Reflections on Jan’s presentation

Reflections on Jan’s presentation
By Iris Chiu 090317
We were happy to have the opportunity to invite Dr. Jan Z. Tiangco to visit our school and make a formal presentation: regarding the organization of a curriculum-integrated with principles and steps. Two core questions were brought up in this workshop. One was how to organize a good 10-minute drama. The other was how to improve the students’ English reading habits. The following reflects how we hope to apply what was learned in Dr. Jan’s presentation:
We could have a 10-minute English play competition for the 8th grade students every year. To facilitate this, the schoolteachers still think we need some special guides in acting and composing the script. And Dr. Jan suggested that we could ask the English Village teachers to help the Taiwanese teachers. They will teach students to speak English more fluently in the play; that is, the English Village teachers would become a strong backup for the Taiwanese teachers. On the other hand, we could look for some college teachers to guide us or use the webcam to observe the college teachers’ teaching. Using tools such as Facebook and Movie Maker, we could make and share our films with others or another group of teachers.
Surveying the books in the library, Jan suggested three ways we could help students in their reading skills:
1) We may design a passport for students in order to make sure students to read these books.
2) Jan also expressed that he is willing to support his post-graduated students to guide our students to read in the extra-curricular activities. Along those same lines, we would like to open a reading class on any given third Thursday to assist students for with outside reading.
3) Jan envisioned the English Village teachers working side by side with the Taiwanese English teachers, enabling us to build a framework that would guide students in reading some fairy tales, storybooks and etc.
I’d like to thank you for Jan’s coming. Even though we did not have much time to get to know each other, Jan still tried his best to bolster us. Jan’s honest suggestions are a plus for us to encourage our students to read and compose a good drama. Under diligent teachers guiding them and with the modern technology, we believe students will get the maximum benefit. Without dedicated people, our learning in ICT drive would never get off the ground.
Lastly, the technology has made the distance of once remote East to Western countries seem much shorter. Using the new ways of communication, we hope we can be as hands-on or hands-off as we care to be in this project, ICT. The more we integrate new technology and teaching methods, the more likely students are to grow in their ability to face the challenge of the future.