| Rachel Sterrett
Lanzhou Institute of Education
191 Yanerwan Road
Chengguan District
Lanzhou, Gansu Province
China 730020
Email: Rachel
Sterrett
Rachel was appointed in June 2005 to serve as an English teacher
through the Amity Foundation in China. After orientation and a
special crash course in teaching English as a second language,
Rachel will teach in at Lanzhou Education College in Lanzhou.
The Amity Foundation is a social welfare and development organization
started by Chinese Christians in 1985. Amity’s Education
Division helps place foreign teachers in rural teacher-training
colleges that would otherwise not be able to afford their students
the educational advantage of a native English speaker. Students
in these programs will one day be middle-school English teachers
in some of China's less developed areas. Amity hopes that better
English training will result in a higher percentage of rural students
being able to take fuller advantage of their tertiary education,
perhaps making some small dent in cycles of poverty that affect
those poorer areas.
“I am enjoying the learning
experience at St. Michael's College,” writes Rachel during
orientation in July 2005. “Learning about teaching English
with native Greek speakers makes for very interesting classes,
and the practice teaching with Japanese, Colombian, and Korean
students has been very rewarding. I look forward to beginning
my teaching in Lanzhou. I have been told that my primary value
as a foreign teacher will be my native ability in speaking English,
so most of my classes will probably be focused on practicing spoken
English. I will be teaching students who will be future English
teachers, since they are attending Lanzhou Education College,
where I'll be teaching. I am hoping to incorporate a lot of interesting
speaking/listening activities into my classroom, but I have not
received any information yet as to whether I will have a textbook
as well for my classes. I suppose I'll just have to wait and see!” |
