The Abingdonian 2019

98 The Abingdonian Jing Li Jing comes from Nanjing in China which is an area where the four seasons are very distinct. Despite being busy, her home city is very peaceful and modern and she really loves living there. During her year as Mandarin Assistant at Abingdon, she was hoping to learn much about Western education systems, to learn more about the UK and to improve her English. She also wanted to reflect on herself and observe how different she would be when away from home for an extended period of time as she would normally visit her home in China at least once a month. She feels she has indeed discovered not only much about the UK but also about herself in her year here and she believes that the awareness of the differences in education systems will be really useful for her in the future. She was very involved in the Chinese Department and her highlights at Abingdon included much of her own teaching such as the fun with languages sessions, the lesson she taught for the Spanish exchange group, a poetry performance in Oxford and a Chinese cookery lesson. She found Abingdon a beautiful and peaceful town and the people very friendly and helpful. She also travelled a lot to cities such as Manchester, York and Liverpool, which she enjoyed. The two things she will not miss much are chasing after boys to attend assistant lessons and the food, as she found it very different from home and a little difficult to get used to it. Ever positive, however, she says it sparked her motivation to improve her own cooking. We will miss her very much and wish her all the best for the future. Alexandra von Widdern Fernando Sanchez Lopez Fernando hails from Spain, a little town called Ávila, which is sunny but very cold in winter, quiet and beautiful. On his return, he is most looking forward to seeing his family and friends again. He came to the UK hoping to improve his English as he had never been abroad for extended periods of time before. In addition to that, it was his first ‘serious’ job, so he felt it was a good challenge to test his ability to adapt to new situations away from home. For him, the year as Abingdon’s Spanish Assistant has been a very worthwhile experience in which he has learnt a lot and which has allowed him to make new friends. He found Abingdon very peacefull, while Oxford reminded him of his university town Salamanca. He also visited Bristol and has more travel plans for the remainder of his time in the UK. What he will not miss about the UK will be the proverbial weather, the spiders and the high food prices. Chasing after boys not attending his lessons and some of the British food would also be added to that list. His year at Abingdon brought numerous highlights for him, for example the MFL debating competition in which two of his students made it to the final and meant he experienced that wonderful sense of joint success. Other highlights included the MFL sixth form European Day of Languages dinner Staff Farewells