Springtime in Shandong

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MEDIA RELEASE

May 19 2008

Springtime in Shandong

Wintec tutor Richard Lawrence and his colleagues observed three minutes silence today in memory of the victims of the earthquake in Sichuan province in China. While Wintec has close links with several tertiary education organisations in China, the link was a little closer for Richard who is currently working at Shandong University of Technology.

Shandong University of Technology was founded in 1956 and was one of the first public colleges certified to confer the bachelor's degree by China 's Department of State. The university is under the direct leadership of the Shandong Provincial Government and is located in Zibo city where the ancient and profound Qi culture originated.

Richard will be at the SDUT until the end of June and says while his role as an English language teacher is challenging, it is also extremely rewarding.

“The corridors and classrooms are quite 'echoey'. So the combined voices of students singing 'God of Nations' and 'Pokarekareana' sound quite impressive,” he said “I’ve been writing little dialogues, for practice of particular sounds such as Can you measure pleasure? Yes, you can measure pleasure at your leisure.”

For three months Richard is teaching students prior to their departure from China for full-time courses at Wintec in Hamilton. Richard is a Learning Designer who has worked with Wintec’s Curriculum Factory writing courses and curricula and who has vast experience prior to that teaching English to speakers of other languages, in Hamilton.

“It’s a privilege and, a lot of fun,” he said.

Springtime in Shandong is Richard Lawrence’s blog name and he maintains an extremely interesting page which can be viewed at http://richardinzibo.blogspot...com/

ENDS

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