. Their topic was natural disasters and almost the entire 45-minute lesson was delivered exclusively in English. The students practiced reading, writing, listening, and speaking about all kinds of natural disasters including volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, floods, earthquakes, thunderstorms, landslides, hurricanes, and tornados. Three students use powerpoint presentations to share more detailed information about earthquakes, tsunamis,and American movies that feature natural disasters such as "Twister" and "Dante's Peak." The movie clip below shows how this teacher created interest in the lesson. Her anticipatory set focused on the difference between human influence and the power of nature.

One of the important parts of a student's day at Tianjin Experimental High School is physical exercise. This includes a daily outdoor routine that consists of stretching and running during cool months and stretching and "exercises" during hot summer months. In addition, twice daily there is an audio recording broadcast into all of the classrooms and the students all participate in "eye exercises" in which they manually massage their eyes and do other eye movements designed to reduce stress and increase their ability to concentrate. Here is a short movie clip of a portion of the outdoor exercises.

We returned to the same classroom today for the students to put together an imovie to let them experience what our students easily do with technology. (Matt has posted the final product.) After Mike and Brenda modeled what we wanted the students to do, we first had them write their script in English, gave them some time to practice speaking out loud (several were good about asking if their sentences were correct) and then put them on video with our digital cameras. Matt then showed them how to take the video and produce the imovie. The students had fun choosing the colors, the music, etc. for their product. A little over an hour into our 3 hour lesson the students are daily given a 40 minute break where all students are required to go outside in the courtyard and participate in physical exercise. They jog, do warm up exercises, and are active for the 40 minutes. No one complains and they seem to enjoy being outside. When the students returned to the classroom they helped Matt finalize their video. As Matt was putting the final touches on, we had the students watch a short clip of SpongeBob. (The students told us the day before they like him.) We had them write down 3 words/phrases they understood and 3 they did not from the clip It was fun to go over the vocabualry they did not understand. I don't think they say "Hey, Dude" in China! The imovie was then ready for us to show. The students loved watching themselves! I think they are starting to understand the wonderful things technology can bring to their classroom. (These students stay in one classroom all day.) As we all said our goodbyes we were asked several times to have our pictures taken by the students. I'm not sure who enjoyed each other more! Working with these students will always be one of the highlights of our trip.

We also met again with the Principal of the school during the student's break. (As we sat down in her conference room outside her office we were all immediately given cups of tea) She is very pleased with our visit and the "second step" in Tianjin Experimental High School and Westside High School becoming sister schools. She is hoping for a "long and cooperative" exchange between our two schools. The "third step", of course, will be their students coming to visit us in April and May.

As we left Tianjin Experimental High School on Wednesday after lunch, we stopped outside the International Building to pose for the picture below. People from Nebraska who read the Omaha World Herald may know about how the paper publishes photos of people who travel to different locales and have their picture taken holding a copy of the front page of the newspaper. We decided to add one more touch to this practice and include the front page of our own WHS Lance newspaper as well. Our plan is to take other pictures including both newspapers when we visit other locations in and around Beijing during the upcoming weekend.

We started our day with the 9th grade IB students with a great lesson that Ricardo provided. (You can read more and see pictures from Ricardo and Brenda's entries) The students were fun to work with. They did a great job not only speaking, but in their writing also. The writing exercise told us a little more about each one of them as they wrote about themselves. Each of the students has an American name that they use during English lessone. I'm not sure I could not say their Chinese names correctly! Most of the students bike or their parents drive them to school. They were amazed to know how many of our students drive a car to school. You must be 18 to get your driver's license here. We had lunch again at the school and we all agree the food is very good there. In the afternoon we did a technology presentation in front of some of their staff and some students. We have not seen many computers in their building and of course their students do not each have a laptop. At the end of the presentation one of the students did ask when they would be receiving their laptops. I quickly deferred that questionto their IB coordinator! For our evening dinner we went to a restaraunt with our interpreter and his wife. Peking duck was the speciality. It was served in slices which you put on a soft round almost like a tortilla. You dip the duck in a sauce and add onions and celery on top. You wrap the mixture so it looks like a small burrito. We all liked it. There were many other dishes, too, including soup make from the duck yolk. After dinner we went to the house/apt. of our interpreter to meet his 4 year old son and his wife's parents. (They all live together) They were very gracious and served us tea and strawberries. The apt. was very clean and neat, not very large, although there are two levels. We had to walk up six flight of narrow stairs to reach their front door.

We still hang on any time we have taken a cab ride! We were told there are not many accidents-hard to believe. A couple of other things that are very different to us include people being able to smoke everywhere, including the restaraunts. There are many store fronts where food/snacks are sold-like a walk through instead of a drive through. Also there is a man who sets up his "shop" on the corner to fix bikes during the day or add air to the tires. We are seeing different things each day. What an experience!

Este es un video de la noche anterior cuando tomamos un taxi para ir a visitar a uno de los profesores de inglés. Me encanta el video porque en menos de dos minutos muestra claramente cómo trascurre la vida cotidiana en Tianjin. Siendo una ciudad de 11,000,000 millones de habitantes, las reglas de tránsito no siempre se respetan como en los Estados Unidos. Pongan atención a la luz roja del semáforo y como un taxi adelante de nosotros, y nuestro taxi pasan sin importarles mucho. Espero que mi compañía de seguros no lea este blog!

This is a video from last night when we took a taxi to go visit one of the English teachers. I love the video because in less than two minutes, it shows clearly how life goes by in Tianjin. Being a city of 11,000,000 people, traffic rules are not always respected as in the United States. Pay attention the to the red light and how a taxi ahead of us, and our taxi go through without caring that much! I hope my insurance company does not get to read this blog!

Para darles una mejor idea de la lección en inglés, aquí está un ejemplo del cuento que construímos con los estudiantes. Antes habíamos escuchado que generalmente los estudiantes aquí no son muy interactivos en las clases. Mientras les enseñabamos un poco de vocabulario relacionado con un día típico de un estudiante en Westside, todos nos llevamos una sorpresa al ver cómo se involucraron con la lección. ¡Todos parecen muy fascinados con Obama!

A final del cuento, dividimos a los estudiantes en grupos y les dimos tiempo para discutir qué partes de cuento eran ejemplos de cultura americana falsos y cuales eran reales. Al final, un estudiante muy valiente se ofreció de voluntario para contarnos el cuento en inglés sin usar sus notas. Este es el cuento:


To give you a better idea on the English Lesson, here an example of the story we built with the students. We had heard before that students here are not very interactivie in class. While we were teaching them some vocabulary related to typical day at Westside, we were all surprised to see how they got involved with the lesson. They all seem very fascinated with Obama!

At the end of the story, we divided them in groups and gave them time to discuss which parts of the story were real American cultural facts, and which ones were unreal. In the end, a very brave student volunteered to retell us the story in English without using his notes. This is the story:


There is a student called Obama. He lives in San Francisco. He gets up at 6:30. He eats breakfast. He likes pancakes and a bagel with cream cheese.

He drives to school. He drives a golf cart to school because gas is expensive in the United States.

When he gets to school, he goes to homeroom. His homeroom teacher is Tiger Woods.They are very good friends.

Then, he goes to class. His favorite class is geography. His teacher is Mr. Will. His class is 40 minutes long.

After geography he has an open mod. During his open mod, he goes to an IMC.

Obama meets a girl in the IMC. The girl’s name is Michelle. Obama falls in love with her. Michelle does not love Obama. He is very intelligent and he gives her a love letter.

Michelle reads the letter and falls in love with him immediately.

Obama has a great idea. He buys 999 roses and invites Michelle to go to prom with him. He rents a Mercedes Benz 300 SL and drives it to prom. They are happy.

El lunes por la noche fuimos a un restaurante muy cerca del hotel. Caminamos como cinco cuadras, y afortunadamente pudimos sobrevivir el cruce de las calles! Este restaurante es muy conocido por un plato típico conocido como "dumplings" (bolas de masa con diferentes tipos de relleno). La cena fue riquísima. En un momento, una de las meseras nos trajo una olla con una sopa aparentemente muy famosa. Empezó a explicarnos los orígenes de la sopa. Con la ayuda de nuestro intérprete pudimos comprender la historia, la cual era acerca de una reina que estaba cansada de la comida cotidiana, y decidió crear algo nuevo.



On Monday night we went to a restaurant located near our hotel. We walked about five blocks, and fortunately we were able to survive crossing the streets! This restaurant is vere well known because of a typical dish called "dumplings". The dinner was delicious. At one point, one of the waitresses brought a pot with soup, apparently very famous. She begun to explain its origins. With the help of our interpreter we were able to understand the story, which was about a queen who was tiered of eating the same types of food, and finally decided to create something new.