Friday 26 October

Students heading to classes
from the dormatory buildings

View from level 7 over the campus entrance, across the river
to apartments in the city

What’s life like at Quzhou Technical College?

We are two months into the semester and things have settled into a routine. The first year students can be seen taking morning runs around the college grounds; the campus is filled with the ebb and flow of students in 45 and 95 (double periods) minute intervals; the classroom bell rings 24 hours at 45, 5 and 20 minute intervals for the period starts, finishes and breaks in between. I’m almost used to this bell ringing at all hours of the day and night. Even during the holiday week of the mid-Autumn break it kept ringing – a reminder of where we are, and why.

First Year students in military fatigues
on their morning run

Dawn - the sun rising in the east above
the city across the river

Then there’s the not so gentle sounds in the dormitory building; of the students bouncing basketballs in the corridor, rollerblading, yelling loudly, talking on mobile phones and slamming doors.

I am constantly amazed how loud the students can be on campus, in the canteen and in their rooms,  and yet be so quiet when I ask them to speak in class.

The nicely tiled floors also very effectively transmit sounds from the floor above, so I never feel alone. We had two power blackouts in the last week which has been slightly inconvenient, especially when trying to print out class material – although the class bell never stopped ringing!

The classroom media control panel 

I’m now familiar with my timetable and classroom routines. Fortunately most of my classes are in the one room which makes it a bit easier.

The teacher's desk and control panel

I’ve almost memorised the media control panel (all in Chinese) and the equipment has been very reliable which also makes it easier to run the classes. I’m still probably spending too much time on preparation, but it really helps the classes run smoothly.

I’m now using a combination of the college workbook and other ESL (English as Second Language) resources to keep the students engaged, especially during the afternoon classes. I also had a cold this week which didn’t really help.

The video below shows the First Year students on their morning run.