My Olympic classes

My name is Ma Chunli, I am 24 years old. I graduated from Sichuan's Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in July of 2006, after which I took on a position as an officer in charge of administrative affairs of Anle Village in Shunyi District, Beijing.

Although the position is relatively small, the responsibilities are quite large. Not only do I lead the villagers in song and dance, enhancing the culture in their lives, I also teach them all sorts of information regarding the Olympics.

Once, soon after I first arrived in the village, a group of persons asked me if I could provide them with some information about the Olympics. I asked them why they wanted to learn this sort of knowledge, and they told me it was because they did not want to lose face once the Olympics arrived. The village is relatively near a large aquatic center that foreign athletes often come to visit. Shunyi District will host Olympic aquatic competitions, as such, during the Games, the villagers expect to see more foreigners in their neighborhood. The villagers don't speak much English, but they wanted to at least have a bit of information about Olympic concepts so that they did not appear completely ignorant to the foreign guests. Their response moved me so much that I began to do intensive research on everything about the Olympics.

On March 11 of this year, I took part in an Olympic training class in Shunyi District. All of the knowledge I learned there, I took back to Anle with me to share with the villagers.

I created "Olympic education" classes to provide information about the Games to the villagers, who were very eager to learn. Young and old, they came to my class to learn to speak key phrases in English, such as "hello," "nice to see you," "welcome," "good luck," and "goodbye." I adjusted the information disseminated according to the persons present in the class, with more detailed and intricate training sessions available.

Soon, these students were answering my questions about the Olympics quickly and easily. They absorbed the information as soon as I gave it to them, with a bit of effort on their part, pushed by the incentives I sometimes provided. In this manner, they almost unconsciously decreased their psychological distance to the Olympics.

In addition, about 10-15 minutes of the village broadcasting system is dedicated to Olympic education every day. Throughout all of Anle, people take in information about the Olympics as part of their learning, helping them to better understand, welcome, support, and participate in, the Olympic Games.

Engaged in learning about the Olympics