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Yang, Wendy (楊溫娣)
When I first applied to AID, I envisioned being sent up to a small village high up in the mountains to teach uncultured students while trying to fend off spiders, cockroaches, and worst of all – the mosquitoes. Well, it has been a surprise. Maybe I didn’t expect it to be so summer campish, maybe I didn’t expect to actually be thrown up in the mountains, maybe I didn’t expect to come across a typhoon, maybe I didn’t expect the students to know so much, or maybe I didn’t expect to become so close to strangers in a short two weeks...
Training week was a little boring and hellish, but the following weeks made it worth it. In retrospect, although being locked into Chientan Youth Center felt like living in jail, it allowed all 350 of us inmates to become closer because we constantly ran into each other. Even though you may forget more names than you care to remember, you’ll make friendships that may last across country borders and through a lifetime.
The two teaching weeks were amazing, offering great insight into life and the most fundamental connections between people. It showed us that we didn’t need video games or the Internet to keep us entertained – that we didn’t need to be constantly plugged into the world. I have so much respect for my teachers after being one for only two weeks. It’s exhausting but very rewarding at the end of the day. The greatest happiness comes from the simplest things, like a smile or a few words that make your heart melt. I miss playing basketball with our kids; I miss eating lunch with them; I miss their constantly asking for piggy back rides; I miss seeing them write our names in the sand; I miss sharing mangos and watching them beam with excitement; I miss my kids confusingly asking how strangers can be so kind. But by the end, we weren’t strangers. I wouldn’t say we were family but there was a connection that can only be described as one of the most fundamental in humanity – indescribable but raw and powerful. And maybe that’s what kept my tears from stopping when I said my goodbyes… AID has been an awesome opportunity to experience this wonderful connection and just sit back and reflect on my own life. Even though we have abstract ideas of what is important to us and what we want out of life, it really has forced me to ask myself “At the end of the day, what truly matters to you?”
During the last week, we took a coast-to-coast tour of Taiwan. Even though we didn’t have much time on each of our stops, the tour was a great taste of the highlights of Taiwan. Food, food, food! And don’t forget the shopping! I admit that I didn’t go out of my way to make friends outside of our teaching group during training week, but as I felt AID draw to an end, there was suddenly a need to reach out and meet new friends. You’ll find that each of your fellow AIDers is quite a character!
AID has truly been an unforgettable experience, and I hope all of you reach out and try to light up a life :)
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He, Michael (賀林飛)
Going into the AID program, I really did not know what to expect. During training week, I chose Class D of Cing Shuei Elementary School, which is the lowest level of English the school offers during its summer program. My partner and I had all of our lesson plans written out during training week. Although we did not use every single idea in our teaching plan, we covered all of the major topics we wanted to teach, which really made us proud of our students. Although it was tedious, training week really helped us organizationally and gave us many ideas for getting the students engaged. Our students were definitely as rowdy as we expected young children to be, but when it was time to learn, they got down to business. For our closing ceremony, the students performed the Phonics Song and Old MacDonald Had a Farm. For students that did not know their ABCs, I'd say that their accomplishment was pretty great. We built a really close relationship with our students from our two weeks of being there. Other than our lovable students, I became very close friends with the host families, teaching assistants, and other volunteers at my school because we would spend some nights at the school revising lesson plans and other nights exploring the town's local attractions. They treated us like they treated their own families, and we saw them as our brothers and sisters as well. Once we had finished our teaching, tour week was a great way to reflect and share our experiences with friends and counselors we had made during training week. It was also the perfect way to travel through some of Taiwan's most famous sites. I would definitely recommend applying for the program in 2014.
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Lau, Mojen (劉慕真)
Last year I heard from a friend about some program in Taiwan where people teach english to kids. I thought it was interesting and decided that it'd be worth looking into. After sending in all the required forms and applications all there was left to do was sit and wait.When I was finally notified that I was accepted to the program, I was more than excited. All I could think about for the next couple of months was the program.
July finally came and I was slightly nervous about meeting my roommates for the next 4 weeks. I hate awkward encounters...and of course it was awkward at first, but over the course of several weeks we became great friends.
The first week was training. Although I thought that some of the activities during training week were tedious at first, I realized how helpful it all came to be later on. The time finally came for us to leave Chientan and embark on our journey to our appointed schools. It was kind of sad knowing we wouldn't be able to see the people we just met and started warming up to until the last few days two weeks from then, but nevertheless I was still excited about getting to meet the students.
The two weeks of teaching flew past. One day we were trying to get the students to be less shy and more involved, and the next they were throwing water balloons at us. Two weeks sounds like a long time but after actually bonding with the kids, I wished the teaching weeks were even longer. I didn't want to leave the kids, the main teacher, the teaching assistants, or the security guards. These were some of the friendliest people I've ever met.
Tour week was definitely one of the sweatiest weeks; however, it was full of beautiful sites and exciting night markets. It was really nice getting to meet people from other groups and goofing off with them. I kind of wish that there was just one big tour with everyone. Of course tour week would not be the same without the lovely counselors who made sure we got on the right bus and did the bed checks. The last day was one that I wasn't looking forward to. I knew that this may very well be the last time I would see everyone again. As much as I was looking forward to not having to share a bathroom with 5 other girls, I didn't want to say goodbye.
AID summer will forever be one of the greatest opportunities and most memorable summer I have ever had. Going into it, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought that it was just a great opportunity to do some volunteer work and a chance to make myself more experienced, but what i found was an experience of a lifetime and friends that I will always be able to count on.
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Cheng, Alex (鄭伊翔)
My mom is a Chinese teacher in the US, and I've had a job tutoring before. I've always thought that maybe a teaching job would be great for me. When I heard about the AID program and how great it was, I thought this would be a great opportunity for me. It'd be a great volunteer program that I could put on my college applications, and I'm sure it'd be fun! When I first got to camp, it was a little strange being placed into a 6-man room with 5 complete strangers. I didn't know anything about them, and they didn't know anything about me. It worked, though. We talked, got to know each other, and bonded. Before this program, I'd never gotten so close to a group of people in so short of a time. It was a great experience, socially.
The classes were okay. Some of them felt like they helped a lot, giving out tips and strategies in the most dire kid-related situations. Other classes seemed repetitive and not as helpful. As I later found out, though, even the classes that seemed useless became incredibly helpful tools for the first week of teaching. The different songs and activities all became merged into our teaching plan. The Hello Song and the Sticky Ball game to name a few. I'm incredibly relieved that we had the first week of training involved. It helped the process of teaching by a lot.
During the teaching week, we got to meet and bond with our amazing Teacher's Assistants and students. The kids were absolutely adorable, and even if there were hard to deal with students, we got by fine. The teacher's assistants at our school were invaluable assets. We were lucky to get Dacun, a school incredibly prepared for this program. If possible, Teacher's Assistants should be provided all the time. For the classes that understand some English, having Teacher's Assistants allows the teacher (us) to be free to use only English. Doing so forces the kids to improve their comprehension and ability.
Overall, the program was a life-changing experience that can't even properly be put into words. Thank you for this opportunity to make friends, learn, and teach.
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Cheng, Yu-Jing (鄭郁靜)
Attending AID Summer had been one of my goals since freshman year of high school, and when I found out sophomore year that you had to be a junior or 17 to attend, I was definitely disappointed, but I patiently waited until junior year to apply for AID. I've always wanted to visit friends and family in Taiwan, and AID summer gave me the perfect reason to go back. I was so excited when I found out I got in the program, I remember screaming running downstairs, jumping up and down and shouting "I GOT IN!!!"
Then came the challenge of booking a flight from Kentucky that was under $2000. It was difficult, but I did it, but didn't realize that it contained a 1 day layover. And since I was traveling alone, I was really afraid at first, but I got through and landed in Taiwan safely, after my 54 hour flight. Then it was just to wait for AID to start. Once orientation started and I got to know my roommates and volunteer buddies, I finally let go of the fear that I won't have fun.
Training week was torture, but it was definitely worth the effort since it prepared me for teaching my kids. Teaching journal and working journal were a hassle to get done, but once completed, it helped to much during teaching week. I love my kids in Dacun Elementary School. They are the best kids I've ever taught! I'm honored to be able to teach them.
I was also lucky to get a great host family that took care of me and Alyce. My host mom was awesome and took us to the best places, to eat, or sight see. My host family also had three daughters our age and a cousin in college, we got along splendidly. At first, Alyce and I slept in a separate room, but by the end of the first week, we were all sleeping in the same room and talked about so many things.
Tour week was unquestionably the best part of the whole program. I got to meet more people on the tour bus (Bus4ever!).We got to visit so many places that I've never been too, eat so much good food and buy lots of cute Asian things. We also visited 3 night markets (I wished we got to spend more time at the night markets though). Then at the end of the program, I enjoyed the talent show and closing ceremony, even though we had to perform.
AID Summer 2013 definitely contains some of my fondest memories. I can't even express how much I enjoyed spending time with my 8 volunteer buddies. Even though we might not get along all the time, but that's only natural since we are all different people and have different personalities, but we all got to know and love each other. AID was a great learning experience for me and I would recommend everyone eligible to apply to AID Summer 2014!
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Lee, Rae-Ling (李睿凌)
There are many horrors in this world; starvation and homelessness, to name a couple. AID Summer forces you to face many of the worst of them: throughout these four weeks, all of us have had to undergo transformations as we battled lizards, flying cockroaches, monster-sized spiders who eat these cockroaches, and extremely honest school children.
It was a test, a long and hard trial, as we let out scream after scream upon seeing wildlife (that should most definitely stay outdoors) inside our bedrooms and even our suitcases, and held back simultaneous sighs upon hearing, yet again, young Johnny say that the assignments were stupid and he’d much rather be home.
But for just five minutes, forget the heat, mosquitoes, and candid children, and understand this: AID Summer is all worth it.
Having arrived in Taiwan a couple weeks before the program started, I was reluctant to leave my family and familiar surroundings for a month of the unknown, doing things I had never done before. I’m no teacher. And quite honestly, I don’t much like kids either. So why did I sign up in the first place? Good question. I’m not too sure of the answer either.
Training week was long. During it, most of us couldn’t wait for it to be over and get out into the “real world” and “freedom,” but looking back now, we all are aware of the bonding through “suffering” that each of us felt, recognizing that all 400 of us, including counselors, were surviving on lack of fruit, sleep, and wifi. And that made us all united.
When we separated on the last day of training week, we knew we each would have such different experiences that it would be hard to fully understand each other when we met again. Some of us were sent to the suburbs, some to the coast, some to the countryside practically in the middle of a rice paddy, and some, like me, to the mountains. For two weeks, most of us were distressed by living conditions, growing used to outdoor bathrooms and lack of showers as well as the many little bits of wildlife that constantly passed through our doors, slept with us in our beds (if we were fortunate enough to have beds), and huddled in our luggage for us to find later amongst our underwear.
As for the actual teaching part, I remember the first day being gruesome. With a classroom full of shy kids whose levels of English were all over the place, icebreakers were almost impossible. But it got better—as the days progressed, not only were the kids more willing to speak to both each other and the teachers (and getting more and more energetic and difficult to control at the same time), we became more comfortable in our roles as teachers, role models, and big siblings.
That’s right—for many of the students, not only were we their teachers, but we were also what they viewed as a sibling, for our ages really were not too far apart; some of our students were only three or four years younger than we. For most of the students, that transformed our relationship: and for most all of us, that was the main difference.
The final week, tour week, was a different experience for me as well—although I have traveled to Taiwan often, I rarely had left Taipei in past years, and the week of sightseeing brought me to places I had never known before!
It is difficult to put into words what that week was like, for although it resembled a typical week of visiting historical and fun places, it was with a group of people who had just come from two weeks of teaching and a life that, while so extremely different from each other, were in a way similar in that most of us had never known that world before. For most of us, it included fighting wildlife, heat, and daily laundry rounds (for we were only provided with two uniforms), and for every single one of us, late night lesson planning and early morning wake up calls. The week’s long bus rides provided sleep time for most, but also group time—and my bus in particular bonded over mind-boggling brain games, the rules to which were not revealed until the very last day, driving us all insane. We were a family. Bus E Eagles Wassup!
On the last day, we cried together. Together, we had gone from screaming, "HOLY (insert word here), IT'S A GINORMOUS SPIDER" to calmly saying, "Oh hey guys look, it's that really big spider that eats cockroaches for us! We've gone from thinking, "I hope I don't get bitten by mosquitoes" to thinking "DIE BLOODSUCKERS DIE" with our 7 cans of bug spray and Raid in hand. Together, we have become what we never imagined we could have become.
Throughout the four weeks, even the counselors became our best friends, for most of them were still in college and not much different from us in age or personality, and our relationships with them were as close as the relationships between ourselves, if not closer. After AID ended, Facebook showed many reunions between not only AIDers but also our counselors, and even now, we talk to our counselors just as much as each other.
They, the AIDers as well as counselors, are my fellow coworkers, friends, best friends, and honorary brothers and sisters. AID Summer left me with so many great memories that they are painful, for many of these people I will never see again; yet, that is what makes them so special.
很感謝教育部和僑委會給我們這個機會。我希望我們有幫台灣的小孩變成更棒！
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Tsao, Andrew (曹昌祥)
Taiwan has always been a sort of a home away from home for me. Every few years, I'd head back to visit relatives, explore the local scenery, and gorge myself on delicious fruits. After AID, though, I saw Taiwan through a different, stronger set of lens. There was more to the island than just 7-11s and mosquitoes; there were lush forests and temples, many close and wonderful friends, and, of course, a certain group of students whom I had the pleasure of teaching.
The first week at Cheintan, our activity center, I was struck by how much group work we had to endure. Six of us were crammed into a small room just big enough for us and our luggage. During the day, the other five members of my group and I had to sit through lectures and workshops. We even ate together in groups of ten! But soon it became more of a blessing. Every morning, I'd wake up as happy as someone could be at six or seven in the morning and don my purple shirt and long pants. After all, the small rooms meant that the six of us bonded and became close friends. Lectures and workshops were filled with jokes and skits. Even the hot, cramped cafeteria made us all the closer of friends as we chatted and ogled at some of the stranger foods (Whose idea was it to put cupcake sprinkles on beef?). All of the bonding and all of the lessons and games we learned during this first week would come in handy as we prepared to apply these skills toward teaching.
All too soon, we had to say our farewells to Cheintan and to each other as we dispersed across Taiwan. Some flew to remote islands; others left for schools in the middle of nowhere. The six of us, however, we were different. We went straight to Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second largest city, to teach inner-city kids. We lived in a nice house with an amazing host family instead of the school with its bugs and a 7-11 was never too far away. Despite the amenities, the challenges we faced were no less difficult and the teaching no less exhausting. Everyone in the group fell asleep immediately upon getting home from teaching at least once during the first week. The students were smarter than we'd imagined. I taught the middle-level class and my teaching partner and I had to adjust very quickly to keep the students' attention and to keep the class challenging and fun. Every night, we stayed up late making posters and flashcards, creating PowerPoints and word searches, and finding more games and activities for our students. As the weeks progressed, the students began to open up and speak English. They soon participated enthusiastically in every activity we threw at them. They sang every song, finished every worksheet, and played every game. I will never forget Nelson, who was one of the quieter boys, standing up and voluntarily singing the Continents song by himself, in tune, and by memory.
Again too soon, the last week had come. After many goodbyes, we were off to explore Taiwan. During the tour, we visited more places in Taiwan than I could point a finger to. Never before had I known Taiwan for such diversity. Every night market, every city, every temple had its own identity and flavor. All of the food was delicious and all of the sights were amazing. By the same token, all of the hotel rooms were cramped, most of the weather was scorching hot, all of the mosquito bites itchy, and I loved every moment of it.
Through these four weeks, I have found so many close friends and learned so many lessons. Because of a certain group of wonderful students, I have learned that teaching is exhausting and more difficult yet more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. I hope that I have given them not only a love for English, but also a desire to explore the world.
And to my fellow B3-6 group members, if you are reading this: You guys stayed up until ungodly hours of the morning to say goodbye and to see me off. It meant the world to me. Thank you so much for everything. Hope we can meet again in four years in Kaohsiung. Until then!
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Kim, Chelsea (金喜伶)
It has been three weeks since my amazing experience with AID. Not only was it great to meet people from around the globe but also to teach the children. Even though I was the teacher, I felt that they had taught me many life lessons, such as appreciating every day events and necessities. I was able to gain a worldly and eye-opening experience that has lead me to the path of open-mindedness and service to others.
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