This staff meeting was the first Nanjing teachers' staff meeting since the Spring Festival Break. Since it was just before the Qingming holiday, most attendees were quite relaxed and looking forward to their upcoming long weekend. It was a chance for people to catch up after getting back into the swing of things at their respective schools. Also, another warm welcome to Sienna and Jafar on their first staff meeting since their arrivals in Nanjing! Unfortunately, our newest teacher, Krystal Hampton, was unable to attend due to the remoteness of her school.

As usual, we started the meeting with teachers sharing their experiences at work and in their daily lives. Perhaps because our teachers have had a term to gain experience in their schools, and a chance to put some of the techniques and ideas shown in the winter PD session into play, there were fewer complaints about discipline and classroom management. There was some discussion about the effects of changes and technological issues in a few program schools that were brought up for consideration by the JESIE staff. It seems TAs and technology were some of the main problems this month. Some extra attention was paid to the newest teachers, like Sienna, Jafar and Andre, to make sure they were settling in well at their schools.   

Some feedback regarding the peer-to-peer observations was given by various teachers, who were happy to share some of the high points from their observation experiences. Considering how many teachers took away ideas to use in their own classrooms, we may implement the report of some new game or activity ideas as part of staff meetings in the future. The feedback was very positive.

Val reminded teachers that the submission of professional resource materials was due, but that the due date had been moved to the 7th of April. One of the issues that that had cropped up due to the size of files and a wide variety of electronic data file names was the difficulty and downloading and organizing the submitted materials. The change in date was to allow teachers to rename and reorganize materials sent to be easier to understand, and to give Val the files on a USB if necessary. We will be creating system to file materials so teachers will be able to easily find and use the resources. The discussion on this project was quite interesting!  

The staff meeting ended with a quick reminder that the articles on English-language teaching are due April 28, and the submissions for JESIE's Best Short Film/Photo Slideshow contest are due May 31. Please remember that the articles are about teaching English, whether a story about a teacher's experiences in the classroom, or something more pedagogical! Ping finished with a request that teachers continue to recommend new teacher candidates to JESIE in the future. As meetings go, the Nanjing Teachers Staff Meeting was run and completed in an efficient and positive manner. On to the next meeting in April!