Training For the Job

It's a little funny to think that I just finished training for a job I already have been doing for almost a year.  Being a foreign language teach in Kaifeng consisted of three easy steps: 1) be foreign.  2) show up in Kaifeng. 3) don't cut class often enough that your students complain to the higher ups.  I think the five of us last year managed to set the bar a little higher than that - but we would all readily admit that we had no idea what we were doing.  Our goal was to make coming to class more worthwhile than cutting it.  That was all the structure we had.
We arrived in Beijing on August 2nd.  August 3rd we had orientation.  On August 4th we began our daily schedule for the next two weeks - 1 hour of teaching, 3 hours of TEFL classes, 2 hours of Chinese, 1 hour of group meetings and information about Shenzhen.  After group meetings there was lesson planning and coordinating with the group of teachers you shared students with in order to make sure there wasn't too much overlap.  It was tiring.  But we learned.  We got advice on how to deal with problems.  We were taught a framework to put our class lessons on in order to create structure and goals.
Aside from the 24 hour train ride, we haven't had any days where we could sleep in.  I'm looking forward to that in the next few days.

At the Foot of a Sacred Mountain

The Dragon Gate