On Friday, October 14, 2016, JESIE ran their first staff meeting  for the 15 teachers stationed in Nanjing.  These meetings are arranged monthly to discuss various professional issues such as lesson plans, peer observations, open days and other work related matters. The meeting was hosted by Ms Suo Ping, Associate President. She warmly welcomed everyone and asked if anyone had any issues regarding their schools, classes or apartments. Teachers took turns to comment on their current arrangements: classroom and office facilities, teaching materials, assistance from host school staff and, of course, their impressions of students. In general, everyone was quite satisfied with the school they were placed at and their students.

Then we moved on to discuss the peer observations. Each teacher at JESIE is requested to undertake one peer observation per month as they are a perfect way of teachers sharing ideas, and for less experienced teachers they are a good way of getting feedback from veterans. Mr Valerijus Gagas  submitted a provisional list of matchups. Teachers agreed to check their schedules with their partners to make sure the times were feasible to view each others classes.

We also discussed our job requirements and work ethics, with special reference to open days. Teachers were reminded that  they are required to attend and participate in Open Days which are arranged  weekly. After that, Mr Valerijus Gagas reminded all teachers of the Teacher Sharing deadline in December. He also took the opportunity to commend everyone on submitting their teacher introductions on time. Everyone did an outstanding job.

At the end of the meeting, Ms Suo Ping encouraged the teachers to promote various JESIE programs on their social media platforms. She also announced that JESIE had finally become a formal TEFL in China training center which may provide quite a few exciting career opportunities for our teachers.