Teaching in the summer 2008
Posted by stanley on August 26th, 2008
The summer session at our English language training school is virtually over now – two months of intensive teaching and also heaps of fun with all my many students has finally come to an end.
Once again I experienced how the “dreaded” summer session is actually easy and fun work – especially when managed well.
During this summer I taught three different courses to young teenagers and I had also had adult learner courses to teach in the evenings.
All my students have shown a lot of enthusiasm during this period and getting to know all their different and lovely personalities has made teaching everyone a great honor for me. In my job teaching is not so much about teaching my subject as it is about getting to know my students and helping them to learn the subject matter (helping my students to practice and improve their English).
During last week I was fortunate to accompany some of our schools’ students on two outings. On Tuesday I spent the day with a group of young learners (5-12 years old) and on Sunday we went on a day trip with some of our adult learners.
On Tuesday we went to _ in the south east of Jiangsu province. We visitited a cave, did a trip on a cable car up a small mountain, visited the temple at the top and enjoyed a beautiful view of the surrounding area, slid down on a slideway and enjoyed lunch near the garden area. After that everyone got a chance to handle the local clay that is used here to make all kinds of earthen pottery-ware.
On Sunday we travelled to next door Anhiu province to a small town named Jingxian. After lunch we first visited a nearby ancient village that has a history of 600 years. It is set in the lovely fertilecountryside and surrounded by small green hills and tree covered mountainsides. The ancient building structres reminded me a lot of the ancient town of Yangmei in Guanxi province and and even a bit of the outskirts of Lijiang in Yunnan province.
Our Sunday outing ended with a cruise on a raft on a small part of the Qinghui river (Anhui’s main water source and a tributary af the mighty Changjiang river). The natural surroundings were peaceful and beatifull. Our raft trip ended with all of us (teachers and students) soaking wet from waterfights. We literally drenched eachother with water – we had a really fun time.
The bus trips were long, but it gave us a change to chat and joke with students and collegues. I trust everyubody had as much fun as I did.
All our students (and the parents that accompanied a lot of them) were all fun to travel with.
This summer session was great and I have learned just as much as anybody else. A Tang dynasty writer once wrote: “第子不必不如师, 师不必贤于弟子” or “dizi bubi buru shi, shi bubi xian yu dizi” - not only can a student learn from his teacher, but a teacher can also learn from his students.