Written by Jiang  Jie

I’m the first Chinese teacher of Confucius Institute in New Brunswick from China. For me, the year of 2013 has too many transitions, the biggest one is that I was sent to Saint John working by myself after my Thailand tenure.  Living and working alone in a strange city, from all the strangeness of this city on September to all the familiarity now,  I really experienced a lot .

First of all, life, you need to get everything done bravely by yourself. From the trifles of life, to know the traffic conditions of this city  to all kinds formalities of social insurance and medicare insurance, are all need solved by myself. I am very grateful that I have a brave heart and persistence,and two years’ experience in Thailand. 

For work, everything is starting from the beginning because I’m the only Chinese teacher in this city. I’m teaching  at Harbour view high school， Saint John High School and St. Malachy’s Memorial High School. The main content is Chinese traditional culture such as paper-cut Peking Opera and so on, at the same time,there will be taught some basic Chinese language. 

Because there is propagating lack before , the students don’t know they have the opportunity to learn Chinese . So I asked for broadcast the place and time of the club every time, I made posters including the time and place and contents of the class on the school publicity column in advance , I sent email to every teacher asking for help, I found the Chinese international students of the high school hoping them disseminate Chinese program. Hard work pays off, after a lot of efforts,there is a good development of Chinese clubs in this semester. 

Because of Thailand teaching experience for the similar age of students as here, I know how to catch the students attention and teach them. I try to keep the interest of the club : I taught them paper cutting, facial make-up of Beijing opera,and Chinese traditional food;sent them some interesting videos through email , communicated with them as friends. Many students are interested in learning Chinese ,they want to learn Chinese language ,so they wrote applications to principal. And we got the permission to increase the class. 

I love this challenging job,  I love staying with student. Since I choose this career ,I know it’s very arduous but I will try my best. I always believe that Pay will have return. If a teacher give all the love to students ,they will feel that and give you love back. They sent email to me saying thanks; they made Christmas card writing in Chinese, they sent me all the Christmas gifts in red color  because they remember I love red color. I never thought that they would do these all, because we have just known each other for three months. But they have done that I wrote all the things that happened in Saint John of 2013 with listening the songs my students recommended. I’m very excited there will be formal new Chinese course in these high schools ,in that way I can meet all the students everyday. Although the work will be very busy, I’m very happy .I'm sure through the efforts, there will be more and more students enjoying my Chinese class.

汉语教师在圣约翰

        蒋洁

    我是国家汉办第一位从国内派到新布伦瑞克省孔子学院的汉语教师。2013对我来说有太多的转变，最大的转变是从泰国任期完成后再次被汉办派出来，一个人到圣约翰开展工作。从九月份来到这座陌生的海港小城到现在所有的熟悉，只身一人在一座陌生的城市生存生活并工作下去的确是经历了很多。

    首先生活上，你需要一个人勇敢的去搞定所有的事情。从刚开始的生活琐事 、出门交通到各种医疗保险社会保险的办理，都是需要一个人去解决。我很感谢自己有一颗勇敢并坚持的心，我也很感谢两年泰国的历练。

    工作上，因为我是圣约翰市唯一一名孔子学院汉语教师，各方面的工作都比较难以开展。我任教的圣约翰市三所高中，Harbour view high school， Saint John High School 和St.Malachy’s Memorial High School.由于到任时是九月份，但是本地的课程在七月份就已经排课结束，所以在来到之后经过孔子学院院长和市教育局的领导的争取下，这个学期在这三所学校开办了汉语俱乐部，主要教授一些中国传统文化如 剪纸 京剧等，同时会教授一些汉语基本日常用语。

因为来到后发现这座城市没有提前做宣传工作，学生并不知道有汉语学习的机会。于是每次到学校后我都会去校长室请求帮助广播上课的地点和内容；我也每次把上课的时间地点和内容做成海报的形式提前一周贴在学校宣传栏上；并且发邮件给每一位老师，自我介绍并请求他们帮助，在他们上课时候宣传Chinese club。与此同时，我也寻求学校中的中国学生的帮助让他们在同学朋友和寄宿家庭中宣传这个项目。功夫不负有心人，经过多次努力汉语俱乐部在这个学期顺利的开展了起来。

    因为有泰国两年的教学经验，面对的都是相似年纪的学生，大概知道应该怎样进行教学。在上课时我努力保持汉语俱乐部的趣味性，我教他们做剪纸 做京剧脸谱，做中国美食给他们。并且会经常的和他们交流，通过email发送给他们很多有用有意思的材料，慢慢的有很多学生对汉语学习产生了兴趣，在 saint john high school，学生主动提出加课，想学习汉语语言。 因此在俱乐部开始半个月后，通过学生自愿联名申请，从他们学校校长那里争取到了汉语语言课的机会。

 我很爱汉语推广的工作，天生热爱讲台，爱和学生在一起.做不喜欢的工作那仅仅是工作，做喜欢的工作那是事业。从两年前带队志愿者在泰国进行汉语教学到现在自己独自在 这里开展工作，虽然很辛苦但是我一直在努力。付出肯定有回报的，我特别的相信这句话。老师对学生用心的爱，他们有感受，他们也会不时的回报你很多感动。他们平时会发邮件给我说感谢，他们会用写的还不是很漂亮的汉字做卡片，他们会记得我说过我喜欢红色然后送红色的圣诞礼物。我是特别容易被感动的老师，就拿圣诞节来说，我从没想过学生会精心的做圣诞贺卡和准备圣诞礼物给我。因为我们仅仅只有三个月的相处，而且每周仅是上一天的课。但是他们却精心的做卡片集体签名，送红色的圣诞礼物。短暂的相处更让我明白了教学相长的含义。

    播放着最后一次课学生推荐的圣诞节歌曲， 记下2013下半年在圣约翰的点滴工作和生活。2014年正式的汉语课程将会在高中开设， 新的工作会更多更忙碌，但是我特别开心自己对学生能做点什么。我已经在尽我最大的力量开展工作，在这里开展工作很不容易。一片处女地，需要一点点耕耘，但是我相信会通过努力，耕耘一定会有收获。