A week at Beijing University

COUNTRY: China
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching
WRITTEN BY: Stephanie Chan

Wow! A month has already past and the teaching training in Beijing has ended. It has been probably the most exciting, wild and awesome experience so far. This adventure all began when I arrived in Beijing on January 15th, after an annoying delay and 3 hour plane ride from Guangzhou (as I came to China in early December to visit friends and family in the south). I exited through terminal 2 and waited at the meeting point for the IES global representative.

During this time I saw another person waiting with their luggage too, but being me, I was too afraid to go over and ask if he was part of the program. Our representative finally arrived and her name was Bella. Sure enough, I met Jason who turned out to be a fellow Aussie! We had to catch a shuttle bus to meet up with the others who were at international arrivals. First impression was: woah, so many European backpackers. It was followed by a bus ride to what was to be our living headquarters for the next month, UIBE: University of International Business and Economics.

After receiving our name tags and room keys, then lugging my luggage up 5 whole flights of stairs, I was surprised by my room - two beds, two desks and a bathroom. The bathroom especially, was a small but adequate contained space, though the showerhead was right next to the toilet.

I met my roommate, Gabriella (or later to be called Gabz by me) and she was Swedish. She invited me to dinner with the fellow Swedes she met, and I was glad I accepted. Our first night was a free night so we headed out the west gate in search of a local restaurant. We stumbled upon a Japanese restaurant and ate there. There was a problem in asking to split the bill and I was the only one knowing a reasonable amount of Chinese, so I was proud to put my forgotten Chinese skills to the test (my parents are both Chinese and I went to primary school in Guangzhou for 4 years but haven’t since learnt more). It was a fun night and I met so many new faces, some who are true close friends now :D

Orientation was the next day and it was followed by warm up games/icebreakers to meet others. That night we had an introduction dinner and the food was delicious, buffet style! – a mix of western and Chinese, for example French fries but also dumplings. We started classes the day after and it was great being introduced to our new teachers and classmates. Participants of the teach and travel china program (ttc) was split into 3 classes in random assortments- class A, class B and class C – and I was in class B, best class of course :P

The classes taught theory on how to become a good teacher; such as learning icebreakers and fun games to rouse or settle the mood of the class, learning how to teach vocabulary through flashcards etc, learning how to teach listening and speaking skills, and most importantly, how to write and create a lesson plan for teaching a whole period of class- based on age level, English level and class size. Then we were also offered 4 periods of mandarin class each week. I went to the first class and learnt the alphabet again, but decided the pace and content was not appropriate for me. Upstairs, there was a mandarin corner, where the ttc staff could separately teach you with the others who knew some of the language as well. This is where I met Theo, otherwise known by his Chinese name as Dongyu, a fellow Chinese from Denmark, as we were the only two full Chinese in the program.

Each day we could head over to the canteen/cafeteria for breakfast lunch and dinner (it was pretty big, to accommodate all the students at the uni of course), although people soon got a bit tired of eating the same style of foods over and over again haha, not me though! I really liked the food there, and there were always long queues for the fried rice station.

Until next time!
Stephanie Chan