I still remember
vividly how I made up my mind and determined to take on the position as
Full-time Advisor about three years ago, which totally turned over a new leaf
in my life. This job requires me mainly to organize workshops for the whole
junior high English teachers here in Taichung. It takes lots of time and energy
on paperwork, meetings, phone calls, and sometimes even difficult negotiations,
to get the job done. However, when looking back, I would definitely say it is
all worth it and rewarding because I've tapped some very unlikely potential.
I used to think I
was not cut out for any administrative work because I hated paying lip service
or brown nosing. Now I realize sometimes they can also be referred to as good
people skills. Well, I rarely told people how I admired their job or efforts
openly, but now I know it can make people feel good and appreciated as long as
you really mean it from the bottom of your heart. Of course, red tape and
bureaucracy really piss me off from time to time, but I also learned that it
was just an inevitable part of the whole system. For those who have authority
to make important decisions, even a little careless or inconsiderate move can
affect lots of people in a very bad way.
I'm now confident
in doing teaching demonstrations outside of my own school with students I've
never met before, which was totally beyond my wildest imagination before I took
on the job. I began to revolutionize my ways of teaching with the help of ideas
and techniques from Cooperative Learning and Task-Based Learning. Also, the
online TESOL course provided by the University of Oregon helped me so much in
lesson planning and project ideas that lead to the Skype Exchange Project with
a very driven Japanese teacher. On top of that, I really enjoy traveling to
different schools and doing lectures, microteaching, and teaching
demonstrations because of all the recognition and appreciation I received from
the teachers.
My term comes to
an end at the end of July this year. Though it is still several months away, I
don't know why but I have felt quite nostalgic these days, especially today's
major event is the sixth one in three years when I took over. Well, I'm not
sure whether I'm gonna miss how I still had to toil away for the English
Advisory Group when camping or taking a vacation with my family, but without a
doubt, I will take all these as an important part of my life. What's ahead of
me after this is still uncertain, but we can only connect the dots looking
backwards, can't we?
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