A "Seedfolks" Park for the Taiwan Community

 “To promote education as a social agency for developing the capacities of the young, for enlightened adults, and for working toward a society motivated by the ideal of service and democratic participation.”

      On March 14, 2018, at Chungder Middle School in Yunlin, and on March 23, 2018, at Shen-gang Middle School near Taichung, two middle school EFL conversation enrichment classes in Central Taiwan "...worked toward a society motivated by the ideal of service and democratic participation" while improving their English as a Foreign Language skills. The activity, "Improve this Park," blends in well with other activities in the Community Curriculum for social consciousness. From the inside out, the students discussed their places in the world; one day, they can take part in improving their environment. Here is what happened in the two schools, one rural and one cosmopolitan.

     In Shengang, not far from Taichung, I facilitated a two-hour class once a week over the Spring term. Students  took out “Choice & Consequences,” a handout I’d given them the week before; it has a slit for a strip of six structures to 

construct, in the space of the abandoned building and vacant lot. The cooperative learning groups of four, chose one building and had to explain why it would be good for that neighborhood. For example, smoke pollution prejudiced the building of a temple in favor of a convenience store. 

     Before the end of class I handed out “Kim”, chapter one from Seedfolks, I explained that, as they had, given a vacant lot, the folk on Gibb Street in Seedfolks chose to create a community vegetable garden. I asked the students to try to read the four pages at home to prepare for the next class.The students would have two weeks because there would be no class one week because of tests and the following week was the four-day Tomb Sweeping holiday. 

    With “Choice & Consequences,” “Improve the Park,” and “Design a City” worksheets, along with discussion and listening comprehension from Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman, students got the feel for urban renewal. In the musical component of these workshops, students heard and sang “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago and "The Rain, The Park, And Other Things" by the Cowsills. 

     After the two week hiatus, the 7th graders needed a push; some hadn't prepared so they needed a lot of coaxing to get it going. The conversation enrichment class reviewed with a summary writing exercise based on "Kim" from Seedfolks. We began by making a brainstorm list of Kim's actions; each student went to the white board to write one action of Kim.  Before class ended, I took photos of each groups’ four best details to take home and combine for them to organize next week.

 Seedfolks “Kim” Summary Organization

___ Kim stands before her family altar.

___She stares at her father’s photograph.

___She hopes that his eyes might move.

___Her own tears come.

___She opens her thermos.

___She waters them all.

___She vows that the beans will thrive.

___She continues farther.

___She chooses a spot far from the sidewalk.

___She has to keep her project safe.

___She takes out her spoon.

___She begins to dig.

___She digs six holes.

___She vows that the beans will thrive.

___She is awakened by her mother’s crying.

___She turns from the altar.

___She fills her lunch thermos.

___She walks outside.

___She is awakened by her mother’s crying.

___She walks half a block.

___She crosses the street.

___She reaches the vacant lot.

___She fills her thermos with water.

___She reaches into a jar with lima beans.

___She tells herself that she must show her bravery.

___ She tells herself that she must show her bravery.

___She wants to show her father that she can raise plants.

___She turns from the altar.

___She tiptoes to the kitchen.

___She draws a spoon from the drawer.

___She turns from the altar.

___She nearly steps on rats.

___She freezes.

___She covers them up.

___She presses the soil firmly with her fingertips

___She nearly steps on rats.

___She thinks about how her mother and sister remember her father.

     I handed each student the list I had combined and they went to work collectively deciding the order, eliminating redundant and irrelevant sentences paring the list down to the best 10 actions that would summarize the story. The results were satisfactory; the groups had whittled the 37 details down to 8 but the actions weren't evenly dispersed between beginning, middle, and end of story; most leaned toward the first page, the only page most of them had read! They left out the critical conclusion; Kim planting Lima beans to start  the vegetable vest-pocket garden in the vacant lot.

     The culmination of the hands-on activity was the creation of a park the students would plan to have in the Shengang community. We began with a worksheet on which the students were asked to identify problems with a shabby park; litter on the ground, broken benches, loud music, and so on. Most agreed the park made them feel uncomfortable. The students were then asked to list five things their group would do to improve the park. We discussed their improvements and brainstormed a list on the board. Before they let out, I told them that the following week, each group would draw and describe the park they had imagined. 

    The following week, the students were raring to go. I gave each group mini-white boards and markers for cooperative learning, one child to draw the 'blue-print', one to copy the plan onto the board, one to prepare a presentation to describe their park, and the fourth to read the description and point out the components. I reviewed map skills; prepositions of place and directions (on the left, in the north-east corner, in the middle, on the side, etc)  and advised them to incorporate them into their descriptions.  Most importantly, I reminded them they could not go up to the main board until they had written a description to accompany their blueprint. 

   I gave the students 45 minutes up to the break and announced the presentations would begin afterwards. The results were amazing. Five of the eight groups had a chance to give presentations before the end of class.         In Yunlin the week before, the students did it a little differently. They didn't have the benefit of weekly conversation classes to lead up to the "Design a Park" project; only one three hour class requested from Kang Shin, the  textbook publisher I do outreach for. 

  On March 14, 2018, my conversation enrichment program at Chungder Middle School, went well.  The 36 eight-grade students practiced communicating in the past tense using  reported speech and then did a controlled composition about parks, but time was running out.

    Because of the time and space restriction, I had asked the on-sight teacher to prepare poster paper and markers so the student groups could work at their desks instead of drawing their park on the chalkboard. 

   The students didn’t have enough time to fully complete the “Improve the Park” worksheet into the drawing and describing of a park they created on a poster. The team that completed the park design first was a role model and  the only group to present at the end of the third 45 minute session. The homeroom EFL teacher, Teresa, was cooperative and excited to see progressive language activities. She took many photos and helped me monitor the class.  I left it to her to carry the torch with the "Design a Park" project with her classes. 

     The goal of having real topic information to present was realized in a non -threatening way. The students had a great time and practiced speaking English both in group discussion and in presentations. It is an experience they will always have and it prepared them for their final presentations.

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com
 Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.

'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. 

www.readingsandridings.jimdo.com

 Copyright © 2018 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.