On the morning of May 8, 2015, I had the opportunity to participate in a course with our foreign
volunteer Martin in AA 405. At about 08:45 I arrived at the classroom. I thought I was late, but
to my surprise only Martin was there and while talking to each other we went into the classroom.
After ten minutes seven of my classmates also arrived. Soon the others joined our conversation.
I think Martin is a very kind and friendly foreign teacher, who also mentioned that he loves his
family very much.
After a while, the Director of our department, Mr Gong, also came to our class. After greeting us
he told us that we were very fortunate to have the chance to join this course. He said that although
we had better grades than most of the other students in our department, if we wanted to become
qualified and excellent students, we must learn how to use the language for communication with
others.
We all agreed to what he said, admitting that we really need to practice our oral English and
improve our communicative ability.
Then Mr Gong mentioned our last trip to Xiamen. We all immediately got excited, because
we are eager to go out to learn from the experience of outstanding peers and teachers. Mr.
Gong noticed that we were enthusiastic about this trip, so he promised to take us on another
trip to Xiamen in the near future. He also invited Martin to go with us.
Since Mr Gong had a lot of other work to deal with, he left for a while and we continued the
talk with Martin. Knowing that he has travelled to many cities in China, one classmate asked
him how he could communicate with Chinese people.
For example how could he buy goods at the market? Martin answered that most of the time
he managed those things with the help of his wife. She liked learning Chinese, was more diligent
and could speak some.
Then another student asked why he wanted to be a foreign teacher and why he chose to go to
Ningde. Martin told us that if you want to be a foreign expert you need to be qualified, experienced,
pass an interview and undergo a special training in China. He did not choose to come to Ningde,
but was sent here by The Amity Foundation.
At this time Mr Gong came back. He recalled the first meeting with Martin 2001. He said it was
just like meeting an old friend.
We all realized that they think highly of each other.
Time flies, class was soon finished. Mr Gong suggested we should take a picture together. We felt
very happy to do that. With
everyone’s laughter we ended this interesting course. This class was really a wonderful experience.
By Wu Liling,
English Education Class Three