A Letter to the Highlands Community

Dear Highlands Community,

The applicant pool of teachers wanting to teach Chinese in America was outstanding. There were eighty-eight teachers vying for positions in six schools. The first day of interviewing, we split up into teams so that we could interview about seventy candidates. Each team interviewed half of that in one day. The next day we saw the remaining eighteen and began second interviews with a selected twenty-five teachers.


By the end of the interviewing, we were all exhausted but also exhilarated because we knew that all of our schools were going to be able to have excellent Chinese teachers next year. I am thrilled to tell you that I have asked two teachers to join us, each in a slightly different capacity.

The first teacher is Xiang Ping. Ping grew up in a village and was so smart, and her parents wanted her to get a good education. So, they sent her to boarding school at the age of twelve in Hubei Province. (She is very independent!) She received her bachelor's degree in "English Language and Literature" at Beijing Normal University, one of China's top universities. She has been trained this year in a program called "Chinese Language Teaching Overseas." She has some teaching experience and tutoring experience.

Xiang Ping is a kind, graceful, confident, and humorous young woman, twenty-three years old. Her eyes sparkle, and she smiles a lot! Xiang Ping will be teaching Chinese to the students in kindergarten through middle school using an exploratory language model. She will also be working with our other teacher with parent and community education and outreach.

Our second teacher is Zhan Huini. Huini's father was an English teacher in China, so she grew up learning English at home and later studied it at school. She received her bachelor's degree in Preschool Education at Beijing Normal University and has trained this year in the program “Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language."

Zhan Huini is a bubbly, energetic, confident young woman of twenty-two, full of good ideas about working with young children. She has worked in camps with young children teaching them English during their spring and summer vacations. Huini will be teaching Chinese to the preschoolers and will visit with the children in the Family Center to expose them to some Chinese greetings and songs. In addition, she will work as a preschool associate teacher and work in the Extended Day Program with the preschoolers in the "Lunch Bunch" leading them in some Chinese related activities such as games, songs, and crafts two to three times a week. She will also help with parent and community education and outreach.

My American friends and I visited the American Embassy today to ask them to help with the visa process when these teachers apply. That is the next hurdle for these teachers, but we expect that everything will go smoothly.

Before arriving in Birmingham in early August, our two China Connection teachers will receive acculturation training in Beijing and in San Francisco.

Many thanks for all of the parent support as we extend our knowledge of the world and help our children learn about China with two fabulous teachers!


Kathryn