Nicol encourages his Chinese colleagues to be patient and not to always correct the accent or criticize their pronunciation. But with English major students, he is stricter with his teaching method. If they make grammatical mistakes, he immediately points them out.

"As an experienced language teacher, I do think grammar is important in writing," Nicol says. "Many teachers teaching English, especially in Jinan, don't have real experience of teaching. They do know something is wrong, but they don't know how to explain it."

Nicol is not only an experienced language teacher, but also a good language learner. And he is good at integrating learning with teaching. He attended the "intensive" course in Chinese in Keats School, the only Chinese language school in Kunming, Yunnan province. He was inspired by the Chinese learning courses, which "taught" him how to teach his Chinese students English.

"The students (in Keats School) come from many different backgrounds and have many different goals but all of them have to spend their time there speaking (and writing) Chinese. I think this style of instruction has much to teach us when we think about better ways of teaching English! "

So in Nicol's classes, nobody is allowed to speak Chinese. If students cannot express themselves with one example, they are asked to try another example until they make themselves understood.

Another reason for Nicol's popularity among his students is that he is more of a kind-hearted "grandpa" to them. Whenever he learns that some students cannot afford tuition because of financial constraints at home, he helps them overcome the temporary difficulty and continue with their college education.

But ask Nicol about his altruism, and he will say it's "nothing special".

Besides teaching English, Nicol is now also the English Language Consultant in Jinan, and writes and helps edit English stories for some magazines. He has been honored with the Qilu Friendship Prize twice for his contribution to the development of teaching English in Jinan.

The Qilu Friendship Prize is the most prestigious award the Shandong provincial government gives to expatriates who have made great contributions to the province.

Though Nicol has spent 15 years in Jinan, he is not sure how many more years he will be in the city. But he is sure that his days in Jinan have in many ways been the happiest of his life.

The thing that has impressed him most in Shandong is the way people in the province celebrate Spring Festival. "I have spent several Spring Festivals with friends in the countryside and there the customs vary even from village to village and each place is devoted to its own way of doing things," he says. "The desire of the families I have stayed with to include those of the family who have passed on their celebration is very touching.

"That might simply consist of including an extra bowl of noodles or jiaozi (dumplings with minced meat and vegetables) for them and involve rituals to encourage the spirits to come and join in. I didn't see this as in any way 'ancestor worship' but rather a very natural human desire to remember loved ones and think of them fondly at a time of celebration."

By Zhao Ruixue (China Daily)