The Matching Game

Following "The Best Weekend Ever," was the start of our 3 week orientation. The first week was designated specifically for the ETAs (English Teaching Assistants) to get settled and accustom to Yilan. On the first day, they introduced us to the MANY acronyms that would be used as our "cool" special Yilan ETA lingo. Here goes our acronyms: FSE (Foundation of Scholarly exchange), ETA, AP (Advisory Panel), LET (Local English Teacher), and TC (Teacher Center). It took us all a little while to get the hang of the lingo and some of us adopted the use of the 3-letter acronyms, while disregarding the 2 letter ones. Every now and again I'll through out the term "AP" when describing the directors and I'll just receive blank stares from my fellow ETAs. The first thing that comes to mind is Advanced Placement and Assistant Principal (which often does not fit into the context of the convo).

On our third day, we visited three schools and went to Wai-Ao beach (black sand beach, GORGEOUS!). This was the beginning of our courting with the schools. At our first school, Yilan Yuan Junior High, we were greeted by the principal and taken into a meeting room where we were wined with water and entertained by a fancy power point. At the second school, Da Fu elementary, we were brought into the gym to be serenaded by Chinese zither players, and wined and dined with water and fruit. At our final school, Geng Fang Elementary, we received a wonderful tour showing the beautiful campus by the beach front and we were refreshed by cool sweet lemon iced tea. By the end of the day, we came to the conclusion that all the schools really wanted to have an English native speaker as a resource to their students.

The matching game really began on Monday 8/11, the day we were introduced to all the LETs. When we all arrived, all the LETs sat on one side of the room and all the ETAs sat on the other side. We soon noticed that there were twice as many LETs than ETAs. That's when we found out that we would indirectly choose who would be a main school teacher and who would be a co-school teacher. It was an honor for the teachers and their schools to receive an ETA, and therefore they felt pressured to get us to choose their schools. Some LETs came off REALLY strong, while others were more relaxed. I think we all were more comfortable with the LETs that didn't constantly say "come to my school, come to my school."

Over the next few weeks, we worked with various LETs on micro-teaching projects while being trained by Dr. Trites. When it came time to choose our LETs, we were all stressed out! Out of the 24 LETs, we all had to choose 6 to rank for our preferences. Many of us liked the same LETs and became really difficult to choose who we wanted to work with. Every ETAs' criteria differed. Some only chose Yilan teachers because they wanted to live in Yilan, while others were looking for someone who would allow them more freedom to enhance their teaching skills. Personally, I was looking for a teacher that could show me how to create a fun learning environment and someone that I knew I could easily get along with for the next 10 months. Most of my teachers were in Yilan (I kind of wanted to stay in Yilan), but one of my top choices was in Luodong.

On Monday August 25th, we all went through our introductions and then participated in a speed dating game. We had two hours to see all the teachers, and the AP split the LETs into two groups. For the first hour we saw all the LETs in the first group for 5 minutes each, and repeated in the second hour with the second group. The speed dating was exhausting but really helped some people in their decision making process. As for myself, I basically stayed with all my same choices. After the speed dating, the ETAs and the LETs had 30 minutes to choose their top 6 preferences.

THE RESULTS ARE IN!!!!!!

The next day, we all walked in anxious to see who we were matched up with and where we will be moving (Yilan or Luodong). On a middle table, there were fold sheets of paper with each of our names. All the ETAs ran over to open their papers to reveal who was going to be their co-teachers. Once I opened mine, I scanned the letter to see Crystal's name for my main school (Siao Wei) and Jenny as my co-school (Cing Gou). Crystal was the only teacher I put down from Luodong cause I knew if I worked with her, I wouldn't mind having to move to a different city and that I would have an amazing year!