Blogs from Feng Tai District, Beijing, China, Asia

This morning, I woke up and watched Chinese soap operas and packed my belongings. In China, they expect your room to be very clean upon checkout. I made my bed, mom (one of two)! My hotel tried to convince me to take the subway/bus/walk method of transportation because it was cheaper, but it scared me. And honestly, there's no way I'm spending at least 90 minutes to get to my destination when a cab is so cheap compared to America and takes an hour with no additional walking. Plus, it removes human error on my part, the non-Chinese speaker, and places it on the taxi driver. Don't worry, I opened my google maps to make sure we were headed in the right direction. ;) I checked out of my hotel early to take a taxi to ... read more

It is hard to believe that tomorrow morning will bring the closing ceremony and bittersweet end to our journey here in China. The last few days have flown by! They have included a great deal of teaching as well as some unforgettable outings with our students. Monday we visited the Great Wall, which was both a breathtaking and surreal experience. We even ate lunch sitting atop one of the many lookout towers! Yesterday (Thursday) afternoon we visited the Science and Technology Museum as well as the Olympic Park. The field trips are great teaching opportunities because they provide students with the most opportunity to use their English and develop conversational skills. We typically notice that the field trips are more 'work' than in-school teaching days! This is because it's a continual flow of conversation with students ... read more

With introductions complete we are now ready to dive in to what we came here to do- teach! A major component of this trip is to bring western teaching methodology to Feng Tai First. While this school is very successful (the strongest in its district) they are very transparent about wanting to learn our teaching methods. In particular, those related to active student engagement which is a focus in Jension. Keeping this in mind we spent the first day each teaching one active engagement strategy. We've structured the camp into rotations so that there are small groups of students who rotate through each teacher/class every day. By each teaching one engagement strategy we set up our students to have all four strategies in use by the end the first day. We also completed a short subject-specific ... read more

Our first full day in Beijing has been amazing! We started our morning visiting Feng Tai First school. After months of planning and Skype meetings it was wonderful to at last see the school in person and meet the teachers and Principal Yin. We had a great team meeting working through final preparations. Opening ceremonies are tomorrow morning and will commence the two week Fine Arts Camp. After a tour of the school grounds it was off to lunch. Once again we experienced the incredible hospitality of our hosts who provided an enormous meal. Dish after dish was delivered to our table, and we eagerly tried them all. One of our favorites was a pork dish that as Grant described, was "deep fried bacon drenched in maple syrup" and oh so delicious! We had a lot ... read more

I'm looking at an ESL teaching job in Feng Tai. They are offering 5000 Yuan/month, free accommodation, visa provided, if you can finish one year contract, provide 1000USD as airfare. How far does 5000 Yuan/month go? Since they are providing accomadations, is this plenty for me to buy food and have some social life, at least? Thanks! Bill ... read more