EC London English Language School

Well, here I am back at my (new) desk in the EC London office after six months away – it’s almost like I never left!

I arrived back in London last Friday and my parents were there to meet me at the airport which was very exciting. The 13 hour flight from Hong Kong felt more like 13 days as I was so impatient to get home! Luckily I managed to avoid the jet lag and had a lovely weekend catching up with all my friends and family.

On Monday morning (possibly for the first time in my life) I woke up half an hour before my alarm as I was so excited about coming to work and seeing everybody again! It was great to be back at the school and in the midst of the hustle and bustle of office life.

Travelling and living abroad is a wonderful experience and I am so glad to have done it but there really is nowhere quite like home!  

For this week’s coffee and conversation class I was joined by three students from South Korea, Eunzoo, Heather and Hyeiy. After we’d introduced ourselves and talked a little about studying English and where we are from, we got talking about childhood.

We began by sharing our earliest memories and why we thought we remembered them. Eunzoo talked about staying with her grandparents in the countryside and she described it so well I could almost picture it. We all had some very happy memories of childhood, but we also talked about how sad memories were sometimes stronger than happy ones.

All the students remembered being quite well-behaved as children but we all agreed that most teenagers go through a stage where they are a bit rebellious! We then talked a bit about how different our parents’ and grandparents’ childhoods would have been.

In South Korea, childhoods 20 or more years ago would have been much harder in some ways as children would have had to work and most families would have been poorer than they are now. However, the students described to me how hard modern South Korean children are expected to study. There is a lot of pressure to get good grades and get a place at a good university. I was shocked to hear that Eunzoo, Heather and Hyeiy all went to school from 7am until 10pm and often had a private teacher come to their home for more study! Sleeping only 3 hours a night is very common, apparently. We all agreed that school children in the UK have a much easier time in this respect.

It was a very informative and interesting discussion this week and I felt I learnt a lot about the students and their experiences. I am looking forward to the next class!

Saffron

On our first day at EC London our task for the day was to be new students!

During the registration in reception, we were introduced to each other, and given an outline of the task for the day.

We started off at the EC Cafe with a short English test. We were just as nervous as the students, but once we began it was easy to understand and very clear.

After a short break, there was a Welcome talk, given by Laura. The information was very useful for the students as it covered topics such as; accommodation, landmarks, public transport etc.

This was followed by the Academic Induction by Rich. This outlined the different levels the students would be placed in. Information regarding timetables and how to read timetables was presented to the students. Although it seemed like a lot of information to take in, it was lively and fun!

It was also good that the students were asked questions, and were also given the chance to ask questions themselves, just in case there were any confusions.

Towards the end of the day we had a quick tour of the other EC London buildings. We were paired in groups, and given a short quiz to help find the other sites. Along the way we also got a glimpse of the local area.

After the tour, we all gathered again at the EC Cafe for a short Welcome Event. After students were given their timetables, we all got to eat for FREE at the Cafe, which everyone was very excited about!!

Overall, we really enjoyed ourselves and it was a nice experience being students once again! And it came as a shock for some of the  students to find out at the end of the day, that we were not students like them, after spending the whole day with them!!!

So, amazingly this is my 23rd and final week of living in Guangzhou, south China. I travel to Hong Kong tomorrow and then fly home to London early on Friday morning.

I can hardly believe that the time has come to pack up and say goodbye to the people and places I have come to know so well. In the last few days I have started to think about what I will miss and what I will be happy to leave behind! Here are my conclusions:

What I’ll Miss: My Chinese classes, my teacher, all our new friends, our lovely apartment, the free gym and swimming pool, weekends in Hong Kong, having so much free time, unbelievably cheap manicures, speaking Chinese, shopping at the markets, walking along the river in the evenings, being surprised by something new every day, Boca cafe and Melody the lovely waitress, never having to wear a jacket, moments of thinking “We live in Chiiina!” 

What I Won’t Miss: squat toilets, all the spitting, eating with chopsticks, Guangzhou taxi drivers, the smog, the supermarkets, paying £6 for a box of Cornflakes, eating snake and toad, taking your life in your hands every time you cross the road, being stared at!

So, overall I think I would have to give my China experience a score of 5.5 on the End Evaluation form. It has been a real adventure and I am so happy to have done it but am really looking forward to going home and getting back to my old life.

See you back in London!

P.S. Who do I speak to about my scores of 3 or below?