Naomi in China
This was sent in an email last week from Naomi who was on the Edinburgh weekend course on 6/7 December 2008. She is now teaching in Beijing and loving it by all accounts, have also put up the pictures she sent with the email. Joe
Hiya Joe!
I just saw your e-mail there but thought I'd drop you a message anyway and let you know how I was getting on. China is amazing! Still getting the hang of teaching some classes, the Basic level practical application classes are the worst because they hardly know any English but found some of the role play stuff I picked up on the TEFL course has come in handy to get through them. I'm loving doing the Conversation Classes. Get a right mixture of people turning up from school age to older business men who want to practice their English. They are all mixed levels & it's challenging yet fun thinking up of topics and preparing hand-outs for them. We usually end up having a good laugh!
Most of it I'm picking up as I go along but a lot of the classes here have files of what you are supposed to be teaching them so that helps a lot. You never usually get classes of more than 12 students unless it's a conversation or social talking class as they are open classes. A lot of the classes are private as well which means you get about 4 students so you can spend more time with each of them individually. The school is going to be giving me complimentary classes soon on a topic of my choice. So I'll be doing that once a week. Still racking my brains to think of a topic to do so any suggestions welcome. Just had my first chinese lesson today, that was just learning the alphabet. Think it's going to take me a while to get my head around the language!
Since I've been in China I've already spent a week in Beijing as I was off for Chinese New Year. Saw a lot of the sights and fulfilled one of my all time ambitions - to walk the wall! I've also been to Hangzhou and seen the beautiful West Lake. Am planning on going up again and seeing it all properly when I have more time. Am only 300km south of Shanghai so it's on the list of things to do as is a trip to Hong Kong imminent. I have to return to the UK in June for my Uni exams. I don't know what my plans will be after that. Either come back here or pick up a job elsewhere. The long term plan is to save up as much money as possible so I can go travelling around the rest of the globe. Be as well doing it now while I am young!
Anyway I seemed to have rabbited on a bit now, lol! Hope it's not too cold for you back home! I've included a couple of pictures if you fancy having a look (You may recognise Bruno from one of your TEFL weekend courses in Inverness as well!)
All the best!
Naomi (Edinburgh 6th-7th Dec 2008 weekend TEFL course)
