“I think at last, we understand one another, Frodo Baggins”. Faramir said that towards the end of the second Lord of the Rings film. And so it is here too. My culture course has not gone quite as I imagined it would. My first class, the introduction, was fine, but that was really just who …
Category: planning
Introductions (again)
Yesterday was my first class – the second-year culture class. For some reason, all students except freshers begin in week 1 of the semester. Freshers begin in week 2. Their classes will be pretty straight-forward I think; I intend just to do the same as what I did with my classes last year (the class …
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 …
Approaching the final weeks
Exam season is upon us…. Sort of. Our (and by our, I mean the foreign teachers) seem to be doing their oral exams now, as opposed to the Chinese teachers who do it in the final week. But they do a speaking exam whereby students have to discuss a topic. My classes are doing presentations, …
Making plans
I did not get the Renmin job. I found out after I had chased them again for an update. They were, in typically Chinese style, vague about the reasons why. I think it was partly because I don’t have much experience teaching writing, which is a big thing there, but also I got a Chinglish …
Rotting apples
On Tuesday night, a student who I knew from Senior 1 last year contacted me and asked if I was interested in helping her and her friends with their film (which I thought was for the RDFZ Film Festival but later I found out it was for an art project they were working on). I …
When it works, it works well…
This week has been a good week for classes. I have been doing job interviews/job fairs with the students and they all took to it really well. Even my small classes did it reasonably well. Last Friday afternoon I had to tell my afternoon students off for using their phones in class, but this week …
