Our band of part-time workers were put to immediate use following their recruitment, preparing for our TDC Open Day. This was held on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, providing visitors with a wide range of photos, training resources and VSO leaflets to browse through. Vice-President Li was one of the first to attend, showing great approval for our efforts and offering us further support by way of money and resources. As in the early PIE days, it's necessary to demonstrate success before getting the back-up. This of course entails a great deal of personal commitment and effort - to stick one's neck out unsupported, with no guarantee of success - probably why many people don't bother. As we launched the Open Day, and our first official public appearance as a team, I knew that it was important just to show our willingness to cooperate, to serve the College community, to share our work. I'm confident that we achieved this aim. We shall have an open day once a month, to coincide with the publication of each new TDC newsletter.
Vice-President Xue Jingmei was one of the first visitors to arrive at the Open Day and enjoy the photo gallery and refreshments. The pictures impressed on the leaders the amount of work we have done in the last 4 years, in depth and breadth. We ran out of time to translate all the English captions into Chinese (one of our aims by the next open day) but the pictures spoke for themselves.
As well as the captions identifying the photos' locatinos and people, they provided an opportunity to explain many of our aims and values. This is an opportunity I haven't had in the past, given that teaches and leaders don't really communicate with me in any depth. What's more, remembering that the camera never lies, it was an opportunity to present a comprehensive and accurate picture of who has been involved in PIE and our other work along the way - the Dean of English, who has willingly swept up cash prizes and awards for her participation, was nowhere to be seen.
This is the TDC Open Day team, with Liao Xinli [left], who also joined in later on. Fly [third from left] is a Grade 3 student who wanted to learn a hand and spend some time together before we left. She made a great effort to interact with the visiting teachers, explaining our training materials and the merits of student-centred learning. It's very rewarding to see our students in action, demonstrating how much they have learned from the teacher training course and their teaching practice.
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