Tale of the Tail

This February Mr Eric Semasaka asked me: “Where is your homeroom? I’ll come find you later.” Without hesitation, I said 201. It was after a whole period I realised “homeroom” was a paraphrase of “core class”...so obviously I should have said 203. But if you separate “home” and “room”, it is 201, the English office, that deserves this name.
Jun 9th 
“Catherine, you could put those stuff on your desk - you don’t have to take everything home. This is formally your office starting from next Monday.” my English teacher Miss Adrienne Goetz said. I had just finished my week as a shadow teacher of hers. Thanks to the SEP program designed by Ms Shelley Dixon, all Year 4 students had a chance to follow a teacher for 4 days and help with all his or her work. To me, this week served as a pilot study, because I wanted to get as much experience and advice as possible before next Monday.
Jun 10th
I attended the graduation ceremony of our glorious Class of 2017 and turned my tassel. I took pictures with all the English teachers, wearing an almost proud smile. I thought, the day after tomorrow I would join all of you and become a member of the Language Department.
My friend Patricia had just started her senior high school. Reading my graduation posts on Wechat Moments, she texted me and asked what major I chose and which career path I would like to follow. I said, Linguistics. And I wanted to become an English teacher in the future, an English teacher working for an international school, hopefully Yew Wah. She asked me why.
“I choose English because I want to help more students discover the beauty of the English language and literature and fall in love with the ideology behind them.” I explained, “And I choose to become a teacher because I wish to inspire a generation and try my very best to generate positive externalities in students’ lives.”
Jun 11th
I read the instructions given by the IT Department and set up my ywies email account. In order to show off - no I meant to inform my colleagues - I sent an email to all English teachers: “Here is my email address and during my internship (0612-0629) you may contact me through this.”
Ms Grace emailed me back, said “Gotcha” and “Good luck↖(^ω^)↗ ”.
Jun 12th 
I told my Mum: “I’m not a student teacher now. I’m an intern. Look, I’ve signed a contract; I get a staff card; and this is my working computer.” She was like “I know and this is the fourth time you repeat exactly the same words to me! Now have your breakfast and don’t be late on the first day of work!”
Ms Julia Biasi - who now became Julia - gave me a brief introduction on how to write a lesson plan. And I started working on three different lesson plans for her “Yellow class” and Adrienne’s class. The topics were listening and reading and writing. Adrienne emphasised that we’d better start with a warm-up exercise and then switch between lectures and activities. Time arrangement was the biggest challenge for me because I was always afraid that the class would spend too much time on one section. Mr Neil Donnelly (although he was my colleague just like everyone else, I dared not directly call him “Neil” - and even Bobby would call him “Mr Neil”!) said classes sometimes just didn’t go as planned and a good teacher knew how to adjust her pace according to the students’ comprehension. 
My first periods went smoothly because the students were highly cooperative and they seemed to be patient. Some of them actively participated in discussions and helped each other solve problems. 
I attended the first all-staff meeting in my life! There weren’t too many topics being discussed and it ended quickly. Walking downstairs from 308 to 201 I complained that I wanted it to be longer; Bobby laughed and said: “Catherine, you are probably the only teacher in the school who wants a long meeting.”
Jun 13th 
Grading students’ writings wasn’t an easy task as you marked out all their grammar and spelling mistakes. Also, thinking about words of encouragement to write on the margin of their papers was a big challenge! I had to word very carefully to point out what their weaknesses were and always note their strengths shown in the passages. But the best part of such interactions was when I witnessed their progress a few days later - not much, but significant enough to be noticed and praised. As an ESL learner myself, I understood completely and utterly how hard it was for EFL students to improve in a short time, yet they just made it. They showed me how they cared about their writings. That, I would say, was the first thing I looked for on each student; everyone had different language proficiency levels and various writing problems, and this was definitely acceptable - as long as they cared enough about this subject and were willing to take efforts.
Jun 14th
Adrienne told me this months before when I had my Student Teachers’ Day, but I didn’t take it too seriously until I confused my students in class... A tough part of teaching was you had to explain something you thought easy to people who found it difficult! You have to put yourself in the students’ shoes in order to teach efficiently. When I wrote down “conjugation of verbs” on the whiteboard and started giving examples about wrong conjugations, Adrienne interrupted me and asked me to explain to the whole class what that abstract phrase meant. Then I realised this was a low-frequency word for Y1 students. I was used to saying “discourse markers” as we studied this in my A Level English Language class, but in a Y1 class I needed to replace the lovely jargon with “transition words” so that they knew I was talking about “because, so, though, however”...
Yes, a good teacher wasn’t someone merely professional in her field; she had to be able to help others understand those concepts and guide them to develop the connections at the same time.
Jun 15th 
From April to June every night I slept for no more than 7 hours on average. However, when I was a student, it seemed less exhausting. During my internship I didn’t sleep less, but whenever I fell onto the bed I could immediately fall asleep. I never felt tired because I was happy and enthusiastic about my job; yet physically it proved to me life as a teacher could bring fatigue. 
Our caring Head of Department Adrienne asked me if I was given too much work to do. I said no. Honestly what I was assigned was far less than what the real teachers had to face every day. If I could only tell the students one thing, it would be “Your teachers always have a lot on their plate. Preparing for your class is time-consuming enough; they have a lot of other things to worry about, too. If they appear energetic in class, that’s very likely because they are too professional to let their fatigue influence you.”
Jun 16th 
I was assigned to compile 6 Spelling Bee lists. After Mr Neil heard of this he had an almost sympathetic look and said: “It’s lucky to have you help with this task.” Really, considering the difficulty level for the primary and secondary school kids as well as brainstorming the sample sentences was a lot of work. These 900 words took me a whole week and a half. But there was a way to change a challenging task into a fun one! If any of you would join in the Spelling Bee volunteer team this October and my lists weren’t significantly revised, you would probably find a lot of inside jokes in the sample sentences. I put my entire two years’ memories in them haha!
And one more fun fact: Mr Q told me that I was the first student that had three different roles in Spelling Bee throughout these 5 years. When I was a Grade 7 student, I came to Yew Wah as a Spelling Bee candidate. When I was in Year 3, I was the emcee and usherette. In Year 4, I became the student-coordinator of the contest, helping organise the volunteers. And now, I compiled all the spelling lists for the candidates.
Jun 19th
Invigilating an exam was not as easy as students thought! One of the Year 1 students said that he envied invigilators because all they had to do was to wander around. But I would rather sit their and do their exam! Walking around for two hours wasn’t easy! But in those English exams when we three - I meant Adrienne, Julia and I all invigilated in one room full of students - it just looked so hilarious to me.
Jun 20th 
At the beginning of the school year, our Head made every department member a hoodie, with the YWIES sign on the front and their name and a lucky number at the back. Last Halloween I wanted one to dress up but she said if I wasn't a Department member I couldn't use the YWIES logo. I thought I would never be able to wear one at that time...and I forgot about the hoodie later. 
I didn’t know I'd really become an intern someday, thanks to my school.
And I was shocked this morning. When I came to the office, I saw the Minion Adrienne gave to me (which served as the mascot of our Language Department) sitting on my desk, wearing a hoodie. This hoodie had a YWIES logo on the front, and a huge “Catherine Tang 18” at the back. Surprising and touching. The number she chose had a strong metaphorical meaning as well - I would welcome my 18th birthday on July 2nd, and the internship was a perfect chance for me to learn how to become a qualified adult with a high sense of responsibility.
Jun 21st 
Anyone wanted to know what the smell of 201 was? Usually it smelled like papers (yes, we never ran out of paper); sometimes it smelled like fountain pen ink; other times it smelled like coffee. Oh I wanted to make a complaint - as I sat next to Julia in the office, every noon when she opened her lunch box I couldn’t concentrate on my work! Her food was always so inviting. When Mr Neil brought back tuna pizza from Steven’s Coffee the office smelled more friendly, because he always shared it.
The most controversial smell of the office was the smell of cheese popcorn - literally the worst, metaphorically the best. It was literally the worst because it smelled so cheesy and a bit stinky I had to say... I wondered where Adrienne and Julia got them. As a result, Mr Neil rushed out of the office and said “Goodbye” a few minutes after the ladies took out the popcorns from the microwave oven; Bobby and I rushed out, too, he heading towards the lavatory and I into the library; Grace was laughing in the office; Adrienne and Julia argued that the popcorns didn’t taste as bad as they smelled. This was one of the most hilarious moments in 201 during my internship, and that was why I thought it “metaphorically” the best. I thought about filming it and sending this to a TV programme called “Funny Family Videos”.
Jun 22nd 
Think about the scene of 4 people greeting each other with a yawn in the morning! This was another day filled with grading, spelling bee lists, making jokes and Toy Story 3.
Sadly, I argued with Adrienne today. I never really wanted to argue with her and it made me very sad that she later apologised for “being so insistent” and “making me upset”- the fault was all mine for not being mature enough. I wanted to stay late after school in order to finish all my work but she urged me to go home after 16:30. This argument happened almost every day and I always thought it was because she wanted me to take a rest, so I kept explaining to her that I wasn’t overworked and I would actually feel happier working than taking a rest.
She said, “But you should spend more time with your parents before you go abroad. They will be happy if you go home early. You should have dinner with them and spend time talking to them.”
That day I got home much earlier than usual because I left school almost right after 1630. My mother was very surprised. She said in a jovial tone: “Whoa you’re so early today!”
I thought my responsibility as a person wasn’t only carried out at school.
Jun 23rd
Today the “Awesomest Department” had lunch together! Everyone came: Adrienne, Annie, Bobby, Elisa, Grace, Jetty, Julia, Lily and Mr Neil. When our Head of Department toasted and said something like “Thanks for the whole year” I realised I was the only member who had just joined in for two weeks...it was so embarrassing haha. When I posted the photo on Wechat Moments, Ms Ivana commented that I looked like an “old colleague of theirs” and I was happy!
When making the spelling bee list, I tried to define "Butterfly" and I typed “a grown-up caterpillar”. All in a sudden, without any reasons, I felt very emotional.
Jun 28th
Today a starving Miss Catherine received a thank-you card from a student Tracy, after double periods with the class. I never thought I would be recognised in this way; reading her words I felt so full and didn’t feel the need to have lunch.
It was Mr Neil’s last day at school. I was sad that I couldn’t see him when I came back to school next semester for a visit. And I was sorrowful about another tragic fact: This was my second last day working. I envied the new teacher Aimee - she would formally join 201 in August and spend at least a wonderful year here - very likely more. I wished my internship could be much longer.
When I was a student, I told Bobby that 201 was the best room in the school. He seconded, because “we have two printers, big bookshelves and a microwave oven”. My reason was slightly different. 201 was the best place because here I encountered so many nice teachers (and colleagues), started great friendship, had most of my laughter throughout the year and took the very first step towards my dream. This was a place, at least for me, where miracles and beliefs started to grow. I would forever miss the people here, and I was grateful for their help, support, encouragement and care. I hoped one day I could come back and be a formal teacher.
Jun 29th
I hugged everyone in the Department today. Browsing a few photos of our office, I realised how messy it was, just like my study at home. There were so many papers, pens, books and memories everywhere. The magic was we always knew where to find the right things.
Adrienne said I was a wonderful intern and had helped the team save a lot of efforts. She said she was proud of me.
Bobby said the English Department would be a little too quiet next year without my presence - ok I thought this was a compliment...? Anyway, even if I was so loud, they were so tolerate and never kicked me out.
Julia said “we have really appreciated your help and enjoyed your smile and laughter around the office”. 
My Y4 graduated friend Roy came back and visited me, commenting that after being a teacher I grew even more confident than before.
I felt like these 14 days I had learnt more than I expected.
I returned my staff card to HR before I left school today, hence technically I had never checked out. Meeting Julia at the school gate, she spoke to me in an almost serious rather than joking voice:“You can come back at any time because you haven't checked out at the gate”. And when Adrienne cycled past me she said in a ghostly tone: “You can never leave the school!”
At the graduation ceremony I didn’t cry. I saved my tears for today. Walking to the underground station I couldn’t help weeping. It was thinking about a joke my friend Chel used to make with me that I calmed down and started giggling: She asked me after I became an intern what I should write on my name-card, and I said “Tail of the Language Department”. “I see. The most capable member is the Head,” Chel commented, “hence you are definitely the Tail.” I laughed and laughed. 
Flipping over my pages as a Tail, I promised myself that years later when I formally became a teacher I had to be at least the Waist of Department.

We say goodbye tonight and head towards new journeys and adventures. No matter how many people come back, we will sit around the desk again, telling stories for three days and nights.