I'm please to meet you all. This will be our last participation in this educational effort, our previous experiences had been
very rewarding to us -teacher and students-.No wonder, we're here again for another try.
Our school is a very tiny one. It only seats 80 students on its maximun capacity. Currently, we have 60 students attending.
We teach English as a second language. Trying to provide our learners with collaborative projects where they will not only
practice the language, but learn about other -perhaps- more significant, cultural, skillful ways of life, etc. We're located in the
southeast part of Mexico. In hilly and green Xalapa, in the state of Veracruz. We'll share more about us in our welcome
package.
I'm leading this educational approach for the seventh consecutive year. Looking for fun, challenging and meaningfull ways to
teach a second language. Mainly, we're here to share and learn from this collaborative educational experience.
I'm looking forward to meeting you all through emails, forums and way not, in a live session -that would be awsome-.
Cheers,
Guillermo Ojeda Lajud
Crafts, EWC
2011-10-03
Four Learning Blogs
1. http://nzjh1.blogspot.com/
2. http://nzjh2.blogspot.com/
3. http://nzjh3.blogspot.com/
4. http://nzjh4.blogspot.com/
2. http://nzjh2.blogspot.com/
3. http://nzjh3.blogspot.com/
4. http://nzjh4.blogspot.com/
Go Further: Iris 6 -week Project
Go Further: Iris 6 -week Project
Iris Chiu 10/03/2011
I am extremely excited about this brand new 6-week project because over the last month I have held multiple meetings with the principal and deans to discuss the various aspects of the project. Our main goal is to broaden our student’s global perspective through this unique 6-week challenge.
Long distance communication via video conferencing (time and equipments) for the purpose of correcting essays and giving student feedbacks can be very difficult and challenging. Thanks to I-EARN it has made communicating over large distances easier.
I would like to share with you my student’s learning experiences via these four blogs (http://nzjh1.blogspot.com/,http://nzjh2.blogspot.com/,http://nzjh3.blogspot.com/ ,http://nzjh4.blogspot.com/). I am very excited to be able to teach my students a variety of current events and news in English. I am utterly exhausted during this second week of school, but also calmly reflective and overwhelmingly renewed. This shows that I am exactly where I should be at this point in my learning and teaching career, with my Nan-Jung Junior High School students.
It has been fascinating talking and communicating with international students through the perspective of a coach. Certain things have caught my attention during these talks that might otherwise pass unnoticed. I feel it is my responsibility to document my experiences this year, no matter how tired I am. I am sure many of you reading this can certainly relate.
I am committed to this 6-week project and determined to see it through. At the end, I hope to learn more about and respect other cultures so that I can instill this knowledge upon my students and maximize the effectiveness of this project. If you are a system’s thinker, you’ll definitely want to stay tuned.
Iris Chiu 10/03/2011
I am extremely excited about this brand new 6-week project because over the last month I have held multiple meetings with the principal and deans to discuss the various aspects of the project. Our main goal is to broaden our student’s global perspective through this unique 6-week challenge.
Long distance communication via video conferencing (time and equipments) for the purpose of correcting essays and giving student feedbacks can be very difficult and challenging. Thanks to I-EARN it has made communicating over large distances easier.
I would like to share with you my student’s learning experiences via these four blogs (http://nzjh1.blogspot.com/,http://nzjh2.blogspot.com/,http://nzjh3.blogspot.com/ ,http://nzjh4.blogspot.com/). I am very excited to be able to teach my students a variety of current events and news in English. I am utterly exhausted during this second week of school, but also calmly reflective and overwhelmingly renewed. This shows that I am exactly where I should be at this point in my learning and teaching career, with my Nan-Jung Junior High School students.
It has been fascinating talking and communicating with international students through the perspective of a coach. Certain things have caught my attention during these talks that might otherwise pass unnoticed. I feel it is my responsibility to document my experiences this year, no matter how tired I am. I am sure many of you reading this can certainly relate.
I am committed to this 6-week project and determined to see it through. At the end, I hope to learn more about and respect other cultures so that I can instill this knowledge upon my students and maximize the effectiveness of this project. If you are a system’s thinker, you’ll definitely want to stay tuned.
2011-01-25
99 School Year Celebration: Expect the Unexpected
99 School Year Celebration: Expect the Unexpected
Nan-Jung Junior High School, Ping-Tung County
1. Introduction
A professional teaching community is a group of teachers committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and active research to obtain better results for the students they serve (Hung, 2008). Nan-Jung English teachers would like to be a successful group with the hopes and aspirations of assisting students to solve the problems in lives and studies.
Our teachers not only like to share their knowledge of how to effectively solve misbehaviours in their students, they also know how to successfully take out the tedium related to teaching. Even though we tackle all sorts of teaching problems, however, we believe we are not alone. We will become a strong support-group for all the challenges that our teachers will, no doubt, encounter.
2. Basic Information in the English Community
Name Expect-unexpected
The Type of Community English
Reporter Iris Chiu Telephone 08-8631112 E-mail liyingchiu@gmail.com
Aims 1. To organize the 99 school year teaching plans.
2. To arrange all exams of this school year.
3. To brainstorm possible solutions for teaching problems.
4. To join the oral practices and group discussions in the classroom.
5. To improve the teachers’ knowledge and understanding of language and language learning.
6. To develop the teachers’ skills in translating this newly acquired knowledge into their teaching.
7. To seek out different professional developmental activities as teachers progress in their careers.
Members
Name Subject
Li-Ying Chiu English
Michelle Huang English
Fay Chen English
May Chuang English
Joyce Lai English
Ava Chen English
Hannah Chou English
Daphne Tzeng English
Lisa Wu English
Carol Li English
Rachel Kuo English
Sylvia Mao English
3. School Year Targets
In order to become well organized in our teaching, we plan to design a yearlong calendar of events. In addition, we not only hope to improve our abilities as teachers, but increase our students’ abilities. Therefore, it is our desire to help students with their English listening, speaking, reading and writing skills during this academic year. We have developed an outside reading plan and a ten-minute short play.
3.1 Goals of the outside reading plan
- To conduct an experiment and report the results using an adapted reading activity from the textbook.
- To develop the students’ ¬scanning, skimming and predicting skills.
- To broaden the students’ view of the world.
- To unite the Nan-Jung English Village teachers and to extend students’ reading habits.
3.2 Goals of the ten-minute short play
- To understand the main points of film or drama.
- To create special characters in the show.
- To understand daily conversation.
- To participate in public speaking.
- To increase students’ performance skills and address different learning styles.
- To develop reading and speaking skills.
- Learn to use new words, phrases and sentences correctly.
- To encourage the interests of learning English.
4. Methods
(1)Observation and feedback,
(2)Discussion and exploration of the topic (how to help students to read),
(3) Share their experiences,
(4) Teachers’ portfolios,
(5) Action research,
(6) Cooperate with colleagues to prepare English lessons,
(7) Develop the distributed new teaching methods,
(8) Discuss with colleagues,
(9) Build a workshop.
5. Activities: 99 School Year Plans （At least 12 times）
Date/Time Meeting Methods Instructor Place
1 Jan.5 (Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Set the schedule for the school-year.
A. The range of the exam,
B. The exam time
C. The staff and tutors.
(2) Design the activities.
A. Make a speech,
B. Read-aloud contest,
C. Basic Competence test: Verbal and listening ability,
D. Ten-minute play,
E. Develop a partnership with the English speaking society. Peers discussion Fey Chen
Conference Room
2 Jan. 12
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Discuss the questions that we have faced in the classroom or during teaching.
(2) Discuss the topic of the worksheet: Sympathy: how to love others.
(3) Distribute the key points of each chapter to the teachers. Create teaching media Conference Room
3 Feb. 23
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Discuss English songs.
(2) Discuss practical teaching methods, units, and classroom activities for media education. Buy the song albums All teachers Conference Room
4 March 9
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Use the web as a “media lab”: working with media using the internet.
(2) Try to build learner-centered environments through technology integration. Try to use the teach media All teachers Multiple Media Classroom
5 March 23
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Analyze the exam paper: How to edit students’ translation (from Chinese to English).
(2) Cooperate with English Village teachers to help students speak English.
(3) Cooperate with EV teachers to read English books in the library. Share the experiences Conference Room
Nan-Jung English Village
Library
6 April 6
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Set the time table of classroom observations.
(2) Discuss the topic of the exam and scope of listening comprehension.
(3) Discuss the English Speech Contest: time, methods and place.
(4) Discuss the topic of the English Speech. Discuss two magazines:
(1)ABC
(2)Let’s talk in English. Teachers Conference Room
7 April 20
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 Launch the English Speech Contest and Recital Contest (1) Give some positive feedback to students
Teachers and
Staff The Fifth Multiple Media Center
8 May 11
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Ask teachers to attend the ICT meeting. (Information and Communication Technology).
(2) Select topic to help them learn to communicate in English speaking countries.
Workshop Teachers Conference Room
9 June 8
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Invite the professor of Shu-Te University to make a speech.
(2) Select the topics: How to design a good ten-minute play and how to help students read more outside of normal “reading” sessions.
(3) Invite teachers to our campus and share their reading experience. Workshop Teachers The Second Floor of Multiple Media Center
10 Aug. 31
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 Arrange the show time, show place and the judges of the ten-minute play.
(1) Demonstrate the shows,
(2) Give some positive feedback to students,
(3) Give some positive suggestions to students. Principal
Staff, English teachers and all eighth grade students Stadium
11 Sep. 14
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Discuss what the special points in the play are.
(2)Choose the best actors and actresses from the play. Brainstorming,
observation, and discussion Teachers Conference Room
12 Oct. 19
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Discuss the review books of the Ninth Grade.
(2) Create the exam papers.
(3) Create the review notes for students. Peers discussion Teachers Conference Room
6. Expectation and Evaluation
Expectation Evaluation
1. Continue to observe students’ progress According to the school report, teachers analyze the students’ weaknesses and help them solve related problems.
2. Analyze the exam papers effectively Evaluate students’ progress.
Share experiences.
3. Problem-solving ability Reflect on the weaknesses of teaching
4. Accumulate teachers’ portfolios Check the teachers’ blog
5. Develop students’ reading ability and compose a ten-minute show Demonstrate the show on stage
Make the English Speech
7. Outcomes
The following section tries to express the outcomes from the 99 school-year plans. The outcomes will be divided into two main parts. One is from the teachers, and the other is from the students. Teachers not only have a routine meeting on Tuesdays, but also attend on-the-job trainings. New ideas from the professional conversations and positive feedbacks new ideas are expected to upgrade or stimulate the teaching environment and trigger the appropriate responses.
The activities will be indicated in the following section and the detail activity will be showed in appendices 1, 2 and 3. The other is the student activities. They will be shown in appendices 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Furthermore, evaluations will be demonstrated in each activity.
7.1 Teachers Part
7.1.1 How to use your tones and intonations to pronounce the dialogues in the textbook (See appendix 1)
Normally, teacher-lead students dialogue pronunciation and reading activities tend to be boring and renders students listless and uninterested in English lectures. After this training, some of the top student’s will become interested in the new teaching methods. However, some basic level students may still feel bored because they do not know how to express themselves or the meaning of the contents in the textbook. In addition, some optimistic students like to joke around, so they would use unusual tones to pronounce words or sentences even though they are wrong.
In response to the student feedbacks we can alter or enhance the in-class teaching methods while, at the same time, understanding that not all students will embrace change.
7.1.2 How to Use the E-classroom (See appendix 2)
In the past two decades, we have seen information technology (IT) increase, drastically, in popularity. People started to venture this world through WWW, e-mail, chat rooms, discussion boards and so on. It has had a tremendous impact on teaching and learning.
IT not only offers immense knowledge but also supports brand-new teaching methods for teachers. In other words, it is vitally important for 21st century teachers to utilize the E-classroom as it can rapidly deliver relevant information to the teachers who need them and place technologies and resources at their fingertips.
7.2 Students Part
7.2.1 Teachers On-the-job training and Students Ten-min Play (See appendix 3)
Each year, eighth grade students participate in a ten-minute play at our school. Our schoolteachers intend to direct the play in a short time; that is, teachers hope to attend the training course. By way of discussing the many facets of the play, we can ignite teachers’ interest in the play.
Speaking English on stage is a good way to help students open their mouths to practice speaking. At the end of the play school teachers and English Village teachers will critique the students and, in turn, boost their courage.
However, there are some embarrassed problems that we need to discuss here. First, some shy students sometimes hide themselves, and they don’t want to speak English in public. Second, schoolteachers need to face the different teaching theme in each school year; namely, schoolteachers have to write the script by themselves according to the theme. It takes long time to write and edit the script. In addition, some themes seem to beyond junior high school students’ ability. Third, some homeroom teachers cannot focus on the topic of the play. They will think it is a waste of time preparing for it. Fourth, teachers and students spend a lot of time creating the stage set. Unfortunately, it becomes garbage and is thrown away after the show.
7.2.2 Overseas Learning (See Appendix 4 & 5)
We continually encourage our schoolteachers and students to attend training courses either in Taiwan or foreign countries, and also upgrade our teaching equipment to the most cutting-edge technology in education. The following reflects what we have done.
For the students’ experience, we have taken them to different countries such as Japan and Australia which provides even more exclusive benefits for the dynamic learners. Our goal is to establish a relationship with our sister schools in America, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom in the near future.
After the journey, students wrote down their thoughts and experiences. It is a good chance for students to broad their global knowledge. However, learning trips to other countries is not cheap, so only a few students can join the tour. Some talented students want to join the learning tour, but because of financial issues are, unfortunately, they are unable to attend. We hope to seek a sister school in English speaking countries or exchange students to assist these students to fulfill their dreams.
7.2.3 Recital Competition (See Appendix 6)
The recital competition will be an annual recurring event to promote students’ pronunciation and intonation skills. As a result of continuous practice and guidance from the teachers most students will end up speaking more accurately and fluently.
7.2.4 Outside Reading (See Appendix 7)
Reading is one of the best hobbies a person can have; as it follows you the rest of your life. Through reading, anyone can temporarily leave the real world behind and enter a fantasy world of their choice which allows them to experience the joy of reading and, at the same time, absorb new knowledge.
In addition, our school has already been selected into the top 100 reading school in Taiwan. (See the website http://blog.yam.com/cwkids/article/31985948.) Based on the students’ expression, they raise some good points.
＊ Reading improves their vocabulary,
＊ Gives them a glimpse into other cultures and countries,
＊ Improves concentration, focus and discipline,
＊ Improves creativity,
＊ They often have something to talk about.
As we all know that reading gives us an insight into the diversity of ethnic people, their customs, lifestyles, etc. We will become more aware of the different places and the code of conduct that exists there.
But, we still need to be aware of some important issues points in English reading. First, some of the homeroom teachers are unable to teach English and thus the simple act of reading the language places a lot of pressure and anxiety on them. Second, inviting college students to teach and guide our students will be a good way to help homeroom teachers. Third, we can set up a study group for parents who are willing to guide students to read articles. These parents will, in turn, become teaching assistants at our school.
8. Conclusion
The progression of learning and teaching at Nan Jung Junior High is unprecedented. We are looking for better teaching methods for our schoolteachers and students. We know we will face more challenges than ever before; however, we believe we can confidently foster the enthusiasm and drive in order to bring a new energy to our organization in an ever competitive new era for the Expect-unexpected, English Community.
Nan-Jung Junior High School, Ping-Tung County
1. Introduction
A professional teaching community is a group of teachers committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and active research to obtain better results for the students they serve (Hung, 2008). Nan-Jung English teachers would like to be a successful group with the hopes and aspirations of assisting students to solve the problems in lives and studies.
Our teachers not only like to share their knowledge of how to effectively solve misbehaviours in their students, they also know how to successfully take out the tedium related to teaching. Even though we tackle all sorts of teaching problems, however, we believe we are not alone. We will become a strong support-group for all the challenges that our teachers will, no doubt, encounter.
2. Basic Information in the English Community
Name Expect-unexpected
The Type of Community English
Reporter Iris Chiu Telephone 08-8631112 E-mail liyingchiu@gmail.com
Aims 1. To organize the 99 school year teaching plans.
2. To arrange all exams of this school year.
3. To brainstorm possible solutions for teaching problems.
4. To join the oral practices and group discussions in the classroom.
5. To improve the teachers’ knowledge and understanding of language and language learning.
6. To develop the teachers’ skills in translating this newly acquired knowledge into their teaching.
7. To seek out different professional developmental activities as teachers progress in their careers.
Members
Name Subject
Li-Ying Chiu English
Michelle Huang English
Fay Chen English
May Chuang English
Joyce Lai English
Ava Chen English
Hannah Chou English
Daphne Tzeng English
Lisa Wu English
Carol Li English
Rachel Kuo English
Sylvia Mao English
3. School Year Targets
In order to become well organized in our teaching, we plan to design a yearlong calendar of events. In addition, we not only hope to improve our abilities as teachers, but increase our students’ abilities. Therefore, it is our desire to help students with their English listening, speaking, reading and writing skills during this academic year. We have developed an outside reading plan and a ten-minute short play.
3.1 Goals of the outside reading plan
- To conduct an experiment and report the results using an adapted reading activity from the textbook.
- To develop the students’ ¬scanning, skimming and predicting skills.
- To broaden the students’ view of the world.
- To unite the Nan-Jung English Village teachers and to extend students’ reading habits.
3.2 Goals of the ten-minute short play
- To understand the main points of film or drama.
- To create special characters in the show.
- To understand daily conversation.
- To participate in public speaking.
- To increase students’ performance skills and address different learning styles.
- To develop reading and speaking skills.
- Learn to use new words, phrases and sentences correctly.
- To encourage the interests of learning English.
4. Methods
(1)Observation and feedback,
(2)Discussion and exploration of the topic (how to help students to read),
(3) Share their experiences,
(4) Teachers’ portfolios,
(5) Action research,
(6) Cooperate with colleagues to prepare English lessons,
(7) Develop the distributed new teaching methods,
(8) Discuss with colleagues,
(9) Build a workshop.
5. Activities: 99 School Year Plans （At least 12 times）
Date/Time Meeting Methods Instructor Place
1 Jan.5 (Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Set the schedule for the school-year.
A. The range of the exam,
B. The exam time
C. The staff and tutors.
(2) Design the activities.
A. Make a speech,
B. Read-aloud contest,
C. Basic Competence test: Verbal and listening ability,
D. Ten-minute play,
E. Develop a partnership with the English speaking society. Peers discussion Fey Chen
Conference Room
2 Jan. 12
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Discuss the questions that we have faced in the classroom or during teaching.
(2) Discuss the topic of the worksheet: Sympathy: how to love others.
(3) Distribute the key points of each chapter to the teachers. Create teaching media Conference Room
3 Feb. 23
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Discuss English songs.
(2) Discuss practical teaching methods, units, and classroom activities for media education. Buy the song albums All teachers Conference Room
4 March 9
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Use the web as a “media lab”: working with media using the internet.
(2) Try to build learner-centered environments through technology integration. Try to use the teach media All teachers Multiple Media Classroom
5 March 23
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Analyze the exam paper: How to edit students’ translation (from Chinese to English).
(2) Cooperate with English Village teachers to help students speak English.
(3) Cooperate with EV teachers to read English books in the library. Share the experiences Conference Room
Nan-Jung English Village
Library
6 April 6
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Set the time table of classroom observations.
(2) Discuss the topic of the exam and scope of listening comprehension.
(3) Discuss the English Speech Contest: time, methods and place.
(4) Discuss the topic of the English Speech. Discuss two magazines:
(1)ABC
(2)Let’s talk in English. Teachers Conference Room
7 April 20
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 Launch the English Speech Contest and Recital Contest (1) Give some positive feedback to students
Teachers and
Staff The Fifth Multiple Media Center
8 May 11
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Ask teachers to attend the ICT meeting. (Information and Communication Technology).
(2) Select topic to help them learn to communicate in English speaking countries.
Workshop Teachers Conference Room
9 June 8
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Invite the professor of Shu-Te University to make a speech.
(2) Select the topics: How to design a good ten-minute play and how to help students read more outside of normal “reading” sessions.
(3) Invite teachers to our campus and share their reading experience. Workshop Teachers The Second Floor of Multiple Media Center
10 Aug. 31
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 Arrange the show time, show place and the judges of the ten-minute play.
(1) Demonstrate the shows,
(2) Give some positive feedback to students,
(3) Give some positive suggestions to students. Principal
Staff, English teachers and all eighth grade students Stadium
11 Sep. 14
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Discuss what the special points in the play are.
(2)Choose the best actors and actresses from the play. Brainstorming,
observation, and discussion Teachers Conference Room
12 Oct. 19
(Tuesday)
13:10-15:20 (1) Discuss the review books of the Ninth Grade.
(2) Create the exam papers.
(3) Create the review notes for students. Peers discussion Teachers Conference Room
6. Expectation and Evaluation
Expectation Evaluation
1. Continue to observe students’ progress According to the school report, teachers analyze the students’ weaknesses and help them solve related problems.
2. Analyze the exam papers effectively Evaluate students’ progress.
Share experiences.
3. Problem-solving ability Reflect on the weaknesses of teaching
4. Accumulate teachers’ portfolios Check the teachers’ blog
5. Develop students’ reading ability and compose a ten-minute show Demonstrate the show on stage
Make the English Speech
7. Outcomes
The following section tries to express the outcomes from the 99 school-year plans. The outcomes will be divided into two main parts. One is from the teachers, and the other is from the students. Teachers not only have a routine meeting on Tuesdays, but also attend on-the-job trainings. New ideas from the professional conversations and positive feedbacks new ideas are expected to upgrade or stimulate the teaching environment and trigger the appropriate responses.
The activities will be indicated in the following section and the detail activity will be showed in appendices 1, 2 and 3. The other is the student activities. They will be shown in appendices 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Furthermore, evaluations will be demonstrated in each activity.
7.1 Teachers Part
7.1.1 How to use your tones and intonations to pronounce the dialogues in the textbook (See appendix 1)
Normally, teacher-lead students dialogue pronunciation and reading activities tend to be boring and renders students listless and uninterested in English lectures. After this training, some of the top student’s will become interested in the new teaching methods. However, some basic level students may still feel bored because they do not know how to express themselves or the meaning of the contents in the textbook. In addition, some optimistic students like to joke around, so they would use unusual tones to pronounce words or sentences even though they are wrong.
In response to the student feedbacks we can alter or enhance the in-class teaching methods while, at the same time, understanding that not all students will embrace change.
7.1.2 How to Use the E-classroom (See appendix 2)
In the past two decades, we have seen information technology (IT) increase, drastically, in popularity. People started to venture this world through WWW, e-mail, chat rooms, discussion boards and so on. It has had a tremendous impact on teaching and learning.
IT not only offers immense knowledge but also supports brand-new teaching methods for teachers. In other words, it is vitally important for 21st century teachers to utilize the E-classroom as it can rapidly deliver relevant information to the teachers who need them and place technologies and resources at their fingertips.
7.2 Students Part
7.2.1 Teachers On-the-job training and Students Ten-min Play (See appendix 3)
Each year, eighth grade students participate in a ten-minute play at our school. Our schoolteachers intend to direct the play in a short time; that is, teachers hope to attend the training course. By way of discussing the many facets of the play, we can ignite teachers’ interest in the play.
Speaking English on stage is a good way to help students open their mouths to practice speaking. At the end of the play school teachers and English Village teachers will critique the students and, in turn, boost their courage.
However, there are some embarrassed problems that we need to discuss here. First, some shy students sometimes hide themselves, and they don’t want to speak English in public. Second, schoolteachers need to face the different teaching theme in each school year; namely, schoolteachers have to write the script by themselves according to the theme. It takes long time to write and edit the script. In addition, some themes seem to beyond junior high school students’ ability. Third, some homeroom teachers cannot focus on the topic of the play. They will think it is a waste of time preparing for it. Fourth, teachers and students spend a lot of time creating the stage set. Unfortunately, it becomes garbage and is thrown away after the show.
7.2.2 Overseas Learning (See Appendix 4 & 5)
We continually encourage our schoolteachers and students to attend training courses either in Taiwan or foreign countries, and also upgrade our teaching equipment to the most cutting-edge technology in education. The following reflects what we have done.
For the students’ experience, we have taken them to different countries such as Japan and Australia which provides even more exclusive benefits for the dynamic learners. Our goal is to establish a relationship with our sister schools in America, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom in the near future.
After the journey, students wrote down their thoughts and experiences. It is a good chance for students to broad their global knowledge. However, learning trips to other countries is not cheap, so only a few students can join the tour. Some talented students want to join the learning tour, but because of financial issues are, unfortunately, they are unable to attend. We hope to seek a sister school in English speaking countries or exchange students to assist these students to fulfill their dreams.
7.2.3 Recital Competition (See Appendix 6)
The recital competition will be an annual recurring event to promote students’ pronunciation and intonation skills. As a result of continuous practice and guidance from the teachers most students will end up speaking more accurately and fluently.
7.2.4 Outside Reading (See Appendix 7)
Reading is one of the best hobbies a person can have; as it follows you the rest of your life. Through reading, anyone can temporarily leave the real world behind and enter a fantasy world of their choice which allows them to experience the joy of reading and, at the same time, absorb new knowledge.
In addition, our school has already been selected into the top 100 reading school in Taiwan. (See the website http://blog.yam.com/cwkids/article/31985948.) Based on the students’ expression, they raise some good points.
＊ Reading improves their vocabulary,
＊ Gives them a glimpse into other cultures and countries,
＊ Improves concentration, focus and discipline,
＊ Improves creativity,
＊ They often have something to talk about.
As we all know that reading gives us an insight into the diversity of ethnic people, their customs, lifestyles, etc. We will become more aware of the different places and the code of conduct that exists there.
But, we still need to be aware of some important issues points in English reading. First, some of the homeroom teachers are unable to teach English and thus the simple act of reading the language places a lot of pressure and anxiety on them. Second, inviting college students to teach and guide our students will be a good way to help homeroom teachers. Third, we can set up a study group for parents who are willing to guide students to read articles. These parents will, in turn, become teaching assistants at our school.
8. Conclusion
The progression of learning and teaching at Nan Jung Junior High is unprecedented. We are looking for better teaching methods for our schoolteachers and students. We know we will face more challenges than ever before; however, we believe we can confidently foster the enthusiasm and drive in order to bring a new energy to our organization in an ever competitive new era for the Expect-unexpected, English Community.
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