Dear Peter:

I see you will be doing a training in Guilin. I was there in February and posted this photo gallery of the Li River. You may be interested in viewing it and passing it along.

http://cc.ckit.edu.tw/~carmella/Li%20River%20Gallery/index.htm

All the best,

Carmen Boulter
TESOL Grad, 4 yrs in Taiwan

 

I am a Canadian, teaching for my second year in China now. I have been placed in schools in South China by the Buckland Group, and have taken part (on my recent vacation) in the Teacher Training program at Buckland group, and I can personally verify that it is an excellent program, run by excellent teachers--two of the teachers I know about--one is a Canadian, the other is Owen Buckland himself. He is Chinese, but knows and understands a lot about Western ways, customs, habits, etc. His headquarters are in Yangshuo, a small village about 60 km. from the city of Guilin, but Yangshuo is considered part of Guilin. Everything said about the scenery in the newsletter is absolutely true!!! I have taken part both in the training of Western teachers about to go out into the "real China" for the first time, and also the training of Chinese teachers who want to teach better English.

If you register for this, you will learn more than you dreamed possible, you will experience one of the most beautiful places in the world (I have gone back to Yangshuo so many times, I consider it my second home--each time I return there is a catch in my throat and my heart speeds up just a little bit), and you will be touched by a culture that is so different from your own, but where the inside feelings of the people are the same as ours! The people are so welcoming and friendly--though you will find some of the customs confusing at first--it is worth it to try to dig deep and understand them or accept them. Yangshuo is a magnet for many foreign visitors--because of its scenery, and because of the unique shopping experiences. There is a lot of western-type food available, as well as, of course, excellent Chinese cuisine!!

I am currently doing the B.Ed. program, and wish I could do my practicum in Yangshuo/Guilin, but I am teaching at a middle school in Jiangxi Province and will be unable to get the time off to do this. For those of you who take the leap--congratulations, and I take it upon myself to welcome you to the adventure of a lifetime. I know it is certainly mine!!

If you wish to email me my email is ttjcairns@hotmail.com

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain...

Happy travelling...Judy

PS -- nobody asked me to write this--I couldn't help myself