What age group did you work with? What were the pros and cons working with this age group?

I taught grade 7, otherwise known as grade 1 middle school, and my students were 12 to 13 years old. The best thing about teaching this age is that they’re young enough to play games and other creative activities however they are old enough for the lessons not to be too childish. Although 10 years younger than me, we shared common interests such as music, movies, superheroes, and all sorts of fun stuff that the students loved to learn about.

Their energy is often very hyped which is excellent as they are always very enthusiastic about the lesson. However this can be a blessing or a hindrance. If I’m speaking to the whole class as one, focusing all their eyes on the board for example, they will all look and listen to what I am saying. They will enthusiastically ask and answer questions, which is excellent as it gives me something to work with. However, group work often gets the students super excited and therefore it can take a lot more effort in order to get them to listen.



Did you change as a teacher over time? If so how?

Yes I did. Not only was I new to the school but the students were new to the school too. I approached my lessons with a fun and exciting attitude and from the feedback I got, the students really enjoyed my lessons. I rarely told the students off as they were mostly very good. As time went on the students were gaining friends and were learning what they could get away with. As this was happening I had to adapt and become sterner as students took longer to listen. I then found a balance of being strict without losing the fun and excitement that I wanted to bring to the lesson.


What was your favourite moment in class and why?

It’s so hard to pick just one but one of my favourite moments was when I did a lesson based on styles of music and I had my students listening to a lot of different songs. The class was very excited and the students were singing along to the songs that they knew. I then put Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ on, alongside the video. One of my students just decided to dance the whole way through with the biggest grin on his face and it was so funny that me and all the other students could not stop laughing. He loved all the attention.


What did you do in your spare time?

At the two weeks summer camp I met a lot of people who were also staying in Beijing. I lived on the outskirts of Beijing so on the weekend I would go into the centre and meet them. Every weekend we would have something planned. Such examples were; sight-seeing (there is a lot to do in Beijing), day trips out of the city, weekend breaks away, movie nights, nights out, food, more food, shopping and cinema.

In Shunyi where I lived, I was on my own a lot in the weekdays. However me and my collegues would often invite each other for dinners, whether it was Chinese food, Korean food or western food such as Pizza Hut. I also had a couple friends who lived 20 minutes away by bus and they would often come to Shunyi. We would have Chinese BBQ from our favourite restaurant and catch up over good food and drinks. There were a lot of restaurants where I lived and therefore I made the most of it. This included a really nice coffee shop outside my house that I liked to go to if my apartment was giving me cabin fever. The waffles there were amazing!

Shunyi has newly installed public bikes, which were amazing for getting around. I didn’t walk anywhere once they were installed. They were free for one hour every time you got one out. It was one yuan an hour after that (that’s 10p an hour). This meant that bike rides were my form of exercise and I’d often go to Shunyi park. In there every night there were dancers and exercise classes. There was a skipping class with blasting DJ music (the kind that really pumps you up for exercise), so I decided to buy some skipping ropes and I joined in occasionally. I didn’t realize how much of a good exercise skipping is.

Most of all one of my favourite things to do was to share music with my colleague Chen. She is a music teacher and we would go into the music classroom and play instruments, sing and listen to English and Chinese music. This originally was supposed to be Chen teaching me Chinese but it completely evolved into something that we both enjoyed a lot more. Instead she would teach me Chinese on the go rather than in a classroom environment.


Anthony travel


Where did you travel to in China, and how did you go about it?

First stop was Shanghai and it was my first experience of the high-speed train. We met up with our friends from summer camp who had moved to Hunan and enjoyed a variety of different activities such as the famous Bund with its many skyscrapers, temples and unforgettable nights out.

Next stop was Hohhot, Inner Mongolia where we visited the grasslands. There is something incredible about being in the middle of nowhere, especially after spending so much time in busy Beijing. We were invited to a family’s home where we ate traditional Inner Mongolian food and we also did archery and horse riding throughout the grasslands.

Tianjin is very close to Beijing. It’s half an hour high-speed train or one hour slow train. We spent the weekend there for a quick trip away and wondered around to see the sights.

To start off our spring festival holiday we went to Chengdu. This meant going to see China’s most famous animal, Pandas. We also went to see the famous Sichuan Opera.

Shanghaiguan is where the Great Wall meets the sea. This was another trip that was done in one weekend with an over night train on the Friday, Saturday sightseeing and Sunday having a short trip to Qinghuangdao before coming back on the Sunday night.

My Mam and brother came to China for 10 days. We decided to go to Xi’an for the weekend to see the Terracotta Warriors. Since they had such a short time in China we decided to fly. I simply just booked online for the flights.

We went back to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, and this time to go to the Gobi Desert. We spent the night in a yurt and watched the sunrise and sunset, followed by a day of riding camels.

Internationally, I spent a long weekend in Seoul, South Korea and even crossed the border into North Korea via the DMZ. I also travelled to Thailand twice, once in February and once for a long weekend in May. I spent a large part of my spring festival in Thailand, Laos and Hong Kong.

Day trips included Chuandixia Village, a very old historical town that sits in the middle of mountains and a handful of trips to different parts of the Great Wall.

As to the latter part of the question, to keep it simple, the most common ways to book tickets are at the train stations themselves or online. We had to make sure we booked in advance and that we also had our passports when booking and travelling. If I was ever stuck and didn’t know what to do there was always colleagues and friends that would help me. I was very lucky as my friends who I travelled with regularly lived near a train ticket booth. I would go there if I was visiting or they would book the tickets for me, all they needed was a photocopy of my passport.


What are your plans for the future?

I really enjoy teaching and I am hoping to continue it as a future career. I am hoping to do my PGCE in England but another year in China is something that I am considering providing I get a job that suits me. All I know now is that I have more of an idea of what I want to do and I know that teaching in China has and will open up bigger and better opportunities.



By Anthony Ward