I created my first lesson for my TEFL certificate course!  Well, technically it's not my first lesson designed to teach English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) students, considering I graduated with an ESOL endorsement and have been teaching in south Florida for the last two and a half years, but this was my first one geared towards students in CHINA!
It actually really made me recognize how difficult our job is going to be while we're in Shanghai.  So far, I have only taught ESOL students who have a decent grasp of English and need help with fine tuning and some vocabulary building.  For the most part, my students and I have been able to communicate effectively in English.  And if not, there's typically been another student in the class who speaks English and the foreign language (usually Spanish or Creole) who can help us out.  I'm not sure yet of the proficiency level of my students in Shanghai (still don't even know what grade level(s) we're teaching!), but I'm guessing that it's going to be quite a wide range.  I believe it's going to be immensely more difficult trying to teach English as a foreign language than it is to teach language arts to someone with limited English proficiency.
The course we're taking is pretty neat because of the nature of the discussion board.  All of our assignments are posted so that everyone taking the course can see what we wrote.  That way, when an assignment asks us to design a lesson plan, we have access to all of the ideas of the members of the class.  Most of the lessons can be tailored to any age and ability level, so we're building a repertoire of effective TEFL lessons that we can use when we're in China.
I'm wondering though, if any of you are fluent in a second language, how did you learn it?  What methods/activities/lessons/etc. did your teachers or mentors use to help you become fluent?  I know it's extremely difficult to look metacognitively at something that probably seemed to happen naturally, but if you've got any ideas or advice about what worked well for you, I'd love for you to leave me comments! :)

On a side note, I would really love it for any of you who are reading to click the "FOLLOW" button on the upper left side of the page.  I can't tell who's reading unless you follow me, which isn't a big deal for the next two and a half months BUT when we make the leap across the ocean I won't have access to any of our beloved social networking sites and our cell phones won't work in China so it's going to be incredibly difficult to keep in touch and the only way I can communicate with you is through this blog or Skype, which I don't have yet, so please, click FOLLOW!  (How's that for a run-on sentence?  I hope it conveys my anxiety about losing touch with dear friends while I'm overseas...)

I'm moving to China.  C.H.I.N.A.

It's a very surreal feeling, and I'm not sure that it has fully set in quite yet. 

Adam, my boyfriend, tells me that everything feels like an adventure in China.  He traveled southeast Asia for three months a few years back and he said that simple tasks, such as going to the market to buy vegetables, becomes immensely more difficult.  Everywhere you turn, he says, there is another obstacle to overcome, whether it's means of travel, the language barrier, or people staring at you like you're some kind of celebrity.  He told me that the biggest adjustment was not to China, but to returning to America because in America, when you need some toothpaste, you get in your car and it's a straight shot to the store where there is an entire aisle devoted just to toothpaste.  You buy it for the price on the tag, get in your car and go home to brush your teeth.  Easy Peasy.  In China, even buying toothpaste is an adventure (more details on said adventure when I run out of the Crest I'll bring to Shanghai).

I guess that's the only expectation that I'm going with - that my reality will be turned upside down with adventures (they do walk upside down on the other side of the world, don't they?  I think I saw that in "Alice in Wonderland").  Other than that, we'll be living and working at Shanghai High School International Division.  We're not sure what grade level we'll be teaching yet, but we requested middle school (I know!).  We'll be living on campus, as most of the foreign English teachers do.  It's a beautiful 56 acre campus in the southwest of Shanghai with approximately 2,800 students (their website can be found here).  We were located at the school through the placement agency we applied with called Appalachians Abroad through Marshall University.  More information on the campus and what I think of the program (and not just their website) to come in approximately 2 1/2 months.

Right now, we're working on getting all of our documents submitted and completing the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate.  It's an eight week online course that involves reading (a LOT of reading) and posting to a discussion board.  It's pretty neat to be able to communicate with the other teachers that will be going before we go.  We'll be able to meet most of them at our orientation in the end of August.  It'll be cool to meet other folks as crazy as we are for taking this on!

Other than that, there's probably not much else going on (other than multiple good-byes and hopefully a massive get-together before we leave) until August.  I hope you'll check back to see what's up and to KEEP IN TOUCH!!!