TTC August 2014 - January 2015

This has been the most incredible experience of my life so far.
I am 18 years old and had freshly completed High School in England to suddenly jumping into the deep end of the going-to-another-country-experiencing-the-diverse-culture-and-learning-to-become-a-teacher pool.
Prior to arriving in China, my preparation included buying all the standard books for beginner's Mandarin and Lonely Planet Guides - which we had been advised to research about by ImmerQi - but nothing could have prepared me for the unforgettable memories to be made and lessons that I was going to learn until actually arriving in China.

I remember being in Beijing Arrivals, greeted by our ImmerQi staff member Jayne, who was undyingly cheerful despite it being 3am, immediately rendering me at ease. It was a pick-up at the airport of around 10 other people, so once again my experience began positively, by being able to make friends and share all our knowledge and expectations of China on the coach journey to our training school.
The month spent training for our TEFL qualification was spent in the ZhongShan experimental school, in Tian Tong Yuan, a northern district of Beijing. It was brilliant. The location was brilliant, our tutors were brilliant, our group was brilliant.
Of course, there were the few little culture shocks like the squat-toilets; standard of accommodation as compared with those at home; and different kinds of food and what have you, but they were so easily overlooked because of the amazing time we had living there, learning the ropes and forming life-long friendships with people from all over the world.

You get what you put in, so, in order to become the best teacher we could be, we were given quality lessons and assignments that were all individually marked and carefully considered. We knew that we would learn would all be put to the test as we were given the opportunity to have week of teaching real classes of real students! This was incredibly fun, and we were very sufficiently prepared.

We had also gone on a few day trips out with the whole group, which was super fun. And in general, immerQi staff were very helpful in directing us to good places to explore.

Even after we had all graduated, and were separated into our respective placement schools, ImmerQi staff have always kept in touch and taken good care of us.

Thank you all so much for everything,
I will definitely come back one day!