Observation Feedback with the Big Boss

I was nervous walking to work early this morning, because I was going in for an observation feedback session with the big boss of EF Kids and Teens Centers in Beijing. He had observed one of my classes before Spring Festival and he had some time to talk to us about our classes. I felt pretty good about it, because nothing he said was a surprise to me. I knew what I had to work on, and we had a good laugh at my attempt to teach personal pronouns using puppets which just didn't work on so many levels! He gave me a lot of ideas and tips, more so than I have ever gotten here before. He also gave me some positive feedback that made me feel proud of my work here, too.

We had a crazy long staff meeting today. We are going to start implementing reading stories in our small star classes in about a week. I am so excited about it. EF has created these books about preschool Roddy having little adventures like hanging up clothes to dry outside and catching butterflies. I think it is one of the best things I've seen been implemented by EF this whole year.

I'm also really excited, because I learned this past week that Saturday, March 12 is Plant a Tree Day throughout all of China. I had asked Laura if I could do a special program that evening at the school, without the families having to pay extra for it, about environmental fun and awareness. Laura asked if there was anyone interested in helping me, and almost everyone volunteered to help, which was so amazing! I'm really excited about it. Then, someone suggested we have a whole month dedicated to community service and everyone got even more excited. It'll be fun to see what happens!

I had a great evening, too. I taught a fun class where we are learning about writing sentences using a first conditional structure. One of the book activities was to have the students write a ransom note! So weird. We pretended that Nick, the students' other teacher, had kidnapped Bartholomew and the students wrote their threats about demanding him back in first conditional sentences. After I had dismissed the class, the students stuck around to talk about Justin Beiber with me. It was pretty cute.

I had a late dinner with Cindy and Joyce and we talked all the funny things that have happened at work over the last week, and we got to catch up with Cindy about her trip to Hong Kong!