Computers are unreliable. Computers in Chinese schools are extra unreliable! There will be times when you arrive in class only to be told by a student that the computer is not working today. What are you going to do?! You spent a whole hour on your lesson plan, you have funny videos to show them …
TEFL Tip Tuesday: Thinking Outside Box.
Welcome back to TEFL Tip Tuesday! This week I've been experimenting in my classroom and it has completely changed the way I think about teaching. These posts usually come from something I learned last semester and now use in class but if there is one thing I know about life, it's that you never stop …
TEFL Tip Tuesdays: Speak Their Language.
Welcome back to TEFL Tip Tuesdays, this week I want to focus on speaking the same language as your students. I know this sounds counterproductive, but stick with me… When introducing a new topic in English it is important to keep students interested and the easiest way to do this is to make it relatable …
TEFL Tip Tuesday: Confidence is key!
For the first TEFL Tip Tuesday let’s start at the beginning; confidence! Confidence is key, even if you don’t think you have any. Being outnumbered is never a fun experience, the first time you walk into a classroom it might just feel like that dream you had as a teenager, the one where you realised …
How to get to the Leshan Buddha (from Chengdu).
I arrived in Chengdu with one plan and one plan only: visit the Panda Research Centre! With four days to explore the city it was clear I was going to have to add some other activities to my itinerary, so I did a little research and discovered the Leshan Buddha just outside of Chengdu. Despite …
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Xi’an: How to get to the Terracotta Army and what to expect when you get there.
My time teaching first grade at Sanxin School came to an end at the beginning of July when the summer holidays began. There were many tears, some of them mine, many hugs and more high fives than I could count, but it is not good bye! I might not be their English teacher next semester, …
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Easy as ABC: How to Become an English Teacher in China
I have recently been receiving a lot of messages about how I became TEFL qualified, how I got my placement and what company I used to get here. I do always try to reply to these as soon as possible but with the time difference between China and the UK, the not so reliable internet …
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Staying Put: 10 reasons I can’t leave China quite yet.
I am about a month away from completing my internship here in Sanxiang and the original plan was to move on from here to Vietnam at the beginning of August… but I just can’t quite do that, turns out China isn’t finished with me yet. I have been offered a job at the middle school …
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Rain Rain Go Away!: Zhangjiajie, Hunan, Day Four
Our last day in Zhangjiajie was also our worst weather wise, not ideal considering our chosen activity for the day was Tianmen Mountain which is more suited to a warm sunny day than the wet and cold day we were stuck with. We decided to give it a go anyway, we had known this was …
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Keep on Climbing: Zhanjiajie, Huan, Day Two
After such a packed day the day before we didn’t think Zhangjiajie could possibly have anything left to blow our minds with, we were wrong… We set off early taking a public bus from the centre of town to the Jinbian Stream gate of the National Forrest Park. The bus stops just outside of the …
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