My last week in Kaohsiung progressed quite smoothly, if I do say so myself!

For the last week of lessons, we decided to focus on verbs, since sentences in English are heavily dependent on verbs. To structure the lesson a little more, we chose verbs that were related to hobbies that the children might already enjoy, like swimming, reading, and coloring. The students were quite interested in the lesson overall, and I'm quite pleased with how they've progressed with their English.

A major challenge that I faced this week, and something that future teachers of the class may struggle with, is making sure the children are totally familiar with phonetics. Given the large amount of students in the class, as well as the varied levels of English, many students struggle with reading, and instead memorize how a word is pronounced (similar to how Mandarin is learned, since the character does not indicate how it is pronounced in any way). Though we attempted to help them with their phonetics, the large class size made it difficult, and we resolved that smaller groups would be necessary in the future to help them practice their reading. This is something I noted to the charity, and I hope they take the advice for the future!

Since I had a few days left before my flight, I decided to do a quick exploration of Southern Taiwan and Taipei. I managed to visit Kenting, Hengchun, Tainan, and Taipei in the span of four days, which was quite fun for me as it has been a while since I've truly travelled! Speaking Mandarin came in handy, since I was able to get pointers from locals and get recommendations for local spots that aren't talked about as much by travel bloggers online.

Overall, my four weeks in Taiwan was an amazing experience! I got to teach many excited young kids, connect with other volunteers and Taiwanese teachers, as well as experience a new country and culture. I'm grateful to have had this experience, and will remember it for a lifetime.