This is my third and final summer at St. Michael’s College, Colchester, Vermont, USA (www.smcvt.edu). I came here on June 27 for an intensive summer program, which compresses the regular 16-week term into a 6-week intensive course. MATESOL (MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) come from Greece, Mozambique, Iraq, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Canada and the US. With such an international group, the summer class is like a yearly reunion of English teachers from all over the world.
Vermont offers a cool summer with clear blue sky, most of the days, yet I cannot enjoy the fine sunny days here since for every credit we are taking, we have to attend class an hour a day and study for the same number of hours after class. Our life, then, becomes a routine of meals, class, study and sleep. Even the place seems to force us to study since public transportation is not readily accessible, and Burlington, the city nearest to St. Michael’s and the capital of Vermont, is more a provincial city, so there is really nothing to distract one’s attention from studying.
I had my final oral exit exam last July 16, our Foundation Day, and I am now finishing my courses in Teaching Oral Skills and Teaching Reading and Writing, which is really a lot of reading and writing for us. We end our summer program on August 1, but I can only go back to Beijing on August 4 since it is difficult to book a flight because of the Olympics. Anyway, it will indeed be good to be back home.
The Society of St. Edmund founded St. Michael’s College in 1904. They came to Canada and Vermont as refugees during the French Revolution, but they number only less than 40 worldwide.
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