Travel to Teach: China Volunteer Story

Daniel, 26, Holland

A day volunteering in China.

I get up quite early, around 6, as school starts at 7am. After grabbing something to eat at the bakery I ride for 5 minutes to school on a bike the school lent to me. I normally give 3 lessons per day: 7:00 - 7:30, 12:10 - 12:40, 3:55-4:25, and usually one more somewhere during the day so there's lots of time in between to prepare. At 11:00 the school provides a simple but good dinner.

Throughout the week, I teach each class once: there's 7 grades but I teach only 5 as the others have exams. In total, I have 18 classes and I teach the Oral English lessons of students between 12 and 17 years of age. It's possible to design one activity for the whole week and adapt it to the level of the students in each grade, as the main goal is to get them to speak more. In between lessons I can prepare for the next one and have a shared office with Internet access and printer.

In the evening, a teacher or parent usually invites me to a restaurant or their house for something to eat - so I don't have to cook myself and get to experience rural Chinese food and family life. I have no classes on Friday afternoon so can easilly get the fast ferry to the mainland to go to explore the city or a local town at the weekend.

In the school, I also spend quite a lot of time signing my autograph to the children that come to my office to ask for it - only if they can ask first in English of course!