Thanks Fish. Much appreciated!

Apparently we do have Powerpoint available here. A colleague who has moved to another college across the road this semester used it last semester in some of his classes. I will see him soon and bend his ear a little.

I hear you about how quickly you can lose the students through fiddling about, and yes I'll weigh up the amount of benefit they'll get from such presentations, against all the time and hassle involved in preparing and presenting Powerpoint presentations.

In my Audio-visual classes I didn't have a media-room. A couple of the boys (young men really) used to trundle in a TV and a DVD before class and help me with any problems I had. One boy was very conscientious in helping me with the technological aspect, but was considerably less active in the actual work activities during the class. By the end of the semester I had the use of the equipment down to an art. Thinking ahead? I find with most schools in China you have to think for THEM too (leaders, deans, and administrators et al). I have to anticipate problems on a far greater scale over here than I ever did before. I've never been so pro-active in my life since I've been working in schools over here. But, that's the challenge, and in a way I think it's been good for me.

That was an interesting point you made about giving them time to click into English mode. I had never thought of that before. I usually crash straight into groupwork at the beginning of class. No wonder they often look overwhelmed. Barely awake at 8am in the morning and teacher is waving his arms about ordering students into groups and demanding that they talk about a certain subject in English only, or else! You've definitely given me something to think about, Fish.

About worrying what they talk about, well, I would rather they talk about anything even if it's just about whether they're going to have Chicken or Fish for lunch (no pun intended), rather than they use Chinese. Do you think my demands are unreasonable? I usually have three basic rules for groupwork and when my writing students are involved in a writing activity. "Speak in ENGLISH, speak about the task at hand, and don't SHOUT at each other, your groupmates are only a couple of feet away from you at the most, and I need to sometimes catch what you are saying to each other".

Thanks for the encouragement Fish. "Coming up at a school near you (or somewhere in China), Yingwen's first ever Powerpoint presentation!" I pity those poor guinea pi.. oops!, I mean, students.