Wow! What a week!
This week, I have felt as being on a rollercoaster ride: one hour I overly excited and the next hour, I felt far from home and exhausted. I have felt this way for about three days because of a lack of sleep and also because I wouldn’t eat much; in fact, it was a real vicious cycle for me: too tired to eat and too hungry to sleep. Of course, I’ve had ups and downs throughout the week because of this vicious cycle. Finally, they have lost my two suitcases, so I spent the first two days without having any belongings, which didn’t help me to adapt to this new environment.
This is all I had to live for the first few days!
(not the suitcase.. it is Vanessa's)
On the other hand, after I received my suitcases, I have been able to unpack and make myself much more at home than I did when I arrived.
Making myself at home!
Since then, the days have been really interesting and my health, much better! Because of this, we have been able to visit several places in Kowloon and I have loved every place we went to during the past week!
Ladies Market
Today was our first complete day of school, which went really well! We were supposed to teach the stronger students first and then get to teach the weaker students, but I will be teaching the weaker students first and then the stronger ones and I am really happy that it turned out to be that way! In fact, I think that it is more challenging for me and I love challenges so I am really pleased with this!
The major difference between the levels I have is that my weaker students don’t usually answer, because they are too shy and believe that their English isn’t good enough to answer whereas the students at the higher level are a little more spontaneous and are good in spoken English so they are not shy to answer our questions.
I’m glad to have two very different levels to teach because I will learn two very different ways of teaching!
Briefly, I am surrounded by wonderful people, I eat really well, and I love Hong Kong!
So far so good... really good!
Valérie
Hi Val,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry for not replying to you earlier. I will try to do better in the future, I promise.
First of all, I want to say that I am really sorry to hear that you have lost your suitcase but I am extremely happy to know that you got it in the end. What a relief it must have been!
Second, I need to tell you that I do have your brother in law in my classes and that he is great! He was really excited to let me know that he was Nichola's brother as soon as he saw me coming in the class. What a funny kid! lol
Anyways, let's talk about Honk Kong. You are teaching grades 3 and 5 if I remember correctly, is that correct? Because I think you are absolutely right in saying that you will get to learn a lot from teaching those 2 different levels. Especially a "weaker" and "stronger" class. Last year, I also taught those age groups and also had an A and D class so I know exactly what you mean when you say it is a challenge. You will probably feel like your classes flow better with the stronger group but whatever you do with the weaker group, remember that they will appreciate your work even if they don't participate or understand as much. If you need more advice about this, let me know and I will try to be more specific.
One more thing, please take care of yourself! Don't overwhelm yourself and take some time for you. It might sound silly, but I really felt like taking a bit of time for me at the end of each day helped during my stay in HK. I used that time to relax, read, watch TV, write in my journal, anything! It's important!
Once again, sorry for taking so long. I have no excuse so...
Katherine