Shenyang

Hello Friends!

So, now I’m safely placed out here in Shenyang.
It’s a very very big city, the 4th biggest one in China I’ve been told. So that is definetly nice.
I’m supposed to have a internet connection in my room, and I did have one for a brief evening. But in the moment of writing, there’s none.-so if this is late you know why.

When I first arrived here, I was ready for filling out forms, getting instructions and atleast information.
But they just gave me my apartment (on campus) and told me to relax. And naturally, so I did.
The next day we met up at 13:30 to go shopping for things we needed. That was nice, there were quite a few things missing in my opinion. (trash can etc)

But still no information. So we just met up with the rest of the gang placed around the city. We are 11 people all together, and except for me and a German girl called Regina we are all british. (there’s one british girl in the apartment next to mine)

Finally, on Monday, we had a meeting with the vice principal of our school. The school itself is awesome. This is a school that focuses spesificly on language. I have the first junior highschool grade, wich is four classes. I have them all once every day for four days. (three days off in other words, Thursday and the weekends!)
They gave us a book and a lot of information I craved before we went off to prepeare our first lesson and later on celebrate Petes birthday.

The gang

The birthday boy and his significant other.

The celebration was very nice, allthough I was thinking about my first class a lot. Each class is 50 kids between 12-13.
I had no clue what their english levels were.

Right now I’ve had three out of four classes today, and the results have varied. My lessonplan was too short, and I had to improvise a lot the first lesson. Second lesson went quite well, and the third one was a bit difficult, because there’s a huge gap in the english skill of the students in that class.

So, for my last one, better structure and speak slower. (it’s hard to define, they need to get used to english speakers at their natural pace, at the same time they need to understand what’s going on as well.)

I’ll figure it out sooner or later though, no one’s an expert at their first day. (not me atleast..!)

But, there’s a lot of things to be psyched about now!
I have my own apartment. This is a first for me, it’s really just me in here!
So I’ve put up things I like on the walls, inpacked everything and washed the bathroom as best I can as it wasn’t that clean when I arrived.

I’m finally getting in touch with someone closer to native here.
There’s a japanese teacher on my floor, who is really nice. Hes english isn’t the best, but it’s better than my japanese.. and he’s very helpful.
In addition there’s a few chinese english teachers here.
(they use chinese people to explain grammar etc, we are here most for pronunciation and listening skills among the students)
I just talked to one for about 15 minutes after lunch, and he agreed to meet me to check out downdown. We also have a contact named Rice, who does is best to make sure we enjoy ourselves. That’s really nice, he agreed to teach me chinese chess (or something like that) next week. (I have the whole week off as my students are all in their yearly one week military camp)

I will also start up with proper chinese lessons next week. So that’ll be nice.

So, mixed feelings, this is definetly a challenge. I hope I’ll be able to do a good job, and that the students will learn as much as possible.
I do by the way, have an address now. I mind you, whatever someone might send me will have to be sent back when I go home, so please don’t send me random gifts. (It’s a really nice thought, and I appreciate that, but I really don’t earn much here, and I have enough clothes etc I need to send back already)

CHINA
SHENYANG
110179
Northeast Yucai Foreign language school.
HENNING RODTWITT

I was told that would do it, but don’t send anything particulary valuable before I have confirmed it a 100%...!
(this is china, and for some reason, simple matters like this do get lost in translation)

PS:

Check out our local café;
Starcocks Buffee XD

By the way, classes rocked today.
It's awesome here, I can do this for a few months!