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Home  >  China • Teaching English  >  The Bank of Becky's Class
Posted inChina Teaching English

The Bank of Becky's Class

Posted By Becky Ances Posted on September 30, 2011
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I’m teaching history this year, which is not my field of expertise. In fact, you could call me a history dummy. Oh sure, I know about, say, Lincoln’s assassination, but if you asked me the date of when it happened I have no idea. I’m not into things like dates and numbers. I prefer the stories of history, and the people of the past.
So that’s the way I teach the class. I know if I focus on events and dates it will be a boring class to sit through, and they will memorize everything for the test and promptly forget it afterwards. And what’s the value in that? Plus, I hate lecturing for two straight hours, so I’ve decided to run my class a little differently.
This week we talked about money. We use it all the time, but have you actually looked at a dollar bill or a pound recently? The amount of historical information on both is pretty intense. Take a buck out of your wallet. Right now. I’ll wait……
Now look on the backside. See the eagle symbol. It’s a very familiar symbol to all of us, but have you really looked at it? The eagle has an olive branch to symbolize peace (which you probably knew), but count the number of leaves on the branch, and the number of olives on the branch. 13. Then count the number of arrows in the eagles other claw. Also 13. Now look at the Eagles shield (unsupported by the way, to represent that America stood alone and wasn’t reliant on other nations.) How many bars? 13. And the explosion of little stars above the eagles head? Yep-there too. (The explosion represents that when the country works together any problems can be overcome or be “blown away.”) The number 13 (which represents the 13 original colonies) is all over the one dollar bill. And that’s just one tiny portion of history on a bill.
So in my class, after discussing all the details of all the bills from England and America, I asked the students to work in small groups to create their own bills. It had to include a bank name, some serial numbers and had to describe some history, either personal or world history. Then they shared their bills with the rest of the class and described the meaning.
The results were so cute and creative I just had to share them. Here are some of the bills.

These students created a nation called "Transportation Kingdom" and their bills represented transportation (in China) throughout the ages. They also go from man powered, to animal powered, to gas powered, to solar powered.

 
The Bank of Zhen ("Zhen" being the family name of one of the students) decided to make their bills different shapes to help young children learn shapes easier. Their theme also included little bunnies which represented a family unit of three.

One group was called the Animal Bank, and each bill had a different animal on it. I especially liked this crazy looking whale on a coin. Why did she chose a whale? "Because whales are lovely," she told us.

 
This is Love Bank giving their presentation. They arranged their bills from the first being childhood love going all the way to the last one, which was old people in love. The bills were really colorful, as you would expect from a love bank.

This group based their bank on each students English names. Lightning (the colorful bill in the front) ended up drawing a Chinese myth on his bill.

 
One group kind of free-for-all'd it and each did their own crazy design. This was Jorsen's bill which cracked me up. (Why is there a robot with a heart on it?" I asked. "Because I like technological things," he told me.)

 
Another boy (Silmon) made a colorful bill will a unique emblem on the back. He said it was actually the Chinese character for monkey, done in an artsy way. (Above the bill is the written character so you can see how it works.) Creative, right?

So maybe my class isn’t as valuable as a history expert teaching it, but I can say one thing; it is way more fun!
Students engaged, listening to each other and smiling? Teaching win!

Tags: creativity History class making money Teaching English
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I’m an American who has been living in China for more than a decade! This is my blog where I muse about all things China. Please also check out my YouTube channel “Badminton Becky” and my other badminton blog at www.badmintonbecky.com

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