The Teacher Education Reciprocal Learning Program is a service learning course offered by the University of Windsor’s Faculty of Education that prepares students to embark on a three-month exchange program to China to learn about the country’s education system, pursue an individual research project, and gain international experience as an educator. While University of Windsor teacher candidates embark on this exchange program to Chongqing, China in the spring, Southwest University teacher candidates from Chongqing embark on a similar exchange program to the University of Windsor in the fall.

October 2016 to March 2017 was a period of intense preparation. In addition to applying for a Chinese visa, establishing a means of travelling, and arranging accommodation abroad, I gathered materials for English language lessons, wrote reflections on various articles about the education system in China, and engaged in weekly Mandarin language lessons. My research proposal for my project, entitled “The Pedagogies and Perceptions of English-Language Teachers“, was approved by Mitacs Globalink, a not-for-profit organization in Canada, enabling me to receive a five thousand dollar grant to help fund my participation abroad.

From March 2017 to June 2017, I was primarily based in Chongqing, China. At Zeng Jia Yan Primary School, I taught English to three Grade 2 classes and two Grade 5 classes, with each class ranging from thirty to thirty-five students. At the High School Affiliated with Southwest University, I taught English to Grades 7, 8, 10, and 11 classes, with each class ranging from forty to seventy students. In addition to teaching classes, I had the opportunity to conduct workshops about aspects of Canadian culture such as the dream-catchers of the First Nations people to children’s summer camps. When I was not teaching, I was observing English classes of different grades and interviewing English-language teachers and their teacher candidates in order to gain information for my research project. I also spent a weekend in Chengdu where I visited the École Primaire Montpellier à Chengdu and the Chengdu Shishi High School. I documented my experiences in the form of weekly reflections and photos.

What I enjoyed most about this experience was that learning took place both inside and outside of the classroom. Observing firsthand how English language teachers educate students in primary and middle school classrooms in China has allowed me to combine the strengths of teaching English in China with the strengths of teaching French in Canada and incorporate them both into my teaching pedagogy that I can bring to my future classrooms. In addition, the combination of teaching strengths from both cultures, combined with the foundation of my teaching pedagogy, has facilitated my development as a global educator. Furthermore, I learned about life in China simply by living there for three months. From visiting museums to hiking in the mountains to having dinner with Chinese families, I have learned so much and have grown not only as a teacher, but as an individual. I developed not only a sense of international-mindedness from this experience, but also a sense of appreciation for the Chinese culture. My hope is that this experience will allow me to bring a global perspective to Canadian classrooms over the course of my educational career and benefit the academic community by increasing multiculturalism within Canadian classrooms and, in turn, helping to make the classrooms and its students multilingual.