Today marked the first official day of me at English First. I woke up this morning and had my traditional breakfast at the hotel before going back to my room to take a shower and prepare for the day. It's the first day that I had to wear my navy blue EF polo shirt and khaki bottoms. I chose a really cute a-line skirt (which looking back on all the walking I did, probably not the smartest idea) and my brown American Eagle flats that I can stand to walk in. Around 11:00, I walked to the Andingmen station and boarded Line 2 going east to Yonghegong. At the Yonghegong station, I transferred to Line 5 and rode it all the way to the Beiyuanlu North stop. I walked out of the subway, which means I walked down two flights of stairs and up one before exiting out onto the street. Line 5 is predominantly an above ground subway line so we get to see the buildings that are in the area. One that I saw yesterday while apartment shopping was a Honda building. Since I had some down time before I had to report to my center, I walked around the North Star Shopping Center. They had a grocery store on the basement level, so I wandered around that, bought a bottle of water and a can of Sprite, and continued on to my center. I arrived an hour or so early, but I needed to set up my payroll so that my checks (and my apartment loan) can be directly deposited into my ICBC account.
At 1:00ish, my Director of Studies Laura, Center Director Becky, Senior Teacher Miles, and I walked across the street to an authentic Chinese restaurant. We ordered scrambled eggs with scallions, what looked like bokchoy (but the Chinese have a different name for it), a lamb soup, and a rib dish. Of course, we also had steamed white rice. All was absolutely delectable, and even Laura mentioned that I should avoid eating western food (i.e., McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut) for the first month that I'm here because I'd probably start relying on it and I would lose the experience. I totally agree since I didn't eat much of that while I was in the States. :)
My training today consisted of discovery sheets (finding information out about the curricula, the center itself, and the computer system) and observing two different Small Stars (SS) classes. The discovery sheets took forever because the computer had me logging in to another school's server. However, the two SS classes were the highlight of my evening. The first one was a group of 6-year-olds and the teacher had them sing a "Hello" song before getting into the lesson of articles of clothing. She brought out the puppets (Roddy, Kev, Mel, Ben, and Vic) and worked on saying hello, how are you?, I'm fine, how old are you?, and what's your name? The students really grasped onto the concept and she had a reward system in place so that if the student received three hearts on the Interactive WhiteBoard they would receive a sticker. It was wonderful to see how well they understood English even though they're so young.
However, my second SS class was the polar opposite. If I could describe that class in one word it would be "bedlam". The four-year-old boys were everywhere and Miles (the teacher) had to constantly remind them to keep their hands on their knees. He implemented the same reward system (three apples to get a sticker) so that seemed to keep them occupied. After singing the "Hello" song and working with introductions (using the puppets), we worked on colors - red, yellow, green, blue, black, and white - before sending them to the tables to make color books. They had to trace their hands with the colored marker that matched the page and color their hand in. There were five adults in the room and only 8 children, so it was pretty much 1-on-1. I sat at the end of the table and worked with two boys just making sure that they stayed on task and colored their sheets instead of themselves or each other. Around 8:40 we cleaned up the area, passed out stickers to all 8 students, sent them on their way, and went home ourselves.
Now, it's 10:30 and the latest I've stayed up since I've been in Beijing, so maybe I'm back on my normal sleep pattern. I'm exhausted, my ankles are swollen, and I'm ready for another day! I can already tell that this job will be rewarding at some times but difficult at others. I'll just have to weather the storm! I feel that I made the right decision and don't regret anything so far.
Blessings from Beijing!
Chantelle
No comments:
Post a Comment