Season's Greetings from 5 Central Taiwan Middle Schools

Season's Greetings Power Point Presentation

I live in Taichung and ride the bicycle to the Shengang Middle School for 7 graders conversation practice. The weather is sunny and cool; in the 60's. Since it is holiday season in America, every middle school wants me to do a Christmas program, including Shengang. So I give the children the full scope of festivities between Thanksgiving and New Year. I slide in with a brainstorm on the Winter Holiday Season with a racetrack matrix. The 8 graders begin a re-telling of an O Henry story, “Gift of the Magi” for the holiday season before Christmas Day; it would be fun doing it. It was the opening salvo in delightful visits to five Central Taiwan middle schools, one of them twice, with English as a Foreign Language programs to bring fluency and good cheer.  

 December 12th was the first night of Hanukkah in Taiwan. We light the candles in Asia before The Middle World, Europe, or America gets around to it. When I am asked to give a presentation here to school children about Christmas, I talk about "Winter Holidays" and Christmas shrinks to one night and day, but it’s a nine day holiday that most American children (and teachers) enjoy away from school. For the eight nights of Hanukkah, we light candles. The month between Thanksgiving Day and New Years Day is a celebration for all, no matter how many Santa songs they play on the radio. The candles glow to show that miracles are real; Kwanzaa candles glow, too, for the seven virtues that helped the survivors of slavery cope with this holiday.  Charles Dickens knew how tough it was. 

     On December 4, we were driven to Yunlin for three classes in Tse-Tong Middle School; there would be three more classes the following week. Forty-five minutes was just enough time to brainstorm December festivities with  reported speech culminating in board contests. There would be no reading, songs or handouts, well, maybe a short song played from my smartphone onto a Bluetooth mini-speaker: “We wish you a Merry Christmas.” I couldn't rely on audio-visual equipment in rural classrooms. 
     The one 7^th grade and two 9^th grade classes went very well. The rudimentary cooperative learning experience, because of  antiquated EFL teaching methods, not any worse than in a big city, was all the students could muster; the students had never been called on to participate in comprehensible discussion before. In the lower level, it was impossible; they didn’t know basic vocabulary, so I taught them the pattern and lit their fire to caucus and then come up to the board with responses to my cues. The first few rounds they sat in their seats. The first 9^th graders were better. I heard their teacher say she was disappointed that they couldn’t use past tense she had taught. The method I used was a shock to the students who had never practiced it. 

In the third class of "gifted students" I didn't go into reported speech; instead we brainstormed ten notions about  December festivities; food, drink, Thanksgiving,  holidays, gifts, party, New Year’s Eve, Hanukkah, climate, and outdoor activities. I drew a race track matrix on the board. The class was divided into five teams by row. It was a relay race to write one example connected to each notion. It was a bit chaotic because the board space was too small and there was a raised dais and podium that obstructed; teachers in Taiwan usually lecture and students remain seated. In the end, most students who hadn't prepared  copied from each other. 

In  six classes at Tse-Tong, I demonstrated different contest matrix. Their EFL teachers stood by. My hope was they could benefit from employing the fun approaches I used to do revision in EFL class. What I like best about teaching EFL is finding new ways to teach.
 

On December 16th, we returned to the middle school in Yunlin for three more seasonal enrichment classes. The first two classes used cooperative learning; first with the tag-team board re-telling of “Gift of the Magi” and  a question and answer board contest about my telling of Dickens' “A Christmas Carol.” The third class was not a “gifted” class as the first two were identified to me as; what that means is the principal of the school had given up on them and saddled them with an ineffective teacher, or maybe the teacher was being punished while the children suffered with chaos his non-discipline. 
While brain-storming December Holidays” went well with many children participating verbally, they ignored my suggestion to copy down the ideas we shared from the board and weren’t prepared for the race matrix contest that followed. Most of the six row-team’s responses were inappropriate and flippant but I didn’t let that dampen the outcome; I merely erased the waste and let the students caucus for a revision. The second round responses were better but the lack of discipline was detracting from the outcome. Their teacher remained docile in the back of the room and didn’t help; instead he loudly said the children didn’t know enough English the copy the six words: “In December, there are many holidays.” After the morning program  in Yunlin, the publisher drove us  home. I rested for an hour, and then drove to the regular class in Shengang at 4pm; I was too exhausted to ride the bike. 

The 8th grade 
evening class at Shengang started with the same December Holidays brainstorming activity As I had done in Yunlin, I took out a Menorah the rabbi in Taipei had gifted me, put on my yarmulke, and lit four candles with singing blessings in Hebrew. The children had never heard Hebrew before and were silent with reverence.

The brainstorming contest went well but I wanted the children to remember the kids who had nothing. I segued into the “Haitian Family Budget” cooperative learning activity. Each group was now a poor Haitian family trying to make ends with the little money they were paid. The children brainstormed items to buy from an actual  shopping list. I told them that the goal of the activity was to live and not die of malnutrition. The next week they would give presentation of their family budgets. If there was time, they would then  hear a holiday story to retell or answer questions about. I would do the brainstorm activity with the 7^th graders the following Wednesday but leave much more time for the lower level class. A retelling activity would have to wait.  

 I still didn't know how I would handle a 45 minute presentation for 300 students at the  Dec. 21 event and allow for  participation for prizes. I couldn't do a brainstorm,  retelling, or question answering  as I had done in Yunlin. I could do a power point presentation but how could I incorporate participation. I started a PPT I was calling “Season’s Greetings” and would figure out how to use it later.

It was a unique presentation at Caotun Middle School in Nantou on December 21. It was the first time I had done enrichment in any public school in Nantou however I did present “Judaism; My Faith” in Amber Zhang’s class at the college there. Typically, I was asked to do a Christmas program for the student body; 45 minutes to 300 students. I decided to make a power point presentation that I call “Season’s Greetings” that puts Christmas day in its place among the other holidays celebrated in the U.S. and Canada.

The big challenge I had with this presentation was figuring out how to keep all the students involved while handing out 20 little gifts the publish had put into separate plastic bags. I knew I wanted to ask the children questions to see if they understood the basics about the seasonal holidays but I couldn’t have board or panel contests as I had with Shengang and Yunlin classes; this group was too large. I didn’t want anybody moving around creating chaos. My solution was to add numbers and letters to 8 of the 10 slides dealing with holidays, regional climate, outdoor activities, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s; the first slide was the title slide and the last was the video and lyrics of “Ding Dong” by George Harrison that I would save for a sing-along at the end if there was time. It worked like a charm. I went through  the slides and commented on each one; the foods, festivities, customs, commemoration, and activities. I pointed out the connection between the photos and the smart art cycle matrix within. Speaking in Mandarin I told the ten classes of twenty plus students what I would be doing and warned them there would be a contest for gifts when I went through the slide show the                                             second time. I randomly called the class sitting on the gymnasium floor to their feet and told them to raise a hand if they knew an answer to my question about the slide on display. They didn’t have to say the difficult words; only the letter associated with the photo or the number of the caption. It worked out so well that I had five minutes enough to play and sing the “Ding Dong” song. I told the classes that the class that sang the heartiest would win the remaining five gifts. One slightly boisterous class won and the event concluded on time with everybody happy. 

What could be better on Christmas morning than listening over a hundred middle school children in twelve groups singing and dancing to English language songs, none of them about Christmas? If it weren't for the plastic LED lit Santa plaque affixed to the stand of the Sun Yat-Sen statue near the entrance, you wouldn't have known it was Christmas Day. 
We went to the Jianguo Middle School English Choral Competition where I was to be one of five judges, the only native English speaker. Only the teacher to my left could speak with me. We chatted between performances and it was quite pleasant. The ninety minute drive from Taichung at 6:30 am was worth getting up early for. 

"Fight Song" 1st place

 "My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark" 4th place

Even though many of the songs were song off-key, you could tell that the children had been practicing hard for many weeks on pronunciation, singing, and choreography. So what if the phrasing wasn't smooth? Who cared if the words were mispronounced?  It didn't matter that some songs were inappropriate love songs between a man and a woman in which a dozen boys hugged each other while a dozen girls did the same. It was brotherly love just the same. Who cared that "I Will Follow Him," the "Little" Peggy March anthem of girlfriends worshiping boys was sung with "Sister Act" gusto to Jesus? I held my mouth in the face of the exposure since then of pedophilia in the church; the song was appropriate after all. I had a hell of a time listening to all the selections and the groups I picked to win all one, though not in the places I suggested. My first place pick, "My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark,"  finished fourth; they were the largest ensemble, sang fluently on-key, had good rhythm, stereo effect, and had the most interesting and appropriate lyrics, but there was corruption afoot. Unbeknownst to me, my second place pick, the one that sang "Fight Song" well, won first place instead  because they were the music class and two of the judges were their teachers. 

 On the morning of Wednesday, December 27 , I drove to the southern tip of Taichung to a school I had done enrichment at before. I was to be one of two judges for a recitation contest. The children had been given three paragraphs in class. They would be randomly asked to read one of them for pronunciation, intonation, loudness, and stage presence. Each was about 80 words long;  they had a minute to complete.  Twenty-two students  participated. I left before I knew who won; three or four were better than the rest It was a silly in-school contest that I enjoyed doing. 

  In the evening, I returned to my regular class at Shengang. The entire 90 minutes  was dedicated to “The Gift of the Magi” and its group retelling. The 7 graders listened carefully, caucused in teams for fifteen minutes, and then relayed putting chronological details on the board.  I read each paragraph and drew red circles around the errors I saw. Once the initial round of 10+ details was complete, I assigned each of the five members a role to return and correct errors in grammar, spelling, details, subject-verb agreement, and tense; they were told to use present tense for a story summary. I then asked for volunteers to read their own summary but there weren’t any so I randomly picked children to do so. I asked the children to copy their group’s revised paragraphs but few of them did. I hope something sticks in their mind from this activity.                                                           This time of year in Taiwan, I remember my last class  at my bushiban in Taipei many years ago. I knew I would have to be returning to New York City, but I couldn't tell anyone. I taught “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” a happy holiday song, but I was crying in my heart. I broke down after my last class; the  owners knew I didn’t want to leave. Twenty-three years later, I returned to retire, but teaching will always be in my blood. It is such a gas visiting children around Central Taiwan  to share English language cheer and wish them all "Season's Greetings." 

Like a Vacuum Cleaner Salesman for Housewives Without Electricity

     Look at the photo above. In it you can see  EFL teachers  sitting around a table in  Li-Ming Middle School on the affluent  Westside of Taichung. They are scowling at me, a teacher of underclass immigrants from Brooklyn. Talking with me, the unsmiling woman in the gray skirt and white blouse, is their leader. She didn't like me unwilling to accommodate her role-playing idea of mercantile dialogue with her staff; children will rarely be in these situations in their daily lives, I explained. I used reported speech instead; it threw the staff for a loop. 

     Middle school children in Taiwan will never order a meal in English in a restaurant or buy clothes in an English speaking  department store, but these were the two  scenarios she thrust upon me when I entered  the room to meet with her, a private meeting that became a public power play.

 It was on September 26, 2017 that the publisher’s agent drove us to the middle school on the Westside that wanted me to hunker down in ninety hours a month of EFL classes; my limit is 12 hours a week; I am, after all, retired. I offered to teach nine class in three three-hour increments. My idea was to be a curriculum developer and teacher trainer for their staff to carry on after a month of demonstrative lessons. I hoped they would accept my plan to get things started in October and then come back  in November when I returned from the States to see how they had incorporated the Natural Approach, reported speech, and cooperative learning in their lessons. My supervisory model was Maryanne Cucciara who did this with FDR teachers in Project Freire years ago; her “Read the World” workshop was a blueprint for this project.

Before the meeting, I obliged  and observed their Readers' Theater troupe that would represent the school in  contest; I had done so the year before. I found this school liked its accolades and trophies and would sacrifice its students' language development to win. The children are not to blame for the misguided goals of their teachers. I watched the  skit and gave recommendations, but  none of my suggestions mattered. Their juggernaut would plow on.  

 I was pleased that this Westside middle school seemed to value my experience to  build    their   EFL  program but I was not going to run myself ragged teaching twenty-two hours a week, ninety hours a month; that was for a young instructor to punch out. I had brought a binder with curriculum and handouts and pedagogy to be used with The Community Curriculum. It was passed among the seated staff without a question of me being asked; they hardly looked. Their boss was watching them; she only wanted to use her idea.

     When we left that day, the project at the school on the Westside was not a done deal until they contacted me with a schedule proposal I had given them. There were two other textbook publishers vying for contracts to sell EFL textbooks to their school though neither brought a professional American teacher  to demonstrate as my publisher had, but I wouldn't use their textbooks;  I wanted to use Read the World Freiren workshop models with my own material. The easiest thing a teacher can do is follow a textbook page by page.

     By November 11, two months had passed since I heard back from the school.  I assumed they had decided to look elsewhere for another teacher to do their bidding. I hadn't gotten a formal reply or a thank you for coming. It was the publisher's agent calling to ask me to do an enrichment elsewhere that let on what happened. Li-Ming's EFL department understood I wasn’t going to use an ineffective  curriculum or antiquated methodology to make their school look good. It was nine 45-minute classes a week to use up funding. They would not care what their kids were missing. The face value of winning contests and getting awards for underachieving work made them look good. 
      The Li-Ming Middle School had offered me the world to be their EFL go-to expert, but then pulled their hand back after I went to demonstrate my syllabus. This is the same school that asked me to go be thanked by the principal for helping their Readers Theater troupe win last year; he didn’t show his face.  I was directed to observe a new student skit instead.  I felt like a vacuum cleaner salesman for housewives without electricity. “Hey Abbott!!”    
       Recently the school had the nerve to ask the agent to have me back for something or other; he was told to tell them I'm busy. 

Winter Mandarin For Immigrants

歡迎大家參加新住民華語研習班課程，以下課程資訊請大家詳讀，有問題可詢問您的老師。Welcome to the Free Chinese Courses For New Residents. 我們是張佑安（Ms. Zhang）和賴恩萱（Ms. Lai)，都是第3期新住民華語文研習班高級班的老師，很高興認識大家！本班於10/12（四）開課，請閱讀下面的課綱和課程資訊，謝謝。

     By the end of September 2017, my schedule for the winter was shaping up. Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 6:30-9:00 pm, I would study in the advanced level of the free Immigrant Mandarin classes. With Cheryl Zhou's tutorial of me with George ended, I decided to forgo direct instruction until I was settled again in the spring and go with a group instead. I registered for the free advanced winter course as a stop-gap replacement. The intermediate level class I had loved in the summer would have been easier, but I thought I should reach higher without the challenging tutorial that kept me busy. 

There would have been three gaps breaking up a regular tutorial; a three week trip to Pittsburgh, Lunar New Year break, and a return to the States the end of February. In fact, I would miss the first three classes of the winter class arriving back in Taiwan a week late, but it would be okay; I knew there would be no continuum of lessons; just bits and pieces of random activities. I was right. When I returned, the two teachers and assistant took turns presenting fourteen students with random lessons . 

     Mandarin is best studied in a small class with a textbook. I could review at home in the tea room, but I have to  study  regularly. If there is not going to be a systematic textbook of instruction, I can not preview vocabulary for a given class, not that I would, anyway. 

     Alice Zhang taught a lesson on Tuesday and Vanessa Lai led the class Thursday. I had a harder time getting into Vanessa's lesson of work-level categories; from clerk to intellectual to technician. Not knowing most of the Chinese terms, I caught on with help of the assistant that circulated around the class. I copied the answers from the board; miraculously I had gotten a few answers correct on my own. 

     It was good I was not taking the classes too seriously. After the break, on the same theme, the class was randomly grouped with each getting a sheet with five potential employees. By personality types and attributes, we had to determine what would be the most suitable position for each. One short young Asian woman with excellent written and spoken ability took charge of our group of four women and myself and unilaterally decided on the procedure we would follow. The answer paper was facing her and she read the descriptions. I listened or looked, much of it unclear to me. She asked, like talking to a child, if I understood simple book one terms. I ignored her slights and answered pertaining to the task, some terms that she didn’t know herself; it was confirmed by the assistants who came by to check. 

     I suggested suitable job titles for our project and wrote my  response. Before we ended class, I wanted to take a photo of our group sheet but the woman grabbed the paper as I was taking a shot. My friendly teammate asked her to put it back so I could snap the photo. She then asked to take a photo of the group and we posed, but the  woman blocked me from view; my friend politely asked her to move so I could be seen, too. 
 

          One evening, my wife and I went to a Michael Bolton concert in Taipei. I had to miss the class. When we got back to Taichung I was tired  from a lovely bike ride teaching in Shengang from 4:30 to 5:40 pm so I had missed two classes. Nevertheless, when I returned the following Tuesday. 
     I rode the bicycle regularly in the cooler autumn air to the two Mandarin class meetings on the Westside. I was getting something out of it, but it was not like sitting one on one with a tutor and a textbook. Should I wait until after I return from Pittsburgh in March to see about getting a new tutor? I won’t join a five-day-a-week class; a private tutor would be good and less expensive than going back to the Chinese Learning Center. One thing is for sure: I don’t have the motivation to study on my own. 

      On November 11, we had a fun with partners. Le-Ting and I did good at the presentation that night. We had to present an oral report about Miaoli. We went up fifth. I spoke about the first day of the trip and she spoke about the second. We made a few mistakes but the three teachers and the class understood us. I did an aside about “modern Taiwan history” being made in Zhu-Nan at the café where the Sunflower leaders organized around land rights in Dadu. I introduced and talked about the preferred method of transportation; a car since we would be traveling around, though the HSR was faster. I talked about the abandoned Japanese train bridge and the street with all the wooden art mentioning that it was expensive but you could chose your own piece of wood and have an artist inscribe it for you, as we did with our front door plaque. I also talked about the fancy hotel with hot spring for 8,000 NT a night but I neglected to mention San-Yi, the building up the winding mountain in the mist. Li Ting talked about the garden and the Hakka Street of foods and the second day’s events, though I can’t remember them offhand.

     Throughout November, I rode the bike to winter Mandarin class. It’s a cool ride, around 70^o and I relax on the 5^th floor balcony at least a half hour before class. I get what I can out of class and don’t worry about a thing.This class is good practice, but I look at my notes and there is no list of extraneous vocabulary. There is still no textbook order. That being said, we do go over grammar patterns. My Chinese syntax is still all messed up and it’s my own fault for not memorizing it. 

     In the December 7 class, I was disconcerted. I tried my best to understand everything, as I do every night, but that night the odds were stacked against me by the teachers and their assignment. The instructors decided it was time to prepare to run a skit for the final presentation Dec. 29^th, on  a Friday, not Thursday, so I would have to miss a Shenzhen class if I participated.

     The Ms. Zhang  quickly handed out a test to take at home and then got to the point: she played five excerpts from modern Hollywood films and divided us into three groups randomly giving us one of the films to mimic, a five person dialogue, and had us do it. I had never seen any of the films before and couldn’t even understand the dialogue in English (or have fun making up our own to it) when she showed it on the overhead projector.

I don’t know about the other two groups, but four of the five people in our group were having difficulty. One Asian dude copying the dialogue the teacher made up for us (she had made up most of it) knew Chinese so well he could write cursive characters, half of which I couldn’t read and could hardly copy. He, according to our teacher, wrote the best, but I told her and the group that it wasn’t so; I could understand the writing of the young lady next to me better.

 I tried my best to at least copy, which is what the other four did; their tolerance was better than mine. I finally gave up and just took photos of what the teacher wrote and what the woman next to me copied. I would have understand if we had written it without her dictating most of the dialogue. I  could have copied her dialogue if she hadn’t written upside down didn’t turn it around. I had to stand up to see it or take the photo upside down. No one was happy but the one man writing cursive. 

After class, one teammate met me in the elevator; she also though the task was too difficult. The teacher was autocratic and seemed only to care to have product for the presentation. Riding home, I thought I would participate if someone typed up the dialogue for me to read.

It was a frustrating night but I endured to the end without taking it too seriously; I get what I can out of the class. Even that night, I practiced something. Whatever happened in class, it was better than staying home. The best part of the evening was it wasn’t raining when I rode the bike home, Bloomfield and Kooper were sounding groovy, and the ohahmiswa stand wasn’t crowded. The fried chicken and Kirin tall can were delicious. The cats were happy to see me. 

      On Tuesday December 12, at 6:05 pm, there was a baseball game being played in Taichung. There was also a game Thursday evening same time, same place. Too bad I had Mandarin class on those nights. Instead, I would go to the game tomorrow and maybe the game Thursday.It would be more fun. 

      I was not happy about Thursday’s class. I looked over the photos of the dialogue. In the Marvel comic movie parody she wrote, Robert Downy Jr. was being talked about behind his back by “black man #1 and #2 and white woman #1" because he couldn't understand Mandarin; that's what the instructor and the one male student were laughing about.  The dialogue concerned giving  a face lift, Botox, liposuction, and other plastic surgery changing the “red man’s” (Spiderman’s) skin color and appearance; all new vocabulary for us. 

     We were told we were to present the skit on Friday, Dec. 29^th. I can’t go Friday evenings; I have a class at Shengang. I will forgo the last three classes which will doubtlessly be spent rehearsing for the presentation. It's okay; no one will miss the 'red' man. I decided to go to a special local Asian Winter Baseball game. I could learn Mandarin watching a Taiwan baseball game.

     I do not miss the winter Mandarin class. Most of my classmates were nice - we chatted during the break - but the instructors didn't make  an internet class chat room so there was no way for us to be in touch with each other. The summer intermediate class was more fun; it was smaller and we got to know each other through the Line internet group. If I was absent, I would let them know or they would contact me. This class won't even know I'm missing when I'm gone.
    In the spring, after we return from another trip to the States, I will get re-motivated to learn Mandarin again, I will pick up my textbook and start a new class. 

TEA Time # 2 at DJ House

     The second Taichung Educators & Authors (TEA) Time at DJ House got off to a rousing start with musical inspiration. “We may not have the autumn foliage of the season in Taichung,” said the facilitator, “but participants invoked the mood of the cooler tropical Taiwan evening with a rendition of ‘The Bells’ by Edgar Allen Poe, sung to music by Phil Ochs.” The merriment, happiness, terror, and solemnity the poem's bells foretold compelled four teaching writers to share their craft with patrons sipping free English tea and worthwhile chicken pizza.

At TEA Time #2, David dappled the late afternoon light in the cozy café with an excerpt from his short story, “The Brightest Star in the Tan-Zih Sky” about a local female entrepreneur's  over-ambition. Ben described the dry textbook material expected by upwardly mobile EFL students and brought an example of intriguing topical role play that inspires his classes. In addition to commenting on German passages in a novel David's writing, Frank described the intricacies of yoga instruction as the teacher helps practitioners tap the inner- strength; he joins Janice in holding classes upstairs at DJ House. Joanne Chu, one of her thirty yoga students, joined us in a discussion of Taiwan ex-pats, some with no feel for her native culture or language. If not for proprietor Darren’s sore throat, we would have been inspired with some sci-fi he has been revising but, like most sci-fi, it is left to the future.

      The next TEA Time is on Sunday, December 3^rd from 4-6 pm. All those present seemed to agree; this Taichung bohemian literary scene was long overdue and attracting some buzz from writers in Taiwan excited that there was now a meet-up south of the Taipei border. Others, by chance, will find their way to DJ House to share their written creations. Next month, take off the chill of winter with TEA Time flavored holiday cheer! Hope to see you then.