The school is a BC-certified Canadian private school and follows the BC curriculum to a tee. It is located about an hour outside of Shanghai in what is considered the "countryside" of China. The school grounds are beautiful and quaint and about 5 km to the closest village. The first thing I did when I arrived was buy a scooter to drive around and to explore the surrounding communities. There are many water towns around this area, which is how it became known as "the Venice of China."

The school has about 900 students in total with a BC staff of 25. This year alone there were more than 10 new teachers hired. It made for a very exciting time. I was definitely nervous in the beginning and had no idea what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. The students here are very hard working, respectful and friendly. Classroom management is not as much of a challenge as in BC public schools. The ESL component of teaching is where the bigger challenge lies. Most of these kids enter into the BC program in Grade 10 with no prior knowledge of Canada or the Canadian school system. They are used to a specific style of teaching and have adapted to a specific style of learning.

I am currently teaching six Social Studies 10 classes and one Social Studies 11 class. I have one class with 28 students and all the rest have less than 20 students, which is a true blessing. Some of the must-have resources that I brought from Canada were unit plans that I taught during my practicum: a memory stick filled with PowerPoints and lesson plans that I obtained from my BEd work and from my colleagues during my year at UBC, and a giant wall-sized map of the world. I have been pleasantly surprised at how many PowerPoints and resources I was able to use again from my year at UBC. It definitely makes planning and preparation a lot easier.

The courses at UBC that I have used the most while teaching abroad have been my social studies methodology class with Peter Seixas (I used his unit plan on my practicum and again while teaching here) and my LLED (Languages across the curriculum) where I was able to use some of the ESL strategies I learned for my own teaching.

Teaching in China has been a truly amazing experience so far. The opportunities to travel and see the world are endless. We are lucky to have both Canadian and Chinese national holidays throughout the school year. So far I have explored Shanghai and the surrounding areas and travelled to Guilin and Yangshuo in the southwestern part of the country. I will be spending Christmas in the Philippines, Chinese New Years in Thailand, and Spring
Festival in the capital city. Teaching abroad is something I could definitely see myself doing for some time-it is an amazing way to network on an international level with other teachers.

From the Grads section of UBC
(http://teach.educ.ubc.ca/grads/nikki-atkins.html)

NIKKI ATKINS - TEACHING IN CHINA

I was enrolled in the UBC BEd 2009-2010 Secondary 12-Month program. I taught at John Oliver during my practicum and had a wonderful experience. I think the first lesson I ever taught I realized that teaching was something that came naturally to me and that I happen to be good at. That is why I jumped at the opportunity to work abroad in China where I would be teaching exactly what I was trained to teach: Social Studies 10 and 11, and I would have my own classroom!