This November - being the big nature lover that I am - I have closely watched the arrival of autumn in our city with great interest. Watching the subtle daily changes in the weather has for me been one of the few highlights of this month.
The other “biggy” has been moving into a new place - Carrie and I finally left our little one-bedroom apartment for a bigger two-bedroom apartment.

When we arrived in Nanjing last February we were greeted with the icy cold winter and its record snow falls. At the time I thought the weather way to harsh for my southern hemispherian weather preferences. It was quite literally “a baptism of snow and ice”. Since then we saw the beautifull pink and white plum blossoms and mild weather of spring and the long hot, humid and sweat-dripping days of summer. I can with out any doubt in my mind declare spring and autumn my two favorite seasons in Nanjing.

During this November the autumn days have brought with it not only much cooler weather, but also beautiful sunny blue skies. I have recently rediscovered the simplicity and beauty of the haiku in a Jack Kerouac novel I borrowed from Kyle (fellow English teacher) called “Dharma Bums”. I even tried my own hand at writing a haiku after some inspiration from a walk around the Ming Xiao Ling area of the Zhong Shan mountain and forrest area. It goes like this:

Orange brown yellows
rusteling leaves on trees high
a clear blue sky sun

On Zhong Shan there there are rows of trees lining the road up the mountain and there are parks with forests and brown-and-orange leaves scattered everywhere.

In the city especially near Xuan Wu city gate and the lake one can see many beautiful colorful trees with autumn reds and oranges, yellows and tinges of green.
The green summer lush has gradually dissapeared before our eyes and every day it is getting cooler and colder.

We also moved into a bigger apartment at the end of this month. This is in anticipation of the arrival of the soon to be new member of our family. Carrie’s mom will probably come and stay with us around the time of the little one’s arrival, and I also hope and expect my family to come and visit some time next year. Exciting times are lying ahead.

I am still teaching a few part-time jobs together with my regular lessons. These have recently become a little wearisome at times, but I still enjoy and appreciate the added experience and pleasure of teaching at different locations. My Sinopec and Huawei students are a great pleasure to work with and I am very glad I have the oppurtunity to teach them.

Recently I have also again rediscovered the great guitar sounds of one of my all time favorites, Dire Straits. I really enjoy tracks like “So far away” and “Sultans of swing”. It feels like I have been listening to their music all my life. They keep on being a recurring theme.

I write these words with a lot of appreciation in my heart and the knowledge that we have received countless blessings to our lives.

My chosen quote for this month:

“There are three things, the wonder of which overcomes me, even four things outside my knowledge:
The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a snake on a rock; the way of a ship in the heart of the
sea; and the way of a man with a girl.” - Book of Proverbs

There are many fun ways for you and your students to introduce yourselves in the classroom. I like to keep it very simple.

When I ask students to introduce themselves I usually focus on very simple and basic information. I will ask beginner students and younger children questions like: How are you? How old are you? , What (foods, animals or colors) do you like?
Older children and teenagers can tell you about their school, hobbies, favorite school subjects and favorite superstar/ role-model.
I ask adults questions like: Are you a student or do you work? What are your hobbies? Why do you study English?
If a student gives short quick answers or struggle to give an answer you can prompt him or her with another easy follow up questions to avoid long silent pauses.

With my very young learners ages 7-10 I like to ”draw” my name on the whiteboard. I draw a snake and then elicit from the students what it is. Thereafter I will write an ’s’ under the picture of the snake. Next I will draw a table next to the snake and write ‘t’ under the picture and so forth until I have written my name on the board. The small kids really like it. I got this idea from Dave’s Esl cook book. It is a great tool for finding very practical ideas for use in the classroom. .

With older students I like to play “the paper basketball game” or “truth or false introduction” - sometimes I combine both methods and use it at the beginning of a lesson. 

A propper introduction from everybody helps to involve everybody right from the start of the course which makes everyone feel part of the class and helps to get the comfort levels and  self-confidence levels up high. 

The paper basketball game requires students to write their names on a slip of paper and then to roll the piece of paper into a paperball. I then put a paper basket at the centre of the room and let each student have a shot. This can be a very fun activity in itself. Afterwards I start by picking up the paperball futhest away from the basket, and read aout the name so that student can introduce him or herself to the class.

In the true/false game students must write two statements about themselves on a slip of paper. I always tell my students not to make the statements too obvious. Afterwards students get to read out their statements and each student gets a turn to say whether they think it is true or false and why. We continue until everybody had a turn to guess about every student’s statements.

Another favorite activity I have used in the past and that created a lot interest among my students was when I wrote a short introduction about myself containing all the kind of information I would have normally told the students. I would write a short introduction about myself, but omit the important bits so the students have to guess the answers. Can be very interesting when you ask them to guess your age (or you might just want to avoid that topic all together)!

The main aim of these classroom introduction methods are to get everybody to know each other better, to make everyone feel very welcome in your classroom, and to have some fun!

Teaching as an ESL teacher has been an exciting to sometimes down-right scary experience. Even after more than three years of teaching English as a foreign language I still experience regular up and downs. This I mostly contribute to the human-element. At the end of the day both teachers and students are unique individuals that experience things differently, and have their own approaches to the challenges and problems they face.

What really makes a good teacher or student, apart from a good understanding of the fundamentals, is the abillity to adapt to, and attend to the classroom situations as they come up - here I refer to individuals’ behavior as well as the group dynamics. This and the application of proven methods - this would include the application of teaching theory and implementation of the classroom techniques. Of course here experience and practice helps a lot.

If you had to observe ten different teachers in a classroom situation you would most probably observe ten quite different classes. This would be because of the importance of not only individual teaching skills and techniques, but also because of the importance of good teacher student rapport. This is an important point that I would like to mention in order to emphasize the great contributing factor of personal dedication on both the teacher and the students’ side - a teacher can help students to study and improve, and students can help a teacher perform better and improve.

In the next couple of months I look forward to publishing some of my ideas on teaching as well as study tips. I hope that writing down these notes will help me on my quest to review and improve my own techniques and ideas on teaching and studying EFL.