HUAIROU, Beijing Province: Well, considering I found this lesson boring in the first lesson (and now I've taught it 8 times), it's going down pretty well with the students. Had quite a good day teaching, still feeling a bit coldy - my throat is so dry! Had our first Mandarin lesson this evening! Was half expecting it to be a bit of a crap lesson, but it was actually really fun. Emily's a lot more chilled out than I thought she'd be, and we've decided to focus o...

HUAIROU, Beijing Province: Didn't do much today. Felt a bit coldy, so struggled a bit to get up for my morning class! Spent the afternoon preparing my New Zealand lesson for next week. Fun fun fun!

HUAIROU, Beijing Province: Back to school, working from the textbook, as I've finally been given one now! This unit is called 'Cyberspace', and the Culture Corner I've been asked to teach is a Fact File about New Zealand - what??? It's got absolutely nothing to do with technology, or the internet or anything! hmm All three classes went pretty well actually, especially as I'm not finding this topic that interesting. Saving the New Zealand lesson til next week,...

HUAIROU, Beijing Province: Had a lazy day today - the only day I can have a proper lie-in! Was woken up at 8am though by fireworks going off right by my window! And then again at half past by someone ringing our doorbell from outside the apartment block! For dinner we went to Big Pizza - haven't been there for ages, it was a really nice treat, although I ate far too much potato and ice cream! Worked on lesson plans in the evening - I've finally been given a...

HUAIROU, Beijing Province: Had to get up ultra early for Korean School as I now need to be in school for 8.30am to cover Sarah's pre-intermediate classes. They've finally got books sorted for them, so I tried to get them excited about that, but it still felt like I was banging my head against a wall for an hour & a half! They have to memorise dialogues - it's really boring, and fairly pointless to be honest! This week was 'telephone calls' so I tried to ...