Tag: teaching

My second year at ISD

On By lacroixjul1 Comment

I was very fortunate in August 2016 to get offered a teaching position at the International School of Dongguan. As my first teaching abroad employment, I had no idea what to expect nor if it was suitable for me. But as always, I followed my adventurous instinct, signed the contract and jumped on a plane to China! Well 2 years later I can tell you it was a good move: I am now an IB certified French and English teacher, I have taught to wonderful, smart cookies, I have developed close relationships with amazing colleagues and I have travelled in and out of China for school trips, conferences and workshops. Oh, and I was also getting paid to do all of this! 😉 My second year at ISD was definitely as busy and as exciting as the first one. Here are a few of my highlights:

*I had the chance to teach the same classes as last year: Secondary School French, IB French B and IB English B (’B’ meaning ‘as a second language’), which gave me the opportunity to tweak my lesson plans of last year in order to improve my teaching. I was also lucky to go to Jakarta in October for my second IB training workshop for the courses I teach. I hope one day I will pursue my career as an IB educator. As much as it is a rigorous program for the students (and teachers!) it is a curriculum that I have very enjoyed teaching.

Student Council animating the International Day
ISD Canadian family!
Chinese New Year Dragon Dance

*This year, I wanted to get more involve into the school life, so I took charge of our StuCo (Student Council). I have been very fortunate to be working with a group of 20 dedicated students (not bad for a small school!). We have organized several activities and fundraising events throughout the year to promote our school spirit. It brought me many souvenirs of my good old days when I was a member of the ‘Parlement Étudiant’ at my high school. We are currently planning our biggest event of the year: The Prom!

*With the initiative of one of my Canadian fellow colleague, we created ISD’s first swim team! We were able to gather 5 courageous swimmers so far this year and I’m positive that the team will continue to grow. It was great to be back on a pool deck, and of course it was the perfect opportunity to start swimming again!

Performing a traditional dance at the CYN dinner
Student Council Fundraising
IB training in Jakarta

*Finally, last month I had the chance to accompanying the grade 8 to 12 to their Week Without Walls (annual field trip where students get to visit a new region of China while discovering new outdoors and cultural activities). This year we spent one exciting and busy week in the province of Sichuan exploring the city of Chengdu and its surrounding. Camping, via ferrata, canyon hiking, tea plantations visit, hot pot dinner, mask changing opera, we definitely had the full Sichuan experience! It’s always a pleasure to be interacting with the students in a non-classroom setting while watching them getting out of their comfort zone and learning new skills. Everyone get to see a different side of each other. It’s a great bonding experience!

My first time on a via ferrata!
Zip Lining!
Mask Changing Opera

Now off I go into the last stretch of the school year! I cannot believe in less than two months I’ll be packing my bags to leave my beautiful adoptive city of Dongguan. Whether it was at work, in my social life or in my many travels, I believe I definitely made the most of my time here. You may wonder what’s next for me? Well I am still in the process of planning my next adventure, but I’ll give you one hint: I’m heading for the only continent I haven’t visited yet… 😉 (and no, Antartica doesn’t count!)

fullsizerender-8
Week Without Wall fun!

Teaching abroad: A newfound passion ❤️

On By lacroixjul1 Comment

I’m proud to say that I’m officially happy with the spontaneous decision I took last August when I signed a one year contract with the International School of Dongguan (ISD). Not only I had absolutely no idea where Dongguan was, but my knowledge of China was quite limited (i knew it was a big country with lots of people that eat rice…!) but there was something about that school and the position that caught my curiosity. It was a gamble. Making a big life change is pretty scary. But, what’s even scarier? Regret. Thus, I took a deep breath, signed my life away, packed my bags and left home for this unknown world of teaching abroad. Here I am, 3 months later, happier than ever! 🙂

Welcome to ISD!
My language classroom

ISD is a young, vibrant school that opened its doors in 2012. Today, it has now 330 students from kindergarten to grade 12. For myself, I’m teaching French and English as a second language at the secondary level. I also have the chance to teach the International Baccalaureate to the grade 11 and 12, a rigid program to teach but very enriching at the same time. Thankfully my classes are quite small which make my work a little less stressful! 🙂 And not to mentioned that my students are also extremely disciplined and responsible! I haven’t much to complain, really!

Celebrating the end of Movember
Canada booth during our International Day event
School Pep Rally

In a few months only, the school has already offered me some great traveling and professional development opportunities. Early September, I was sent to Bangkok for an IB workshop. I spent three busy three days in the Thai capital learning how to teach my program (French/English as a second language). It was a very intense but extremely useful course as I had no prior knowledge at all of the IB program. I came back to Dongguan more confident, with a head full of new ideas and resources, oh and a desire to come back to Thailand one day! 3 days was such a tease!

Wandering around Bangkok
The Temple of Golden Buddha
My beautiful IB workshop group

Two weeks ago, I also had the chance to accompany the grade 6 and 7 on their Week Without Walls. The WWW is a yearly field trip organised by the school where the upper school students spend a few days in a rural village doing some community services (we helped cleaning an elders home and gave a hand to a local farm), while engaging in new outdoors activities (camping, rock climbing, cycling, hiking, kayaking). It’s a great opportunity for the kids to learn new skills while bonding with their peers and teachers outside the classroom setting.

Discovering the countryside of Qing Yuan on wheels
Rockclimbing time!
Weeding papaya plantations as part of our community service

One sure thing, ISD knows how to keep its students and staff busy, and most importantly, happy! 🙂 Its no surprise Im already secretly considering staying here for another year… ☺️ But for now, the focus is to survive the last stretch before Christmas. 3,2,1, here we go! 👍🏻

Juju back en route! 

On By lacroixjul2 Comments

It’s been two months since my last blog entry. Two months since I wrote the conclusion of my African story. At that time, secretly, I was already working on the sequel… I was actually job hunting for a teaching position abroad. I didn’t care in which country or what subject, but I knew I was ready for a new adventure!
The idea first came up when I was traveling in Kenya. During a night out in Nairobi, I ended up having drinks with a few international teachers who convinced me to follow their steps. “You’re a teacher, you’re single (yes, that’s a prerequisite for the job!), you love to travel, you adapt easily to new cultures, what are you waiting for?” Hell yeah, I thought, what am I waiting for?

Off we go!
Flying above the Arctic Circle
Pit stop in Hong Kong!

Well, it didn’t take long before I was back ‘en route’! As soon as I received a satisfying offer, I signed my contract, packed my bags, said my goodbyes and hasta la vista! Here I am today, writing this blog in my cozy apartment in Dongguan, China. For the next year, I will be teaching French and English as an second language at the International School of Dongguan.

My apartment building
Beautiful view from the 25th floor! 🙂
Bienvenue dans ma classe!

I could have easily chosen to go back to Ottawa, back to my ‘normal life’. But something deep down of me wasn’t ready for this, yet. This is one thing I’ve learned (and mastered!) in the past few months: to know how to follow your gut feeling, your heart, your dreams. In the end we only regret the chances we didn’t take.

Discovering my new city
Enjoying Taiwanese cuisine
Plant shopping!

It’s been one month now since I set foot in one of the most powerful and populated country in the world. China is quite a drastic change from Africa, I must say! Nevertheless, I’m slowly adapting to this new culture and surely enjoying this new life! Let’s hope this year will be as exciting and enriching as the previous one. I’ll keep you posted! Zàijiàn! ✌🏻️

img_0006
Nǐ Hǎo!

Learn and Teach Others

On By lacroixjulLeave a comment

For 25 years now, the Nova Scotia Gambia Association (NSGA) has been working to create a healthy, equitable and sustainable future for the Gambian youths. NSGA’s projects emphasize the concept of learning through active involvement. They train, educate and empower youth in order to build healthy communities across The Gambia. Their motto “Learn and Teach Others” perfectly reflects the organization’s mission.

IMG_9497

The NSGA is like a little family. The camaraderie between every workmate is incredible. Everyday the office is full of laughs, hugs, energy and positivism. It’s impossible not coming to work in a good mood! Even me, who is not a morning person, it doesn’t take long before I’m smiling at my desk! 🙂

The last day of Love4Gambia, some of the drama troupers came to run with me
World AIDS Day

For the last month I’ve been mainly working with the 15 drama troupers. The NSGA is formed of three troupes of 5 young adults who go into schools and communities to promote health awareness. In schools, they will perform a short play on a health issue (they are presently focusing on water sanitization) during the morning school’s assembly. The performance is followed by a short discussion and a period of questions with the students. Then, the troupe will meet with the school’s peer health club and educate the students on various subjects (Ebola, HIV-AIDS, teen pregnancy, life skills). The purpose of the peer health clubs is to train a group of students who will then teach their friends, classmates and family about it. The NSGA peer health program has been going on for over 15 years now. Today, there are almost 200 peer health clubs in schools all over the country!

Afterwards, troupers will go into communities to do health awareness on Ebola, Malaria or water sanitization. Some days they will improvise a skit in the middle of the market (let me tell you it does attract a lot of attention!). After the performance, they will go around the market to talk about the subject and answer the public’s questions. Other times, the drama troupes will go directly into households to educate families about health. I am surprise, each and every time I go with a troupe, how welcoming and responding are the people and the students. Everyone loves and appreciates the work of the NSGA and I surely know why now! 🙂

As for me, well I’ve been doing my best to use my drama skills and teaching experience to help them improve what they are doing. I must say they are all very talented but having an outsider observing and giving them feedback on a daily basis can be valuable. I’ve also given them a hand with different other projects like filming an educational movie on Ebola and putting on short plays about HIV/AIDS discrimination for Worlds AIDS Day on December 1st. They performed at the 22nd Arch in Banjul in front of a massive crowd and they just simply looked stunning! I was really proud!

I’m enjoying a lot my time at the NSGA! As much as I’m doing my best to help them, I’m learning a lot myself! I think what they are doing is pretty amazing and very powerful. They are using nothing else but their drama skills to educate the society and therefore, save lives. Successful people think outside the box and I believe the NSGA pulled it off!

IMG_9496