The volunteer teacher, Wang Yilin, was dressed in a simple and elegant manner.
She had a plain face, wearing a simple white shirt and tight jeans, with a Youth League badge pinned to her chest.
Her legs appeared slender and long, and her black hair was tied into a ponytail that hung over her shoulder.
“Everyone, please sit down quickly and stop talking. The class is about to start,” Wang Yilin said, picking up half a piece of chalk and tapping the blackboard.
“Stand up.”
“Good morning, teacher.”
“Good morning, students. Open your English books to the last unit, ‘My Vacation.'”
Wang Yilin wrote the title in English on the blackboard.
She was actually a music teacher.
Due to the shortage of teachers in rural primary schools, there was no dedicated English teacher.
Previously, other teachers had taken on the role, and when a volunteer teacher was available, they were assigned the task.
The young teachers had learned more English than the older ones, but the frequent change of English teachers meant that students barely got familiar with one teacher before another replaced them.
At the principal’s request, she became the English and music teacher for the fifth and sixth grades.
She had never traveled far, not even out of her province.
She attended university close to home and was a junior at Yue Normal University.
Being a music teacher suited her well, as she loved music and singing, and teaching was a stable job for a young woman.
The school had a volunteer teaching program as part of the Western Development Initiative.
After attending a lecture and seeing the pitiful pictures of left-behind children on the PowerPoint slides, she cried and wanted to follow in the footsteps of countless teachers who had dedicated themselves to teaching in remote mountain areas.
However, after a night’s sleep, she calmed down and wondered if she, who had been coddled all her life, could endure such a difficult environment.
Wang Yilin eventually chose a primary school in a small village in northern Guangdong as her internship site.
When she first arrived, she was troubled about what classes to teach.
She prepared diligently, considering whether to teach the national anthem or the recorder.
She even thought about the cost of the recorders, wondering if the students would be willing to buy them at just ten yuan each.
But all these worries turned out to be unnecessary.
She became an English teacher.
Initially, she was concerned that her English, which had barely passed the College English Test Band 4, might not be sufficient for the role.
However, she soon realized she had overthought it.
Before her arrival, even classes above the third grade did not have a single tape recorder.
How could students practice English listening and speaking without one, especially when her own pronunciation was not very standard, having learned “mute English”?
It was at her strong insistence that the school purchased a tape recorder for the two sixth-grade classes.
The school had planned to cover the cost with class funds, but Wang Yilin vetoed the idea.
A teacher who asks students for money as soon as they arrive would not leave a good impression. Moreover, these students were about to graduate.
If they paid for the tape recorder, they wouldn’t be able to take it with them.
Would they really buy it and then split the cost after graduation?
Good students didn’t need much teaching from Wang Yilin.
They already had a considerable vocabulary, like Wu Xinyu.
As for the poor students, some couldn’t even recite the entire alphabet of twenty-six letters. It felt overwhelming to know where to start.
Occasionally, music classes were also used to teach English, such as learning the English alphabet song, but the results were minimal.
She had been interning here for almost a school year, and it was nearing its end.
This made Wang Yilin feel a sense of frustration and a lack of achievement, which was different from the passionate teaching career she had imagined.
Wang Yilin also lived on campus.
Being young and getting along well with the female boarding students, there was no significant gap between her and the students.
They had common topics and languages.
They would go to the cafeteria together to steam rice, eat together, and even jump rope.
Sometimes she would invite the girls to her dormitory to listen to music tapes, help them with their English, and discuss their academic and life difficulties and worries.
Perhaps because of the small age difference, the students even talked to her about their romantic problems, which made Wang Yilin both amused and embarrassed.
She herself had never been in love, and the children nowadays…………………After going through the meanings and spellings of the words, Wang Yilin sat at the table in the reading corner, inserted the English textbook tape, paused after each word, repeated it twice, and had the students read along.
The reading voices in the classroom were uneven.
Many boys were clearly not reading aloud.
Where had their usual chatting voices gone? Girls were more trouble-free than boys these days, less mischievous, and more serious about studying.
Whether they learned well or not was another matter, but at least their attitude was there.
Among the female voices, Wu Xinyu’s was strong and standard, which was the only comforting aspect.
Although it had little to do with Wang Yilin, even if another English teacher came, she would still be excellent.
Sitting not far in front of Chen Qiao, Wang Yilin gradually noticed something was off. Chen Qiao wasn’t opening his mouth and was writing non-stop.
Wang Yilin had mild myopia and couldn’t see clearly what Chen Qiao was writing.
After going through the words once, she asked all the students to read and memorize on their own and then got up and walked towards Chen Qiao.
A whole page was filled with dense writing, which was definitely not about learning English.
Chen Qiao was one of the few good male students in English in the class.
He always sat upright with his hands folded during class.
Since he sat in the first row and his name was easy to remember, he was one of the students Wang Yilin remembered early on.
He scored only sixty points in the first monthly exam, barely passing.
In the midterm exam, he scored eighty points and stabilized at eighty to ninety points.
Although elementary school English was not very difficult and had to be learned from scratch in junior high school, it was still progress.
“Chen Qiao, Chen Qiao…………”
Seeing Teacher Wang approaching with an unhappy expression, Lin Na gently nudged Chen Qiao with her elbow to remind him and called out to him in a low voice.
However, Chen Qiao was already completely immersed in the world of the novel.
“Chen Qiao, what are you doing instead of paying attention in class?”
Bang—— Wang Yilin slapped the desk heavily.
Chen Qiao stopped writing and was stunned for a moment.
He subconsciously wanted to close his notebook, but Wang Yilin took it away first.
Chen Qiao didn’t expect that neither the head teacher nor the math teacher had noticed, but he was caught red-handed by the volunteer teacher Wang.
She would be leaving soon and usually didn’t pay much attention to the class affairs, turning a blind eye to the students.
At the beginning of the class, Chen Qiao had been paying attention.
He glanced at the words and saw that they were very simple, such as “study,” “Chinese,” and “sing,” which were common vocabulary.
Chen Qiao had at least passed the College English Test Band 4.
After all, one couldn’t graduate without passing it.
He had taken the exam several times, done several sets of practice questions, and finally passed with a low score.
Fortunately, he wasn’t one of those who scored 424 points.
Although he hadn’t used English for many years, when he was a small streamer and not trying to ride the hot trends, he would play some nostalgic video games, choosing different tracks.
He would opt for the English version if there was a Japanese version because he couldn’t understand the katakana at all, while with English, he could at least understand a small part.
Besides, Chen Qiao could also sing some English songs.
Now, he didn’t have the instinctive aversion and dislike towards English that he had during his student days.
Especially after being reborn, Chen Qiao had more determined and ambitious goals.
How could he not learn English well if he wanted to go abroad, date foreign girls, and bring glory to his country!
But elementary school English was something you either understood or you didn’t.
“I’m confiscating this for now. Pay attention in class, and I’ll return it if you behave well.”
Wang Yilin glanced casually at the words in the notebook.
The handwriting was decent, but there were just too many words.
It made her dizzy and almost triggered her trypophobia.
Wang Yilin sat back down on her stool and continued playing the words.
“I’m sorry I didn’t remind you loudly enough,” Lin Na said with a hint of self-reproach, fearing that she had caused too much of a commotion.
“It’s okay, it’s not your fault. I wasn’t paying attention,” Chen Qiao replied.
He blamed himself for sitting in the conspicuous first row.
If he had been further back, no one would have suspected anything seeing him writing furiously.
Getting his notebook back wouldn’t be difficult.
Chen Qiao read the English words aloud, his voice loud and clear.
His pronunciation was already quite standard compared to his classmates.
After all, he had watched plenty of foreign movies, and his experience gave him an edge.
In the past, Chen Qiao had been hesitant to read English words or recite texts too loudly, fearing that his voice would stand out and make him different from others.
He was afraid of becoming an outcast and only dared to blend his voice into the collective reading of the class.
Now, he was free from such meaningless worries and psychological burdens.
Hearing Chen Qiao’s voice, Wang Yilin nodded in satisfaction.
He could read, and he read quite well.
She felt even more convinced that she had done the right thing.
At this moment, she truly felt like a teacher.
Many elementary school students were very smart; they just needed proper guidance.
The bell rang to signal the end of class, accompanied by soothing music and a clear female voice over the loudspeaker.
“The eye exercises are now beginning. Close your eyes. Section one, massage the Tianying acupoint……………..””Chen Qiao, come to the office with me and carry the tape recorder,” Wang Yilin said.
Wang Yilin rarely asked students to help carry the tape recorder.
First, she was afraid they might drop it.
There was only one in the entire school.
Her salary was pitifully low, barely enough for daily expenses.
She could afford to buy one with her own money, but then she would have to give up buying many of her favorite tapes.
Second, she didn’t want to punish students.
Having been a student herself, she disliked that kind of teacher.
When she became a teacher, she swore not to be the kind of teacher who was disliked by students.
However, students who had just started to misbehave should be punished to make them realize their mistakes and turn over a new leaf.
“Yes,” Chen Qiao replied obediently, hoping to get his notebook back.
“Serves you right for not paying attention in class,” Wu Xinyu said with a smirk, covering her mouth.
She thought Chen Qiao had been caught by the English teacher for doing something with Lin Na during class.
Wang Yilin reminded her, “Xinyu, do your eye exercises properly.”
Before closing her eyes, Wu Xinyu was puzzled that Chen Qiao didn’t even glance at her, which made her huff and puff indignantly.