6/8/2008 - Rotolo students get cultural awakening from Chinese teacher
By ERIC SCHELKOPF
Kane County Chronicle
BATAVIA – Rotolo seventh-grader Alicia Anderson now knows how to count to 999 in Chinese.
Anderson and her fellow Rotolo Middle School students this year have been learning about the culture of China from someone who knows it well – middle school English teacher Hongyan Sheng.
Sheng is from the Province of Shanxi, China, and is participating in the AFS Cultural Exchange Program with the Batavia School District.
During her time at Rotolo, Sheng has taught weekly lessons to the seventh and eighth grade band students.
“She taught us about food and music. She taught us how to count to 999 in Chinese,” Alicia said.
To repay the favor, the students on Tuesday performed a Chinese cultural concert.
Alicia said she enjoyed learning the music, which included a Chinese folk song medley.
“It’s just fun to play and it’s really cool with the gongs,” she said.
Sheng was impressed by how hard the students worked.
“They are really interested in learning new things,” Sheng said.
In China, the 28-year-old Sheng is a middle school English teacher at Shanxi Shelley Developing School, a private boarding school.
During the first few months of the school year, she was at Hoover-Wood Elementary School. Since January, she has been at Rotolo.
At Hoover-Wood, she shared ideas with teachers about culture, language and reading. She also visited the students and talked to them about the Chinese language, traditions and customs.
This is her first trip to the United States. But being so far from home has made it difficult to get information about what is happening in the wake of the 7.9 magnitude earthquake that has left thousands of people dead in central China.
Fortunately, Sheng’s family is safe.
“I just look at the Internet to find out news,” she said.
She has noticed some cultural differences between the two countries, most noticeably the way food is prepared.
“The food is very different here,” Sheng said. “Everything is cold – cold water, cold vegetables.”
She will return to China next month with good memories.
“The people are very nice,” Sheng said. “And the students know how to ask very good questions.”
This article was originally published here.
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