We are now exactly 2 days away from the first day of school in Taiwan! Here is a recap:
🏠 I have finally settled into my apartment for the school year! I will be based out of Huwei Township in Yunlin County for the next 10 months. Please message me if you want my postal address.
📚 For the 2019-20 school year, I will be teaching English at two public elementary schools, Houpu Elementary (後埔國小) in Tuku Township and Dapi Elementary (大埤國小) in Dapi Township. Both schools are small in size, with less than 350 students between grades 1 through 6 at either school. I am super excited to work with my favorite age range of students: 3rd to 6th graders!
To put our training to the test, we did an English lesson with the basketball team of a local elementary school. My partner and I taught 4th and 6th graders basic cheers for a sports game; they surpassed our expectations and managed to memorize them within 10 minutes! Some students were a bit shy, but our excitement (and cheering) brought them out of their shells.
🚅 Aside from “serious stuff,” the Yunlin ETAs (English Teaching Assistants) extended our stay in Taipei after a Fulbright conference and played tourist, going to museums and experiencing domestic travel via high speed rail.
🌳Yesterday, we hiked 華山 in Gukeng Township, where all of us 20-somethings were slipping on wet trails while the 70-somethings looked at us like we were idiots who can’t walk. This was also where yours truly took a grand fall and brought back home a scraped knee (but not a cracked screen on her phone – priorities, lol).
🛵 I am also learning how to ride a scooter. On Monday, I passed the written exam but not the road test the first time. Going in a narrow straight line slowly is so hard! Even though I may not need to ride a scooter daily (traffic here scares me, tbh), I am determined to get licensed!
