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• You are here: Home | AV Ventures | China Venture | Itinerary

Itinerary - Africa and Asia Venture

Itinerary

ARRIVING IN CHINA

The group flight departs from London Heathrow and you will be seen off by one of the AV team. You will fly into Shanghai where you will be met by our China representative, and continue your journey on the World’s fastest train to Hangzhou, said to be China’s most beautiful city.

BRIEFING AND ORIENTATION

After settling into a hotel next to West Lake you can enjoy a number of activities to help you get to know our staff, China and the other volunteers better, such as a welcome banquet, Karaoke night, boating on West Lake, and a trek through a stunning bamboo forest.

Over the four days we will cover:

• Some of the cultural and historical background to the modern Chinese society.
• Ideas for teaching and practising English.
• Safety issues.

It is a chance for you to ease yourself in to China, as at first, the pace of life here can be a little disorientating! Our Western and Chinese representatives will be on hand to help with everything, from getting registered at the police station and hospital to showing you all the places you’ll need to know about in Hangzhou.

MANDARIN COURSE

After your orientation you’ll move in with a local family and study Mandarin intensively for four weeks at the Pro-Mandarin Academy alongside your fellow volunteers with no more than six pupils per class. There’s an average of 4 hours of Mandarin tuition per day, 5 days a week, allowing you to grasp a usable level of spoken Chinese, which will be essential for your time spent volunteering.

The teaching style at the Pro-Mandarin academy is modern and progressive in its approach, with students being placed in practical situations to learn oral Mandarin, and classes often being moved outside the classroom to locations such as local food markets or the banks of West Lake. At the end of the month, you’ll receive an internationally accredited certificate proving a competency in Mandarin (HSK certificate).

Outside of the classroom, you’ll be offered free cultural experiences (e.g. Tai Chi and Kung Fu lessons), and will have plenty of time to see the other volunteers and new Chinese friends in the evenings and weekends. There’ll even be time to earn £10/hour doing private English tuition if you want to earn some extra money for your travels during the program.

THE PROJECT

After the welcome period and month spent learning Mandarin, you will be sufficiently prepared to volunteer and head a little deeper into the real China. You’ll move on to the Hope Primary School, located at Jiang Jia Zheng in the Thousand Island lake district, three hours from Hangzhou. The school provides accommodation and education for children aged 7 to 15 who are extremely bright but poor. The school is located just 20 minutes from stunning Qiandao Lake, and only a 10-minute taxi ride from a small city with modern hospitals, supermarkets and bars.

Our gap year projects and volunteering opportunities in China give you the chance to teach English two-three hours/day, and you are encouraged to get involved in other areas too, for example playing sport, and organising after school clubs for music, drama, etc. During your time volunteering, you’ll stay in an apartment on the school grounds, and three meals a day will be provided by the school canteen.

At weekends you could arrange sports or English language events for the children. We also encourage you to travel to the surrounding areas. Popular weekend destinations include, the Hot Springs in the mountains just outside Ningbo, the water town of Shaoxing, said to be the Venice of the East, and of course Shanghai, one of the World’s most cosmopolitan and exciting cities.

To find out what a typical day on project might be like take a look at our ‘Day in the life of an AV’ feature, written by AVs who have been there and done it themselves!