Learning English with a native speaker is by no means a fresh idea for children in Chinese cities nowadays. It's possible to even find foreign teachers in some kindergartens, correcting the pronunciation of those kids who probably can't even yet really express themselves in Mandarin.

Move to those smaller cities and towns in other parts of the country, however, and having a foreign teacher is a dream for many students there.

Rebecca Kither and Katherine Leech, both from the Highbury Grove School in London, spent the past two weeks in the village near Yellow Mountain in Anhui Province, teaching English to local children and teachers.

Two weeks are far from enough for those children to learn a foreign language, but the two volunteers at least provided them with a chance to listen and communicate with native speakers.

"We had a fantastic time there," says Leech, 24, whose smile conveys her excitement at seeing a new world on her first visit to the country. "They are so welcoming and extremely friendly."

As it's summer vacation time, the local school organized special summer classes for the arrival of the two English teachers, selecting students from a mixture of grades and classes.

Kither and Leech, both have two years of teaching experience back home, had two classes to teach in the school, one class with 52 students and the other with 45 teachers. They taught the students in the morning then the teachers in the afternoon.

"We were very nervous at first. We discussed a lot," says Leech, who stayed in Shanghai with Kither this week after finished their volunteer job, "but later we found that they are more willing to speak when on stage. They have done a lot of written English. Now they want to do oral English."

The duo applied for the volunteer job in London, and were lucky enough to be selected and sponsored by Unilever.

Helping students improve their oral English and increasing their interest in not only the language itself but also the rich culture behind it were the key tasks Kither and Leech faced. They displayed a lot of photographs, newspapers and maps of England that they brought from London, and leaflets and cards as tools to help the students better understand.

"Our style of teaching is quite different (from what they learn from Chinese teachers), but they quickly got to used to it. We introduced them to the holidays in London, the different people and food, where we live and the schools," says Leech. "We taught a mixture of things about London and Great Britain."

Though most of the local students had never even been to the big cities in China, they have already learned some knowledge of London before the two teachers arrived.

"They know about Big Ben, the Queen and the basics of school days and also the uniforms that many students wear," says Leech.

"In the class, we also talked about Christmas and let students work in groups as well," she adds.

Comparing students in Yellow Mountain village and London, Leech says: "They are no different in terms of attitude. They share the same kind of enthusiasm."

When they gave classes to local teachers, the Londoners hoped to spread their interactive methods of teaching. "We taught some strategies, like how to teach without material," says Leech.

The two London teachers, surprisingly, both say they didn't feel "uncomfortable" with the food or the Ming Dynasty-style (1368-1644) village where they stayed. They just loved the place.

And the people in Huangshan obviously love them, too. During their two weeks' stay, they were all over the local press though much of it they didn't understand. The local TV station filmed them four times - upon their arrival, when they were teaching, when they appeared at a local English corner, and their farewell ceremony.

"We didn't have much time for travel this time," says Kither, who came to China once when she was a little girl. "We'd like to teach those students again, and we'd also like to see the beautiful scenery again."