UNNC empowers English education in rural areas to promote educational equity

Known for her disciplined teaching style, Zhu surprised herself by enthusiastically acting out the future continuous tense during a demonstration workshop—arms stretched forward, one foot lifted mid-air—prompting laughter from fellow participants.

From 7 to 9 January, a team of English education specialists from Centre for English Language Education of the the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC)—John O’Hara, Virginia Parker and Yuan Yuan—traveled to Xingan County along the Gan River to deliver a hands-on professional development programme for local primary and middle school teachers. Their mission was to bring global educational resources and practices into rural classrooms in support of educational equity.

The UNNC team began as observers, sitting at the back of real classrooms to witness everyday teaching challenges first-hand. They spoke directly with students to understand their learning difficulties and gathered insights to inform the tailored training sessions that followed.

“The teachers here are deeply committed, but they face real constraints—limited class time, mixed student proficiency levels, heavy workloads and rigid curricular demands,” the team noted after observing several lessons. While English has been taught in local primary schools since 2001 and internet has enabled access to digital resources, practical innovation remains difficult to implement.

In response, the UNNC team designed workshops grounded in international best practice yet firmly rooted in local realities. Using existing textbooks as a foundation, they led interactive demonstrations and collaborative lesson-design sessions, helping teachers adapt creative strategies to their own contexts. A key feature of the training was its problem-solving approach: participants identified their most pressing classroom challenges—from managing large classes to engaging disinterested learners—and co-developed practical solutions through role-play, case studies and peer feedback.

Among the participants were both seasoned educators like Zhu, with nearly two decades of experience, and newcomers such as Tao Peng, a first-year teacher at Jinggangshan Mao Zedong Red Army School. Peng admitted that he had once believed group work was impossible in crowded rural classrooms—until the training showed him otherwise. “There are so many simple, low-preparation ways to make English fun and interactive,” he said.

This visit marked another milestone in UNNC’s Rural English Advancement Programme, launched in 2017 to support China’s rural revitalisation and teacher development initiatives. The programme was initiated by the UNNC Centre for English Language Education (CELE), and jointly sponsored by the UNNC Education Foundation and CELE. All workshops were designed and delivered by CELE teachers, drawing on their extensive experience in English language education and teacher training. Guided by the principles of professional capacity-building, targeted support and sustainable impact, the programme has delivered more than 100 activities, benefiting over 700 teachers across 300 rural schools nationwide.

As the training drew to a close, seeds of change had already begun to take root. Zhu plans to incorporate more movement-based games into her lessons, while Peng is designing an upcoming field trip featuring English-language scenarios. Although winter still lingers along the Gan River, a quiet transformation is under way—one that promises to bloom in classrooms across Xingan County in the seasons ahead.