Day 9 -Tuesday
Whenever I thought of Christmas, sparkling colourful lights on decorated houses in neighborhoods, snow covered tree tops, walking in crisp cold air on the street and families gathering to celebrate this wonderful season would come to my mind.
Celebrating Christmas in July? This is a little unusual. But my teaching partner and I were determined to share the wonderful Christmas spirit with our students in this poor remote mountainous region of China.
Following our curriculum unit on Canadian customs and festivals, we taught our students some Christmas carols and tasted some snacks from Canada.
I brought a small artificial Christmas tree from Canada and set it up with some decorations for the class. I shared and explained to them about the traditions of the festival related to the birth of Christ and gifts giving to families and friends. My students were curious and interested in learning about the west.
The night before, my teaching partner and I got all the gifts packages ready so that we would have a gift for each of our students in our class.
Whenever I thought of Christmas, sparkling colourful lights on decorated houses in neighborhoods, snow covered tree tops, walking in crisp cold air on the street and families gathering to celebrate this wonderful season would come to my mind.
Celebrating Christmas in July? This is a little unusual. But my teaching partner and I were determined to share the wonderful Christmas spirit with our students in this poor remote mountainous region of China.
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| We did crafts activities related to Christmas. |
Following our curriculum unit on Canadian customs and festivals, we taught our students some Christmas carols and tasted some snacks from Canada.
I brought a small artificial Christmas tree from Canada and set it up with some decorations for the class. I shared and explained to them about the traditions of the festival related to the birth of Christ and gifts giving to families and friends. My students were curious and interested in learning about the west.
The night before, my teaching partner and I got all the gifts packages ready so that we would have a gift for each of our students in our class.
Today, we had a regular morning and did our English activities. Honbria and I wanted this experience to be a big surprise for our students. We were able to sneak in all the gifts into our classroom without anyone seeing them.
At 11:30am, Honbria took the students out to the field for a few minutes while I set up the classroom. I moved the Christmas tree to the centre of the classroom and placed all the gifts under the Christmas tree.
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| I brought a Christmas tree from Canada and decorated for my students with gifts around the tree. |
As soon as I finished setting up, the class came back. As the students filed into the classroom, they squealed with delight when they saw the gifts waiting for them.
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| For all my students, this was their first Christmas gift! |
As each one opened his/ her presents, each expressed excitement, anticipation and delight. Some clutched their gifts; happiness and gratefulness written all over their faces.
We had a lot of joy watching our students receiving and opening their gifts.
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| Seeing my students excitement, I felt happy too! |
Looking at my students' excited and delightful expressions, I felt very satisfied and happy.
It was worth all the efforts preparing the gift for them. I considered it my privilege to be the one who could share with these students the experience of Christmas and their very first Christmas gifts!
R.T.
Guangxi, China
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