From May 16-20, Stepping Stones took a group of ten PricewaterhouseCoopers employees on their third annual volunteering tour to teach English to “left-behind” children at a rural boarding school in Luyi County, Henan Province. It was another unforgettable experience for PwC staff!
During the tour the volunteers spent four whole days at the school, teaching and interacting with the students. Over the week, the volunteers taught a one and a half hour lesson to all the classes at the school, from grades 1-9.
English lessons were conducted in small groups to give all the students an opportunity to communicate closely with the volunteers and have a chance to practice their English. The volunteers used the new vocabulary and grammar that the students were learning to play many English games to engage the students and get them all to participate. You could truly see the joy and excitement in the students’ eyes when they spoke and were able to apply their English with the PwC volunteers.
PWC in Henan
Outside of the classroom, the volunteers made friends with the students, playing outdoors every day after lunch. The students jumped rope, played basketball, threw around balloons and asked questions to the volunteers, creating a deeper bond between them.
Many of the students at the school are “left-behind” children and only see their parents once a year, as their parents have migrated to urban areas in search for better jobs. The children that live at the school rarely meet anyone other than the school staff. It is a special occasion for these students to have visitors, and the children have waited the whole year forStepping Stones volunteers to return to teach them and play with them again!
Not only did the students benefit from making new friends, but the volunteers also learned something about themselves and about rural China and they all enjoyed this unique interaction. Stepping Stones thanks the PwC volunteers for providing this opportunity to the students and looks forward to bringing PwC volunteers back to this area again next year!
If you are interested in joining a rural tour with Stepping Stones, or in learning more about our rural volunteering programs, click here or email volunteer@steppingstoneschina.net. We hope you will join a rural tour with Stepping Stones soon!