Nine Teachers from China visit SJA

Saint Joseph Academy hosted nine teachers from Qingdao Number Two Middle School in Qingdao, China, on Wednesday, December, 16, 2009. "This teacher's forum allows us to exchange ideas on teacher training, language teaching and to establish a sister-school partnership between the schools,” according to Saint Joseph Academy principal Audrey Menard.

This was the second year that teachers from Qingdao Number Two Middle School visited Saint Joseph Academy. Their school is the Chinese equivalent to a U.S. High School serving 16-19 year old students. The school has about three-thousand students and there are 55 students per class. Last year eight teachers came to observe teaching methods and practices. They also had time to visit Mrs. Xiabo Sun who was here at Saint Joseph Academy on a grant that provided teachers of critical languages to U.S. schools.

This year, the teachers were given tours of the school by our Chinese 3 students and observed Mrs. Xuan Liu, who is permanent faculty, and visited her Honors Chinese 3 and Honors Chinese 4 classes. Mrs. Liu grew up in Nanjing, China and received her undergraduate degree at Xiao Zhuang Normal University in Nanging. She recently graduated with her Master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction Design from Cleveland State University.