Hi Everyone,

1. Thank God, it looks like Coronavirus has passed for months. I am just glad that school life seeems stable. We know what to expect, etc.

Although we cannot get any job we want, at higher pay than average, due to COVID teacher shortages, it is great that things seem stable again. That helps me focus.

2. Long-term, I see many teachers are not going back to pre-COVID times:

a. They left China, but refuse to return
b. Their employers do not want them back so badly
c. Existing teachers are looking for destinations to locate to out of China

3. Is there a reason for this?

a. I notice that the RMB is so weak to the USD. Yet, prices for both real estate and day-to-day goods are stable. I would have thought things would have gotten stronger

b. My guess is that Chinese schools still operate, but do not respect outside teachers.

c. It is possible I am imagining all of this. Maybe China life is simply back to normal. Nothing special, nothing terrible, just normal day-to-day life.

4. Can anyone give informed opinions?

I'm tired, bruised, and battered, but it was great fun.

Now I just need to get all the photos and vids copied over to my laptop.

It's that time of year again.  We're starting late, on the 22nd.  Full dinners (and probably some ) are part of the plan.  I collected my uniform yesterday afternoon.  This year, my sector is i blue - a lot nicer than the day-glow green we had last year.

Hello Everyone,

Preparation for class, specifically lesson planning, just kills me.

1. I always liked it if I could just copy lesson plans, or the previous teach had the course prepared down to the minute.

Unfortunately, that is a dream.

2. Any other top websites, books, etc.?

3. Again, it takes me five hours to do a 30 minute detailed lesson plan.

I just wish there was a way to get far more efficient.

A good way to be more efficient is use a template. Write down the lesson aims and have something basic like

45 minute lesson

5m: Intro
5m: Warmer
10m: present language
5m: basic excercises  (gap fill/multiple choice, etc.)
10m: productive excercise (make sentences/dialogue....)
10m : Fun activity using the language (game/interviews/role plays etc)

then you can just put your stuff in

There are loads online, the big websites like British Council and OneStopEnglish have free lesson plans that you can download and use.

Like most creative stuff it's usually finding a direction that is hard and once you are going it's actually fun

Anything outside the mainland restarts the clock, including HK or Macau.  All they want to see is that you got checked out before the deadline.  I was in on a tourist visa in 2009 and had to do this. If my memory hasn't failed me, I vaguely recall it was a 30 day limit back in those ancient days.

If you go to Lowu/Lohu, you'll have to take the East Rail line down one stop before coming back.  Some of the other HK border crossings will let you do a u-turn just after clearing HK immigration and customs.

Or, since you went to all the effort to cross the border, spend a day or two playing tourist.