I am now closing in on my 5th week of teaching and I feel like I have been at it for months already. I started off teaching a class of 5-6 year olds for three weeks. Their previous teacher, Bryan, who is an American, got deported for visa issues. So I took over Bryan's class until the end of the semester and then took over Julie's class of 2-3 year olds at the beginning of the semester. Julie is a British teacher who is now moving to Egypt to teach. I will miss having her here because she has a great British sense of humor and has a funny way about just being very direct and realistic about everything. She is also the only other western female teacher in the school. My other co-teachers are Darryn (British), Matt (Australian) and Eugene (Canadian). Each teacher is matched up with a Chinese teacher for their class and I lucked out and got a sweet woman named Mia.
Last week with the little ones was quite challenging. I had already been at the school for 3 weeks so I knew the basic routine but I was starting over with a whole new group of kids and a completely different age group/level. Two of the boys (I have all boys in my class right now!) Max and Sean have been at school for over a year so their English is quite good. The other two new ones Aaron and Wade are a handful. Aaron is very much attached to our school manager and the whole first week he wouldn't leave her side. Wade is just rambunctious and will just jump on a group of children sitting nicely and cause mayhem. It is quite incredible though to see their progression because you can see improvement every day. It is also pretty incredible to teach someone their first words of a language. When they remember something I have taught them, it makes all the frustrations of crying, jumping, running away from me, etc not matter so much any more. Overall I like teaching a lot and the kids in the school are very funny. One little precious girl named Sylvia (if she goes missing you know who to look for!) is one of my favorites. I know you're not supposed to have favorites as a teacher, but she's not in my class so she can be one of my favorites. Yesterday she showed me something and I said to her "That's good sweetie" and she said "My name's not sweetie, it's Sylvia!". Too cute! I guess they don't know pet names in English yet.
If you'd like to check out Teacher Bayly in action you can go to our school's web site http://www.babyhome.com.tw/album.php?mid=240234. Click on the English tab up top right. Then click on "Album" then the Red tab in the middle. Then scroll down until you see "Blue Class" which is my class. There will be tons of pics up of the last few weeks as the Taiwanese LOVE their pictures!
Last weekend we went to Hong Kong to renew Alan's visa (pics to be posted soon!). It was a fun trip, although quick, as I had to leave after work Friday after work and had to come home on Sunday. We thought Alan had to go to the visa office and apply for a new visa since his was expiring but it turns out we just had to leave the country and come back. So he had to stay an extra day in HK and it turned out for no reason. Overall, HK was fun. You can buy cheap chinese type souveniers and the vendors are much more willing to haggle with you on the price than in Taiwan. We also went up on the 360 degree lift up to a Buddha statue. It was pretty foggy and cold up on the mountain but it was still cool to see the huge Buddha statue.
OK better get back to work...I'm in the middle of my bi-weekly reports. One of the less fun things that goes along with teaching...all of the side paperwork!
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