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Lesley had the opportunity to be even more batty than usual in her favourite superhero's costume. Unfortunately, with no kevlar available locally, she had to settle for black velvet, matching her little feline companion. She spent a lot of the evening flapping around the room and getting in people's hair - sound familiar? I don't know why we didn't make this comparison before...

The seamstress also rustled up a couple of ghost outfits for Hou Wanxia and Nini, who ended up looking more like Guanying than a ghost! As well as being a great chance to let our hair down, the whole Halloween theme was a big cultural event in the College.

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VSO's Li Hongyan had a disconcerting 'peeling face' costume that looked particularly spooky under neon lights. Yanhui went as herself, not very scarey but much more practical for the musical chairs, where most of the masked competitors couldn't even see where they were going.

The end-of-course party was much more lively than the Jinggu-Mojiang party a couple of weeks earlier. Fancy-dress is definitely a sure way to break the ice and reduce people's inhibitions. We had disco dancing, ballroom dancing, party games and karaoke. No Scottish dancing, unfortunately, because we couldn't get the CD player working. Perhaps Lesley needs to get a little ceilidh band together for such occasions.

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Our 10-yuan pumpkin that took a whole afternoon to scoop out. A week of pumpkin soup, pumpkin curry and other variations on a theme awaits.
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Freda hiding behind a pumpkin flower pot to spook some passers-by.
 
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Lunch at our favourite Muslim restaurant
These days we are delighted to have two visitors from VSO - Li Hongyan, the Senior Education Programme Manager (left) and Wang Yanhui (second left), the Education Programme Support Officer. Hongyan and Yanhui arrived last night and got up at the crack of dawn to attend the teaching observations in No 4 Middle School, along with the TLT course participants. Tina gave the first model at 7:30, followed by Lesley at 8:30, after she'd dropped Edie at school. Hou Wanxia and Lesley led the observation feedback meeting afterwards and were pleased to hear some useful and poignant reflections. As the course draws to an end, we PIE trainers are making our own reflections on how it's going, whether it's a success and what challenges we face.

Hou Wan xia says: "It's the second time for us to have this TLT training and with the efforts we have made, it's much better. In particularl, Lesley rhas been re-writing the training materials and adding the Chinese translations for tasks and the general introduction for the course with the purposes and the goals and, in class, Lesley tries all kinds of methods to elicit the teachers' thoughts. This is very hard for our Chinese fellows to change their minds because changing means they will have to pay more attention to their job. They will deny what they have done in the past. It means they have to use a lot of time to prepare the lessons again and, of course, the big challenge for them is whether to change or not. Their biggest challenge is actually their attitudes to their jobs. Why should they change? Why should they work so hard with such poor pay? They think it's unfair on them. They are afraid of being pioneers, of trying something ahead of the others. It means taking a risk. What's more, most of the teachers have taught for many years. That means that every teacher has developed a set of habits in their job. It's not easy for them to change their ways immediately. They need time to think and to be pushed. Meanwhile, they need a kind of power from above, to tell them that they HAVE to do something. That is the way of our Chinese fellows."

 
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Consultation at Simao's paediatric hospital
Freda's been unwell again. It's been about three months now of good days and bad days, increasing to good days and bad weeks, with various symptoms that come and go. We're in a process of exploration, to try to find out what the root cause is. Following a recent lab test we know it's unlikely to be some kind of nasty bacteria in her gut. The symptoms seem to be too severe to be a result of tiredness alone although that's clearly now a factor. We've narrowed it down to either a virus (Lesley's dad was recently diagnosed with something after presenting with exactly the same symptoms) or some kind of digestive problem (though that would be unusual at her age) or, perhaps the most worrying or upsetting of all, school-induced stress. It could of course be a combination of all three. Thus, we're trying to tackle it from all angles. For months Lesley has been increasing her communication with the school to try to influence the way they deal with certain things - like their over zealous desire to put grades on everything the kids do, from bouncing a basketball to writing maths formulas. Since Freda and Edie entered the education system here Lesley has been tirelessly monitoring, evaluation and supporting or challenging everthing what goes on. Bare in mind that she spends her days facing students and teachers who have suffered a great deal in the said system, a fate she doesn't want to fall upon Freda and Edie. So far we have been pleased and the kids have thrived. Edie is still thriving and seems to thoroughly enjoying Grade 1. She has the advantage of being fluent in Chinese, which Freda wasn't when she started. Now it's time to take stock, again.

This has been a hard term, this week being the crux. Lesley has been negotiating her way through the school hierarchies to build relationships and find a way to communicate these needs in a non-threatening and constructive way. In a school system that virtually never invites communication with/from parents, this is a bit step to take. Nevertheless, the school have been very supportive so far. So much so they have agreed to have a meeting tomorrow afternoon with us, the Director of Studies, Freda's form teacher and her Maths teacher. Let's hope they want Freda to carry on attending the school as much as we want her to have a positive environment in which to learn. With that shared goal I hope we can get to the root of the matter. Of course, it might still 'just' be a virus....

 
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As the Chinese National Anthem got into full swing on Monday morning and the students raised the flag, Lesley was pulling on her satin, flesh-coloured pop socks - a sign that she really has been here too long? What is it about this 'look' that's just not quite what we're used to? We've pinned it down to discretion. Aren't pop socks meant to be the cheat's version of tights or stockings? They're a discreet way to cover one's skin but still have a semi-natural look. I'm sure that the band just isn't designed to be showing. Who knows? Podering these cultural idiosyncarcies and our own reactions to things is fun.

 
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When Edie gets out of school at 11am we usually pick up a zhutongfan, steamed rice in a bamboo tube, from this Dai nationality woman on the street outside. The sticky rice (and the odd peanut) is steamed over a charcoal grill - very delicious, and healthy!

Editor's note: Another sign that we've been here too long - losing our grasp on the English language e.g. "very delicious". Surely "really" is the preferred word, or just let "delicious" quantify itself. Any comments?

 
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Charles and Julia adding their arrows.
No, the trainees weren't shooting at me, though I'm sure some of them want to. Instead they were directing their attention to solving some teaching difficulties that they observed during the micro-teaching demonstration yesterday afternoon. After giving the teacher 'feedback sandwiches' [right], the group helped her identify some useful goals and targets to aim for in the coming month. These were: Give students clearer instructions and a model before the task; monitor the students during the activity. After agreeing on these the group then had to come up with suggestions for how to go about doing this. These methods were written on balls and arrows and added to our display. They didn't seem half as chuffed with the analogy/model as I was but then they haven't spent months of their life wondering how to make this course as interesting, useful and understandable as possible. I'm just hoping that these images will stick in their mind enough that when they have a meeting to run and are looking for some way to engage the teachers, they remember at least one way. So, if you have any more models for giving feedback and trouble-shooting, please send them our way!

 
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Ali visited my training workshop today to snap a few pictures but found it hard to catch me motionless. This picture was the best, with only one arm flapping up and down at high speed. I'll have to slow down....

The trainees are into their second day of full-on activities and are already coping better with the methods and requirements of the course. I'm trying my best to keep the structure of each session simple and logical, with key points written on the BB and translated into Chinese by the participants themselves. Nevertheless, some teachers are concerned that English is a barrier (even if they are all English teaachers) and gets in the way of them understanding. After doing this work for over four years however, I don't believe this is as big aThe main challenge for most teachers is their study habits. Even when instructions are given in Chinese (all tasks have been translated into Chinese in the workbook) and they have a clear model, many teachers find it difficult to fully complete the tasks - mainly because almost all the tasks involve thinking and reflecting. These are new study skills for many of the particicpants. It's convenient to say, "I can't do it because my English is so poor" but it's an easy way out that reflects the learning culture.  The fact is, I speak very little English in class and when I do it's usuallly instructions or simple questions, which I offer in Chinese if participants show signs of confusion! My response to the "my English is very poor" statement is: "If you don't understand, say so"; "If you don't understand, think about it more or discuss it with your partner"; "If you don't understand, ask the trainer to repeat the point or give a model." The difficulty the trainees have with asking a trainer to repeat something, or saying, "I don't understand" may well be culturally rooted. To put it simply, it's a cultural taboo to publically point out a teacher's weaknesses - and that is how a question might be interpreted. It might be like saying: "I don't understand because you are a bad teacher". Secondly, it may be taken as a sign of the trainee's own weakness or failing, like saying: "Look at me, I'm so stupid I can't understand what she means". So, if trainees don't understand, they tend to just sit and wait for someone else to tell them the answer, or for the trainer to write it on the blackboard. Another problem is habit. After 10+ years in education and similar leader-centred work environments, many teachers don't know how to cooperate, how to discuss and work together. Very often, when asked to have a group discussion, they sit and scribble away in their workbooks on their own. Making sure everyone understands is certainly a challenge, but only a small part of that is about the verbal language although this is always the excuse they fall back on. It's about culture, about habits, about attitudes, about behaviour. What really matters is what we do with the language, the context in which we use it, the part we play in trying to understand and trying to be understood. I'm trying my best to make this process as easy and effective as possible. This afternoon I'll have a chat to the participants about what THEY need to do to be more active learners.

 
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Course registration at the TDC
Team Leaders arrived from Jingdong and Zhenyuan on Saturday afternoon, ready to start their 7-day full-time training course at the College. Most of them made it to registration, where they picked up their course packs and completed a basic questionnaire about their teaching and training experience. All those wooden stools I've been bringing back from county school visits are coming in handy now. Meeting the participants on this first day is a useful way to gauge their levels of English, their communication skills and how 'tuned in' they are to what's going on. So far we've needed a fair bit of translation and hand-holding, but my hope is that they will gradually become more independent, active and communicative. It's a steep learning curve for many of the teachers, who have never before experienced such an open, interactive and participatory approach to training. I only hope we can make it a positive, if challenging, experience so that they feel inspired to adopt some of the ways themselves.

 
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Freda hard at work in the TDC
Child exploitation or job creation? Perhaps a bit of both. Freda was keen to come to the office with me today as I prepared for the TLT course registration. She offered to help with any "little jobs". I remembered there was still some data entry work from the last training. What better a person to employ than Freda? Her computer competence and confidence allowed her to get the hang of the Access database in about 5 minutes. Shortly later she was correcting mistakes in the column labelling and changing 'memo' formatting to 'yes/no'. I paid her 10 RMB for an hour's work (equivalent to a week's pocket money) and she was keen to do more. Assuming her homework's out of the way tomorrow I might just take her up on the offer. Ali and Edie turned up during registration and within no time were playing key roles - Edie colouring in Hou Wanxia's flashcards and Ali taking care of the registration fees. With Tina and Liao Xinli present too, it was quite a task force. Beware, if you come within three feet of the TDC in the next 7 days you're likely to be given a job to do and, unlike Freda, you're unlikely to get paid!

 
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Brunch in the bamboo cafe
Eager to get off campus before the second training course started, we all headed out of town for a walk. We caught the bus in the direction Da Zhai (east of Simao), getting off at the new campus to inspect the building work. Can't see it being ready in 3 weeks but who knows. Maybe they're planning on bringing in a few more thousand builders in the near future. We had some noodles and a drink in a roadside cafe catering for the workers. Three generations of women run the cafe where over 70 workers come for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It took them a day to construct the shelter, which is made from bamboo and plastic. It  might look temporary but it wouldn't surprise me if it's still standing in years to come, catering for the student market instead.

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Freda, Edie and Lesley at Xi Ma He.
Xi Ma He (Wash Horse Lake) is an old haunt that's changed a lot over the years - the amusement park has gone, the grotty old pool has been replaced with a grotty new pool, the rows of little shops and snack shacks have been replaced by a pretty paved walkway that delivers visitors to the horses on the lakeside. It's the first time the water has been high enough to cover their ugly, concrete bases. We joined a string of out-of-towners having their photos taken by the knight washing his white horse [centre/back]. We suspect the other three equine imposters were added later to liven the scene up a bit as they have a merry-go-round feel that doesn't match the original statue.