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"Simon says, touch your nose," Brendan Frentz said during an English class in a tent on the play ground of Lushan High School. "Simon says, touch your foot."

The school is providing shelter for more than 2,000 survivors of the magnitude-7 earthquake that hit Sichuan province on Saturday.

Canadian volunteer Frentz, 22, along with 14 other students and three teachers from Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in the provincial capital of Chengdu, set up a class for children temporarily placed at the school, the largest shelter in Lushan county.

The class began on Sunday afternoon in a tent that can hold about 40 students. However, organizers had received more than 200 applications by Monday afternoon.

The class has two sessions a day: from 9:30 to 11:30 am and from 2:30 to 4:30 pm.

Besides spoken English, the temporary school also provides psychological counseling, a sanitary and earthquake protection course, as well as basic finance curricula to students.

"My main idea is to divert students' attention from the grief and fear from the quake," Frentz said. "We mostly play games and sing songs, try to bring some fun to these kids, making them not think about the earthquake for now."

He said students from different age groups are mixed together, from 6 to 16.

"As a volunteer, I can't stay here too long. I'm skipping school to be here," he added.

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