'City Works' Final Presentations in Shengang JHS, Taiwan

        The culmination of sixty-four hours of EFL conversation enrichment over eight months in two hour increments is a project in which every student contributes and participates for the entertainment and enlightenment of the entire class. It is a project prepared for in groups of four learning cooperatively and then sharing what they have learned with the other groups, groups that were rotated periodically with one singular purpose: to put into practice English language skills they have acquired. 

         I have had the pleasure of being the regular facilitator of the seventh and eighth grade groups of thirty children at Shengang Middle School in Shengang, Taiwan, each using the Community Curriculum, with the eighth graders completing the complimentary Bread & Roses Curriculum; these are two curricula developed over fifteen years with my ESL students at FDR High School in Brooklyn, New York. Together they raise the social consciousness of students to, as Paulo Freire said in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 'Read the word and read the world.' I have adapted it for use in Taiwanese classrooms.

This is a summary of the preparation and outcome for the Community Curriculum; presentations of “City Works” projects. The lower intermediate students were brought,through reported speech conversation with interactive handouts, from descriptions of their home life to discussion  about the infrastructure of their city. 

     By the end of May 2018, we were moving on to the final project: each group was assigned one aspect of infrastructure from The Works for them to discuss and report on using the Cooperative Learning technique of shared responsibility. 

     Earlier in the spring term, the students chose a structure to build in a vacant city lot and “Designed a Park”. They were motivated in  each segment by music, in this case “The Rain the Park and Other Things,” by the Cowsills. At  the last class, a pizza party, they would give their presentations on the final project: “How the City Works.”

“How the City Works” breaks down like this:        Group 1 did “Communication” (Telephone, Moving the Mail, and The Airwaves), Group 2 “Moving Freight” (Rail, Maritime, Air Cargo, Markets), Group 3 “Power” (Electricity, Natural Gas, Steam),  Group 4 “Keeping it Clean” (Sewage, Garbage),  Group 6 (Water and Sewage), Group 7 “Moving People” (Streets, Subways [MRT], Bridges & Tunnels) while Groups 5 and 8 still had to decide.                                            

    Each group of four children was given a copy of a page related to their topic from The Works; Anatomy of a City, by Kate Ascher, and the group would report on their topic with an illustrative poster cooperatively. The book is New York specific so I selected topics that could relate to any city.

     On June 1,  when I got to school, Vincent, the school manager,  was there to greet me. I am so thankful for him for entrusting me with his students. That day, the class would be in the library. I acted cool but I was not prepared to deal with the disruption; the students needed large tables to work out their projects, not the narrow space of the library. I let them sit where they wished, in rows facing front. It worked well in the first half of class as I used the random seating arrangement for the children  to introduce their group to others and  partners that shared, on  mini white boards, topics in “How the City Works” and what their task was within the group, but the second half of class was chaos. I asked the children to sit with their partners to decide who would write text and who would draw the poster; to organize the chronological steps or give examples. It turns out that most students hadn’t looked at the handouts I had distributed the week before; some had left their papers home.
     I started getting cold feet; what if the students weren't up to such a task; their English ability was barely intermediate; I had been goosing them along all term. Maybe I was being selfish putting my own aspirations into the children. We all needed a break to think things over.

         For the next class, I asked Vincent to copy a  booklet of songs, “My American Musical Experience” and "New York City" to accompany  power point presentations. It occurred to me that though the children had told me about their lives in Taiwan, they had no idea what it was like to grow up in Brooklyn, New York.  It would be a reprieve from the project; a chance to let the dust settle, hand out extra copies, and make sure the students knew what was required of them for the June 14 workshop class; a head-start for reports before the pizza party. I jokingly said that without the reports, they would have no pizza, but they took me seriously. Vincent, who sat in, as he usually does, smiled when he heard that.

  With the workshop class approaching, I didn't trust that all the students understood that they were to bring colored markers and posters for each of eight groups. I called and  asked Vincent to prepare some for me just in case and he did so; ultimately, only one group brought a poster and colored pencils. Vincent brought the requirements for 16 posters and sets of markers for the students.

     June 16 was the last week of Shengang classes before the presentations and pizza party. The 7th  graders worked on their final projects. Vincent was there to help me with the students. 

The students  were amazing. Instead of turning in their posters after the workshop, all but two groups asked to take the posters home so they could continue to work on them and write commentary.  When I rode to school that Wednesday, I would have been content to enjoy the pizza with the students; they had been so enthusiastic all term and braved the reported speech routine. I sent a few boys to the front gate to collect the eight pizzas and we handed out plates and cups. Let's eat first, I told them, and we would do the presentations afterwards.  

  
I was a little apprehensive that their presentations might not have been completed and didn't want to end the term on a sour note. I asked for volunteers to be the first presenters saying that who went first would get the first choice of pizza slices. I had the order of presenters before they took their first bites. 

There was a little too much reading what was copied and not enough ad libbing, and the audience could have been more forthcoming with questions, but I guess they didn't want to put their classmates and friends on the spot. Each report was clearly put and loudly read. I became somewhat of a pest by asking questions at the end of each report, but my questions were always thoughtfully answered in acceptable English. 

      The students will have conversation enrichment class after the summer when they are in the eighth grade. I will miss the attention the children could give in seventh grade to pursuits other than test preparation in the eighth grade. Advanced intermediate class will bring them deeper into the workings of a modern city and into their own place in the world, a place that will include activism to make the world better, but first they must know what is involved in making the modern city. Later, they will improve their English discussing how their lives, and the lives of other citizens, can be improved, with them, the new generation, its driving force. 

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