This past Sunday, Kate and I went and visited Lizzy, a student from the Chemistry Department, at her teaching practice.
Lizzy is particularly interested in English, so she spends a lot of time asking us questions and hanging out in the English library or cooking in Kate’s apartment.
During the last year of their education here, all of the students are required to go out for teaching practice for 5 weeks. It’s a bit like student teaching back in the States, although, to be honest, these students get a whole lot less practice in!
Lizzy had found a lot of students who are extremely interested in English and we went to a classroom to introduce ourselves to them. What followed afterwards was a flurry of photographs and “Hello”s.

After that, we walked around the city a bit, it’s Luo Cheng, a city that seems to be similar is size and development to Yizhou, but Lizzy told me that it’s actually considered to be a part of Yizhou. We saw a new building at the best middle school in town (not the one Lizzy’s teaching at). The classrooms looked really impressive (at least for schools in this area). We also saw some statues and the outside of what is apparently a museum. We didn’t go inside, but I thought it might have been interesting.

Monday morning, I met up with one of my former students, Melinda.
She took me over to XiaJian, an area of Yizhou that’s about 15 minutes from here if you take a bus. I got to see the school she’s at and meet some of the friendly teachers in the English Department. This school is significantly smaller than the one in Luo Cheng, but the surrounding area certainly is much more beautiful here.

After seeing the school, I got to see where the students who are doing their practice are living. They have rooms in an empty building where 4-6 of them sleep and live together in each room. I think Melinda said that there are 20 of them in the building. It doesn’t seem too bad, except that they only seem to have one working shower and Melinda said it doesn’t have any hot water! I don’t know how well I’d deal with that.

On the plus side, they are very close to the Liu San Jie Resort, a place that I think is quite beautiful. If I didn’t live in Yizhou, I’d love to spend a night there. The rooms look really comfortable and the grounds are gorgeous. It’s really quiet and peaceful. Over here, in the bustling bit of the city, we don’t get that kind of peace. Well, the best I get is climbing up the little mountain/hill at White Dragon Park near my apartment. However, I can still here the cars, loud music, and pig squeals from up there.