In recent years, an increasing number of university student volunteers have provided online tutoring services to students from remote mountainous areas in the country, bringing knowledge to the students and remotely keeping them company.
Online tutoring services can be provided outside of the constraints of time and place and can solve problems that may occur during face-to-face volunteer teaching services, including inadequate teaching staff, limited coverage of the teaching services and a lack of variety in the form of teaching.
A volunteer from Shaanxi Normal University teaches students online. (File Photo/China Youth Daily)
Ye Sitong, a sophomore at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has tutored a fourth-grader named Wang Zenghai from a school which provides nine-year compulsory education in Chengguan township, Langao county, Shaanxi.
During the 2022 winter vacation, Ye and Wang together read the book "The Chinese Myths" and did exercises for half an hour every day.
"Although we saw each other online, we shared happiness and sorrow with each other," said Ye. “In the beginning, Wang called me 'Teacher Ye,' and as we became familiar with each other, he started to call me 'Older Sister Ye,' which made me feel good," Ye added.
Shaanxi Normal University selected 150 students to take part in the volunteer teaching program in Chengguan township.
Ye said that when communicating with Wang's mother, she found that the program can also help parents better educate their children as it built a bridge for communication between the volunteer teachers and the students' parents.
The online volunteer teaching program, launched in 2021, involved 10,000 students from 100 universities in China. It has provided high-quality educational resources for rural students and remotely helped rural teachers use information technology to facilitate their teaching activities.
Every Thursday afternoon, an online class is given to primary school students and students from teaching sites in Gaoling township, Du'an Yao Autonomous County, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, by volunteer teachers from universities across the country.
"The students look forward very much to attending the class," said Wei Deng, dean of a primary school in Gaoling. "The teaching content is rich and the teaching methods are creative, enabling the students to see a broader world and sowing the seeds of seeking knowledge in their minds," Wei added.
Chen Yanhui, who obtained a doctoral degree from Peking University, is the first secretary of Jiaquan village in Gaoling township. Chen said many of his classmates and friends who have volunteer teaching experiences still care about rural education after they entered the workforce.
Zhao Yanfeng, an associate professor at the School of Chinese as a Second Language at Peking University, is also a volunteer teacher and a counselor of an online volunteer teaching program.
"We have courses on many subjects, including calligraphy, music, classical poetry, science and etiquette, which can help improve the overall quality of rural students and teachers," said Zhao.
"The teachers are new, the knowledge is new and the way the classes are presented is also new. Through the classes, we learned about Confucius, had a virtual tour to the Forbidden City, and learned how to use writing with brush, ink, paper, and ink stone. We like the courses a lot," said Wei Mengsu, a primary school student in Jiaquan village.
