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Click the other links above for photos of former
students. Click "up" to get to photos of my
current
students.
Click here for some
photos of Kunming Medical University. |
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This is my last big class of post-grad medical students at KMU (fall 2009). About
half of them have continued to be my students in the spring, along with
about 80 sophomores (see below). |
On the left you can see my (Michael's) fall 2008 and 2009 post-graduate students. They
have the chance to take an English class in the first year of their
three-year medical school program. Actually, they are so busy in the
spring that their English course is only one semester, but about half of
them voluntarily continued studying as my students in the spring. I felt
honored that they love English (and appreciate my efforts) so much that
they would add this to their schedule.
Some of my students stay in touch for a long time after our class is over.
The photo below shows former students who came out to see us on a
2011 visit to Kunming (a year after we had left the city, and up to seven
years after teaching some of these!).
Vivian and I are humbled by the time these friends spare to continue our
relationship, especially when they are so busy with medical studies or
jobs after graduation. There is a Chinese saying that really seems true:
一日为师 终身为父
He who teaches me for one day is my father for life.
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Wednesday 8:30
a.m., Sophomores (Spring 2010) |
Wednesday 1:00
p.m., Sophomores (Spring 2010) |
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In the spring of 2009, I also got to teach three classes of sophomores on
the old campus.
In the fall of 2009 they moved to the new campus in Cheng Gong, where I
continued to meet a few of them. Left to right: Thursday 10:30
a.m., Thursday 8 a.m., Thursday 2:30 p.m. |
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Tuesday 8 a.m.
freshmen (Spring 2008) |
Thursday 10:30
a.m. freshmen (Spring 2008) |
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This photo shows Michael's fall 2007 graduate students--the
first class he taught at KMU. On the right, Michael poses with his five class
monitors, on the way to dinner together.
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These photos show Michael's first Kunming students
(2005-2006) at Yunnan Normal University Business School (YNUBS).
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Above, you see many of the young English teachers at YNUBS.
I
taught this group Advanced Writing once a week. They said I gave them too much homework, but it's impossible to
learn to write if you don't WRITE! Unfortunately, writing does take
a lot of time, and these teachers are under a lot of pressure to perform
teaching duties, continue professional development, and care for the
students in a variety of ways. I enjoyed teaching them, and have stayed in
touch with several for many years. It's too bad that we all didn't have more time to learn from each other. |
Michael also taught three freshmen classes of about 40
students each. This is class 1, with class 2 below.
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(above) Freshmen
Listening/Speaking Class 3 (2005-2006). These freshmen classes met with their foreign
teacher for 90 minutes per week. They say that all of their other classes
are taught in Chinese (even English classes), so many students have great
difficulty understanding the words coming out of a foreign mouth. If you
divide 90 minutes between over 40 students you only get about two minutes
per person, and that assumes that the teacher never talks (which is a poor
assumption in a listening class!). Still, students who worked hard made
progress as they built vocabulary and strained to understand spoken English
that they can't read at the same time.
More Photos:
Click here (or above) for former students in
Kunming, Xi'an or
Shanghai.
Student
Essays: Click here
to see student essays from former students about NPU, Chinese holidays, and
more.
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The big group above was Michael's junior class (which
actually met in two sections). |
