Tauranga Boys' College International : End of Year Dinner

Our annual International End of Year Dinner on Tuesday, 3rd November was a wonderful opportunity to get together with our students, parents and homestay parents to celebrate the year, acknowledge the achievement of our students and say farewell to our leavers.
We are very sad to say farewell our November/December leavers and wish them all the very best for their future.

Speech from Peter Zhu

Good evening Mr. Mangan, Mrs. Roff, staff and all the homestay families. My name is Peter, and I come from China. I am here to talk about my time in NZ.

My experience in NZ has been awesome and has gone by so fast. 2 years ago, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I arrived in Tauranga and went to Tauranga Boys College. At first I could not speak English properly. But I didn’t actually feel homesick for long. I met lots of different people and learned about different cultures. I was curious and interested in everything here. Even though when you sit in the class, people are talking and laughing and you can't understand the joke. Yeah so you ask yourself the question: would you rather keep trying or give up? This has sometimes been a good question for international students. Because the languages and cultures are quite different compared from the other side of the world. For me, It’s completely different to learn English in an English speaking country rather then in China. Actually sometimes the English teachers in Chinese schools are actually speaking broken English. Now when I go back to China with my mates I can talk to my teachers in English. I think I am good enough to do that now. To be honest, I never thought that I could beat my English teachers in this before. Anyway we are sent here to see different people and another culture. So I reckon all you can do is just go hard, go ahead and never give up. I am sure one day you will find out how lovely NZ people are, and how beautiful the environment is here.

I think I have chosen the right place.

At last, thank you to Mr. Mangan Mrs. Roff and all the staff for giving us such a lovely dinner. Thanks to all the home stay families for coming, I hope you enjoy the meal and the music tonight. Have a good night and see you next time.

Speech from Leo Feng

Hi everyone my name is Leo and finally I am a senior boy now. I have been here for 4 years and Im in year 12 now. I have stayed in my homestay for 3 and half years. My homestay is really good, my homestay mom is a housewife, my homestay dad is in the army and they have 4 children, 3 daughters and 1 son. My homestay older sister is playing touch for New Zealand so I can only see her 3 or 4 times a year, my homestay older brother is working in construction , my younger sister is studying at Girls' College now and my youngest homestay sister is still in the primary school. My homestay is really lovely they have look after my for 3 and half years. I don't do many activities with them cause I don't like rugby, touch and net ball, but my homestay love it. We still go to the beach together kicking the ball, have BBQ for dinner which is great. I feel really lucky because I have so much good teachers in the school Mrs Roff, Mrs Wilson, Mrs Mason and Mrs Adams they have looked after me for 4 years big thanks to them. Mrs Mason Is the first teacher I met in the school because she picked me up from Auckland airport and drove me to Tauranga when I first arrived in NZ. Then the next day I met Mrs Roff, she has given me lots help to push me to "study, study, study". I met Mrs Adams 3 years ago. She is always busy with homestays coming and going. The last teacher is Mrs Wilson. She was my Spanish teacher last year. This year she is my EAP teacher and she helps correct my writing and speaking. She's the best :)

In ending, thanks everyone for listening to my speech, thanks to my homestay for looking after me and thanks to all my teachers for helping me in everything.