About Books4Cili
We are building 
an English Language Library at a high school in China…will you help us!?
-PAUSE-
Books4CiLi is in transition right now. Jon is back in America and Frank is now in Changsha. There are two new volunteers at CiLi YiZhong who will be working on the library/updating the site. Please stay tuned!
-UNPAUSE-
We are Jonathan Hall and Frank Hoban; Oral English teachers at Cili Yi Zhong (次里一中), one of the top Senior Middle Schools in the Zhangjiajie School District of China’s Hunan Province. We teach Senior 1 and Senior 2 students, which is about the equivalent of Freshmen/Sophomores/Juniors in America.
Great emphasis is put on the learning of English across China’s school system; it is often referred to as the “Language of Money” or “Language of Business”. For Chinese school children, who are by law the sole child of their family, the pressures of learning English are compounded by familial pressures to succeed in all areas of the classroom so they may be a proud reflection on their family and one day able to support their parents. Additionally, these students are in class every day of the week: Monday-Saturday, 6:45AM – 9:30PM; Sunday, 6:45AM-12:00 and 6:00PM-9:30PM. This strict schedule could be overwhelming for any adult, let alone a teenager. Through all of this, our students continuously ask me for English books to improve their English reading and speech skills – We have never seen students so driven to learn.
To satiate our students’ never-ending search for knowledge, we have decided to create an English library as a sort of sanctuary at school. This room will be covered in pillows and comfortable chairs and the walls lined with English books and magazines – everything from The Cat in the Hat to Lord of the Flies to Sports Illustrated. We want students to be able to get away from the craziness of their typical studies and relax with a good book, while improving their English at the same time.
Your help is invaluable to our students and greatly appreciated. Please visit the “How To Help” page for more information or feel free to contact us (email below). Thank you for stopping by!
Jonathan Hall and Frank Hoban
Books4Cili@gmail.com
Hunan Province, People’s Republic of China
Tricia
April 1, 2010
Looks great! Keep up the good work! We love you!
Guy
April 5, 2010
Looks good. Easy to navigate.
I remember those days when I went to class from 6:45 am to 9:30 pm 6 days a week. Ah……
Beth
April 11, 2010
Jonathan – I want to help and when I get home I will e-mail again – am in prague – great idea and good work – Beth
Ninh Nguyen
May 10, 2010
Jonathan,
Great to see you’re taking such an active role in teaching. Laine is putting a package together on behalf of AW. I found 12 books from my personal library that are great classics from my English classes. Hope all is well.
Take care,
Ninh Nguyen
JonBHall
May 10, 2010
Ninh,
Please give a massive THANK YOU to everyone at AW. I had my own doubts, but it is looking more and more likely that’ we’ll hit our goal! All the best.
—-
Jonathan
Molly Meiners
May 27, 2011
Jonathan,
You should post your cause on Crowdrise.com! It is an awesome giving website that combines crowdsourcing with grassroots fundraising. Check it out!
Molly
JonBHall
June 6, 2011
Molly, thanks for the heads up! Amazingly, we have succeeded beyond our goal and there are now two new volunteers at our school. They are working to outfit the new library room that the school gave us and make it a warm and inviting place for the students to learn. Thanks again for your advice – Crowdrise.com looks like a very useful tool for smaller projects like ours!
—
Jonathan Hall