Category: Programme Updates

17 individual volunteers have taught 1559 rural students, yay!

Between January and August 2018, We have sent 17 volunteers to teach in rural schools, villages and community centers. The beneficiaries have all been rural, migrant and ‘left-behind’ children spread out in seven different provinces. Both the beneficiaries and the teachers benefited from Stepping Stones sending volunteers to teach English at their schools.

Below are some key facts:

Through 495 lessons, the 17 volunteers taught grades spanning from Grade 3 to Grade 9 and even university students (EGRC project, click here for our previous post). These volunteers were from a diverse set of countries, including France, Australia, Germany, America and China. Volunteers not only taught English lessons, but held other activities such as crafts, games, and reading. Some of the volunteers were previous Stepping Stones interns that came specifically back to China to participate in this summer project. Below the map highlights the provinces involved where the lessons took place.

Are you curious about what the volunteers said about their experiences? Please have a look below:

“I really found value in sitting with teachers and talking about strategies to use in the classroom, both for English teaching and general classroom management. I felt like this aspect makes my time there feel more impactful, and teachers told me they will use some of what we talked about or what they saw modeled in my lessons to improve their teaching in the future. This is really rewarding!”    – Carly 

“The students are really willing to learn, they are very active. After we say that we are students from Shanghai, they respect us and listen to us.”  – Jerry Ding 
“The students here are curious about everything, it will be very interesting if you can combine your life experience and the knowledge they need together. … I shared some of my college and high school experiences in Guangzhou and Shanghai with them, and some of the students felt inspired and came to me for more information. From this, I think the reason why I’m there is not only to teach them to speak more but more importantly to let them know how big and amazing the world can be, and why should they work harder to reach the world.”  – Stella Cai
“Volunteering with EGRC and Stepping Stones allowed me to see firsthand the transformational and life-changing value of education. I had a fantastic time and experience and would highly recommend it to anyone considering it! ” – Emmelyn Wu
“Stepping Stones allows volunteers to enjoy an enriching experience with children from rural China and to explore the difference between Chinese cities. I learned to prepare a course, explain and teach it to the students.” – Sebastien
“The highlight was on the last day when a student asked us if we could come next year. That was when I felt I succeeded as a teacher.” — “For me, I learned how to deal with kids. Before I always thought they are annoying, but now I find them cute and smart. For the kids, I think it’s good for them to have a relaxing learning environment and a friendly teacher, because they are too stressed out at school.” – Nevile Wang 

 

If you are interested in volunteering with us in rural areas, please click here for more information and here to register.

We support our new semester volunteers with onboard trainings!

The autumn has arrived and our volunteers have had the on-board trainings to start their lessons! In total six trainings have been rolled out to prepare our beloved volunteers for the classroom.

We are happy to announce that Stepping Stones has established a partnership with Shixingzhe based in Jiaxing. As we want to provide services to more children outside of Shanghai and partner more with other NGOs outside of Shanghai to increase our impact, Shixingzhe is an ideal partner aligning our mutual interest, motivation and mission to provide disadvantaged children with education. Thus, when the new term has started, we were happy to assist Shixingzhe to train their English volunteers to teach English to their lovely students at a local school for migrant children.

“About Shixingzhe: 

Jiaxing Shixingzhe Social Work Office coordinates between professional social workers to provide services for young people, and provides supportive services for them in the areas of employment, life issues, and emotional queries.”

Our training director Ross and program manager Sally started the training session with four areas for the volunteers to pay attention to:

1. commitment – what does it take to be a qualified teacher?

2.demo classes – a demo class of teaching Indonesian to show how it is for a beginner to learn a new foreign language.

3.teaching techniques – demonstration, modeling, drilling, eliciting, monitoring, refocusing and praising.

4. teaching practice – volunteers have a chance to do a demo class and apply what has been taught.

A similar training has also been carried out for our English teaching volunteers in Shanghai by Sally and our new volunteer trainer Claire. Now we cannot wait to see how these trainings help our volunteers in the new semester! Stay tuned!

What does our trainee say about the Videolink Teacher Training program? Read here Ningning’s testimonial!

Ningning’s Testimonial

I’m Ningning, a teacher from Hongbo school in Luyi. In 2017 it was my first year to teach English, so I was nervous every day and felt so much pressure on my shoulders. Fortunately, I received help from Stepping Stones and since then, I have changed a lot.

Desi and Ross trained us online. I have learned a lot through their training, such as how to teach students, how to stimulate their interest and so on. They gave me energy and knowledge so that I could become more and more confident. Thanks to the improvement of my teaching methods, the students fall in love with my classes. They don’t think it’s boring to learn English.

Later on, in order to improve our oral English, they set up an online Teachers’ English Corner for us. It is a good chance for us to meet someone from a different country and practice our English. Ross is so humorous and knowledgeable that we all enjoy his classes.

To our delight, our trainer Desi visited our school in person in June. We were excited to see her. She observed our classes as well as Videolink’s classes, and then gave us and the RT’s some advice on how to improve our teaching. With Desi’s help, both the volunteers and us have gotten better and better. What’s more, our students love our classes. Last but not least important, students’ parents are really thankful and support our work. Besides, we were all moved by Desi’s professional dedication and selfless contribution. During her stay, she was so hardworking and helped us a lot.

In short, Stepping Stones helps our rural children and us teachers so much. In return for their help, we promise to teach our students well and make them have a successful future. We also hope we can get more chances to keep improving ourselves. Our gratitude is beyond words.