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June 29^th – July 1^st

            On Monday Tabbi, Sam, and I (the new teachers) went to the Maryland Language Institute, our new place of employment….how exciting! We didn’t start teaching right away; instead we shadowed the old teachers for a couple of days. I was so glad to get with Rebeckah and Adam and watch them teach a class or two because I feel so unprepared. My training with ILP was like drinking from a fire hydrant—I received so much information in so little time, definitely not enough time for someone to feel qualified in teaching his/her very own class.

Alright, so my first thought as I walked into the school, ‘overwhelming!’ Everything seemed a bit disorganized and in disarray, but after a few days in the job I am feeling much better. I will be teaching the 2A 1 and 2 classes (basically second graders; age 8-9). I will also teach 7A’s (age 14-17) and the SPE’s (the beginning class; age 5). Oh man, everything ILP taught me for the older kids is out the door, basically I just get to jump into things and do what I want. I just need to cover spelling, grammar, and writing. With my 7A students (luckily there are only three of them) I pretty much make up my own curriculum because this class has never been taught before; I have no idea what I am doing, but I’m sure I will get the hang of it (I’m hoping my English will become better as well….it will have to)! As far as SPE’s go, as long as I play with the kids and get them talking and speaking English I’m in good shape.

Thursday is my first real day of teaching, scary and exciting at the same time. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve made my lesson plans for the next few weeks and I have my room all set up, well, sort of! The kids here are adorable, my kids especially! I am amazed at how different they all look. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep names and faces straight, but I don’t think I’ll have any problem. The SPE’s (the little one’s) are very rambunctious and tiring, but oh so rewarding!

On Tuesday night we took all the “Super Students” to dinner at McDonald’s….they just love that. A lot of the parents came too—the Maryland School has a lot of support from parents and they are vey involved. Americans here are highly respected, especially English teachers. We don’t get paid hardly anything (Hanna and Sarah advised me to not crunch the numbers); yet, being an actual American English teacher is pretty well to do. ….Back to McDonalds, it was so nice to get a hamburger, with beef! I know it hasn’t quite been a full week yet, but getting my American fix was much needed. I even had an Oreo Mcflurry, YUMMY! I thought coming to Taiwan would cure me of my ice cream cravings, thinking I wouldn’t be able to find much ice cream, but oh no, every other day I seem to find ice cream. The ice cream isn’t as creamy and good of course, but it fulfills its purpose.

After McDonald’s all of us teachers and Molly went to Clothes street….amazing! I am still in awe by the great fashion here and the cheap prices you can get everything. I can by some nice denim jeans for $10.00, and shoes and shirts for $3.00….I’m still pacing myself….I haven’t bought anything yet.

Wednesday was orientation for us new teachers so there was no school. We arrived at the school at 9 am and went over school policies and such, you know, all the paper work….blah blah blah. We had a break for lunch (Sue, such a cute little Asian, cooks us all our lunch meals) and then prepped for our classes for about 3 hours. After prep, Sherry (the school owner) took us on a quick tour of Changhua (the city we are living in)…it’s fairly small, about 200,000 people. For dinner we went to another hot pot restaurant, this one was much better than the BBQ/hot pot we had last weekend. I am envisioning a new business idea. You walk into the restaurant, get seated at your table, and there you find a hot pot for each person at your table. You can pick the flavoring of your broth for the hot pot, and then hit up the buffet line for anything you want to cook/boil. There is a ton of meat, sea food, and veggies. Outside of cooking, the restaurant has rolls, fruit, fries, puddings, soup, stir fry, rice, ice cream, cake, chocolate fountain, waffles, pb & j, etc…..I was amazed by all the food! Ha, I must admit though, everything looked a lot better than it tasted. I’m still getting used to the meats and weird dishes; nevertheless, a place like this in the states would be amazing. All that food for just $9.00 American dollars, $300 NT.

July 2^nd

 

Today was my first day teaching my own classes—how exciting. The last couple days I’ve been prepping and getting everything ready so it wasn’t that stressful. I went into school at about 8:30 this morning. Tabbi and I taught the first SPE’s this morning. We only had three new kids and one returning in the beginning class (I like the smaller classes for SPE’s, I can give more attention to the kids and they are a lot easier to babysit, haha, did I say that….I mean, to teach). So Tabbi and I really had no idea what we were going to teach for SPE’s this morning; we hadn’t been told anything so I was getting a little frustrated when we were told to be at the school a half hour before school starts, yet our head teacher didn’t walk in until five to the hour to show us what we were doing. What can I say, I like being in control. I tried to keep my cool though. I know realize that the SPE’s are super laid back and it’s not a big deal what we do as long as we play with the children and make sure they are speaking English!

After SPE’s I was able to prepare myself for my 2A class. Today was more or less introductions. We made name tags and I had the kids draw a picture of them and write a paragraph about themselves. We also went over rules; I told the kids my rules (no English, raise your hand, don’t interrupt teacher, etc) and then I had them make up some of their own rules….it was funny! Let’s see, their rules are (1) No killing, (2) No fighting (3) No kissing (4) No picking your nose and (5) No sleeping. I really like the no kissing one. They are really into that. They kept asking me whether I had a boyfriend or whether I was married. I also read some letters that my kids had written to me. In Annie’s letter it said, “Dear Teacher, I am the most beautiful girl in the class…” Can’t beat self-esteem like that….I love it! She really is adorable; I love her little Asian face. She will be beautiful when she grows up….smart too! Hank is a little rambunctious but he is super smart. All of my students are really smart; they are definitely testing my knowledge. They are constantly asking me, “Teacher teacher, how do you spell this? Or this? Or this?” In my head I’m thinking, ugh, where’s spell check when I need it. I also have a little boy named Engine (oh the American names these Asians come up with….great)!

After work Sam, Tabbi, and I went to Food Street to get dinner. We went to Hit Cookie Home and the Ping Sha place. At Hit Cookie Home, Jerry (the owner) speaks a little English. He is very nice and was asking us a lot of questions about where we are from and what we’re doing here. Everyone loves Americans. People will point or stare at us all the time. As for my Ping Sha, I got Watermelon Strawberry….oh real fruit smoothies taste sooo good.