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Showing posts from January, 2017

Finding my groove... Then Snow Men & Snow Balls

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Its been difficult, after how many years (lets not get into specifics) of working 7.30 – 5/6pm,  Monday to Friday, to get used to Friday afternoon being advised you may be doing 8am, or 2pm… or nothing one day, then a plethora of different classes the next day. Saturday is now Friday and Saturday, Sunday – who knows where Wednesday has gone. China… in my experience… sometimes lacks the level of communication between departments that I’ve become accustomed to, so I have needed to also get used to not knowing which class and what level I’ll be teaching from week to week. Well, I was after a bit of diversity in my career, and I’ve certainly gotten more than I bargained for. When I first considered doing TEFL I was so excited to teach wee ones, I envisaged myself surrounded by five years olds, creating dramatic stories about unicorns and panda’s and their journey to distant planets… I think its been clearly established that this is not where I landed. So… you can imagine my de

Bad Teacher 101

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So it was Christmas, a time for giving… a time for sharing… unfortunately, I think I may have unwittingly given… shared… too much… As a treat I showed my high school students a movie for their 40 minute class, and yes, maybe a treat for me. One class watched Scrooge, another… Guardians of the Galaxy, another R.I.P.D…. and for my favourites, THE CONJURING (they like a horror film, and watching it with them was like a rollercoaster! At some point the screams and ooo’s and aaaa’s resulted in other teachers running in to my class to make sure nothing was going awry). You’d think THE CONJURING was the most controversial moment of this years teaching experience (my favourite scene where a girl is swung across the room by an unseen ghost  while her father tries to grab and stop her!), and, if I were you, I’d think there was a line being crossed in allowing 15 year olds to watch an excellent, possibly one of the best, horror films… but I am not you, I am me, and I am the one who trump