A few months ago, during a Skype conversation with my parents, they asked me if I had plans for summer. Other than lesson planning and Chinese lessons, I told them I did not. They then asked whether I would like to join them going somewhere for the week? I said sure, and later found out …
In praise of … praise
It is always nice to receive positive feedback. My students have the opportunity to fill in online comments about their teachers. This is all done in Chinese, but Google translate browser extension translates the Chinese into English. Not everyone has filled in a comment, but it is interesting to read those that have. Maybe because …
Home at last
I returned home at the end of June. It was nice to leave the heat of Beijing, and the weather in recent weeks in the UK has been pretty good. Before I depart to Scotland for a week’s holiday, a friend (in China) asked for an update on life back in Blighty. Brexit has been …
From one end of the campus, to the other
Despite the poor quality of the exam this semester (as well as last), one of the things I have noticed, which makes me smile, is when all the students hear the answers and them down, at the same time. For reasons beyond comprehension, there is no question paper for each individual student. Instead, the questions …
Better but not great
This week, the students have been doing their listening exams, and whilst the exams are a vast improvement on last semesters in terms of the level and quality of English, there are still a few errors. For one thing, some of the instructions have clearly been copied and pasted in, as there is the same …
Birthday stuff
It was my birthday this week. Like last year, I had class on the day itself, although this time I was not listening to Senior 1 students’ exams, telling me about their favourite things or what they would do with £1 million. This year, I gave my class a quiz. I did something similar at …
Can you give me an example?
My Chinese classes have recently become a lot harder. We have been focusing on more nuances of grammar, which I guess is good, because it means I am advancing, but it is also more difficult and confusing. For example, in my last class, we looked at gǎi 改, huàn 换, and biànhuà 变化. They are …
