The summer wind is mild, and time is just right. On May 31st, the "Words & Dreams" Volunteer Service Team from the School of Foreign Languages set off once again for Washan Community and Wenhui Road Community. Building a bridge with fun and holding a torch with passion, they led children on an amazing English exploration journey. The classroom echoed with children reading words aloud, filled with laughter from interactive games, and witnessed creative painting. In a relaxing atmosphere, the kids acquired new knowledge and unleashed their imagination. With childish voices and colorful paintbrushes, they enjoyed their unique English learning experience, while both the volunteers and children gained growth and warmth through mutual companionship.

Volunteer Teaching Journal at Wenhui Road Community

On Sunday, we arrived at the study room of Wenhui Road Community. When we saw children walking into the classroom with small schoolbags and greeting us loudly with "Hello, teachers!", our nervousness instantly faded away. Once all the children were seated, we started our class.

First of all, Wang Xinyu led the children to review the English words for days of the week. Considering the big gap in children’s English proficiency, she prepared syllable splitting and pronunciation comparison exercises. During the class, many children still struggled with spelling these words. Some mixed up Tuesday and Thursday; some could not get the stress right in Wednesday; several others were too shy to read aloud.

She slowed down the teaching pace, split each word into syllables and read them out step by step, highlighting the pronunciation differences between confusing words. For students falling behind, she approached them one by one to correct their pronunciation and encouraged them to speak up bravely. In just more than ten minutes, timid and unfamiliar children gradually read all the weekday words together in loud and clear voices, creating a vibrant classroom atmosphere.

Later, Zhang Yuqi launched a class on English colour words, focusing on red, blue, yellow, black and other basic colour vocabulary. She designed plenty of interactive games. For example, she pointed at the clothes everyone wore to practise words, and held colourful objects to start Q&A with children, helping them firmly link words with corresponding colours.

For shy learners with weak foundations, she slowed down her speech, practised reading with them individually and patiently fixed their pronunciation. For advanced learners, she raised small questions to guide them to expand their expressions. Every child was fully engaged. Less confident children dared to speak up and keep up with the class, while proficient learners deepened their understanding through interaction. Everyone felt the joy of learning English in a relaxing environment.

During the break, we turned newly-learned words into interesting games. Children took turns reading aloud, guessed words with flashcards hidden in palms, and played the "You Say, I Guess" game. Knowledge acquired in class was naturally consolidated amid casual fun. Kids raised their hands eagerly to answer questions, speaking earnestly with crisp voices. Even the sunshine became soft, turning the short break into a warm time full of knowledge and joy.

Next, Wang Yunran delivered a lively lesson on transport vocabulary to help children broaden their horizons and learn happily. With plain explanations and clear pronunciation demonstrations, she taught kids the English names of common vehicles. The classroom was filled with loud reading. Children listened attentively, repeated the words and quickly mastered new knowledge.

After basic vocabulary learning, the exciting "Train Reading" game began, heating up the whole class. Children stood up one after another and read words without hesitation. Every bold expression was heart-warming.

To further stimulate children’s imagination and consolidate what they had learned, Wang Yunran arranged a creative painting session. Kids rushed to the blackboard, picked up paintbrushes and drew their favourite vehicles with full creativity. Bright colours and childlike ideas filled the paintings. In this immersive experience of learning, reading and drawing, children gained knowledge and happiness, making the small classroom full of vitality.

In another class, Chen Yuhan took children on a fantastic journey of fruit and vegetable words. She started the lesson with daily conversations about favourite fruits and vegetables, leading smoothly to the class theme. With vivid pictures shown on the screen, the classroom turned into a mini fruit and vegetable garden.

She clearly distinguished fruits from vegetables with simple language. Children learned fruit words including apple, pineapple, watermelon and mango, as well as vegetable words such as potato, onion, cucumber, mushroom and eggplant. They read the words repeatedly and practised writing them down. Then they competed fiercely in the flashcard quiz.

In the classification game, children pasted mixed pictures into correct categories and finished the task successfully. During the "I Say, You Point" game, they reacted quickly and picked out the matching pictures accurately. At the end of the class, everyone tried to express themselves with the sentence pattern "I like...", firmly memorising new vocabulary in casual oral practice.

We came to this community volunteer activity with original aspirations and returned with countless touching memories: children’s loud chants, cheers in the reading game, imaginative paintings, and lively quiz sessions during breaks. All these small moments made the volunteer teaching unforgettable.

In the future, the "Words & Dreams" Volunteer Service Team will keep moving forward. They will build a bridge with language and light up children’s interest in English with interesting lessons. They will guard every child’s innocence with tender company, gather small rays of light into bright starlight, and plant seeds of knowledge and warmth in young hearts. The volunteers will fulfil young people’s social responsibility with practical actions and pass on the spirit of volunteerism from generation to generation.

Volunteer Teaching Journal at Washan Community

On Sunday afternoon, we headed to Washan Community. With well-prepared courseware and full enthusiasm, we carried out English volunteer teaching. We used listening activities, seasonal dialogues and preposition challenges to bring children brand-new ways of learning English, sowing the seed of enthusiasm for study amid companionship and laughter.

At the beginning of the class, Xie Xiaole designed a birthday-themed listening lesson. Standing in front of the projector, she presented the exercise "What will Oliver have? Listen and tick", guiding children to listen to the recording and choose the right answer with lovely cake pictures as visual aids.

Some children felt intimidated by listening exercises at first. She slowed down, broke down the dialogue sentence by sentence, and set a small reward: kids who gave correct answers could become "Listening Monitor" for the day. Children became highly motivated. Even normally quiet students raised their hands, stared at the screen and finished the exercise carefully.

Then Li Mengdi hosted an interesting lesson about four seasons. Centred on the topic "Which season do you like best?", she showed four illustrations of spring, summer, autumn and winter and encouraged children to talk about their favourite seasons and reasons in English.

Most children only answered with single words at the beginning. She then taught them basic sentence patterns such as "Spring is warm" and "Summer is hot". Some children were invited to act out seasonal activities: fanning themselves in hot summer and rubbing hands to keep warm in cold winter. The activity room was filled with laughter. Children gradually became brave English speakers. One student volunteered and said proudly: "I like autumn best. The leaves are yellow!"

After that, Li Chunhe held an "English Party" themed lesson, focusing on reading an English activity notice. Pointing at the poster of the English Party, he patiently explained the time, place and event arrangements. Students circled new words and read sentences together.

To make the text easier to understand, he rewrote sentences into school-life scenarios. He changed the date "April 12th" to familiar months for kids and replaced "Gym" with school playgrounds. The unfamiliar notice turned into a relatable daily text. Children read along actively and raised questions whenever they got confused, maintaining a focused yet relaxed classroom atmosphere.

In the last session, Liu Jinxu organised a challenging quiz on time prepositions: in, on and at. He made colourful word cards and used month cards, clocks and calendars to help children tell these prepositions apart.

Many students mixed up "in February" and "on Tuesdays" at first. He then summarised the rule: use in before months, on before days of the week, and at before exact time points. He also created sentences based on children’s daily life, such as "We have class at 8 o’clock". Children read aloud and volunteered to fill in blanks on the screen, turning dull grammar exercises into an exciting preposition contest.

When the class ended, children surrounded our team members and handed us small notes with "Thank you, teacher" written clumsily, together with hand-drawn cakes and suns. Faced with kids’ bright smiles, all volunteers felt deeply warmed: "We designed every courseware and game just to make children realise that English is easy and fun."

From repeated revision of teaching plans to flexible rhythm adjustment and patient tutoring for every student in class, these lessons fully embodied our passion and devotion to volunteer teaching. We build bridges with fun and accompany children on their learning journey, turning English knowledge into something children are eager to explore. Through constant interaction, we truly understand the responsibility and warmth of young volunteers.

Small lights gather into a torch, lighting up the road of dream-building. Members of the "Words & Dreams" Volunteer Service Team from the School of Foreign Languages will carry on this warmth. With vivid lessons, they will keep inspiring children’s passion for learning and let youth shine brightly in voluntary services.

Photographers: Wang Xinyu, Zhang Yuqi, Li Mengdi, Liu Jinxu

Writers: Wang Yunran, Chen Yuhan, Xie Xiaole, Li Chunhe

First Review: Niu Luo

Second Review: Chi Yingjuan

Final Review: Yu Jiang