American holidays, from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, don't mean much to Taiwanese middle school students. Even Christmas, that ubiquitous commercial undertaking is a regular school day here; so is New Year's Eve. Surely some teachers in public schools pay attention to it, and EFL after-school centers take advantage of the bright lights on artificial evergreen trees to drum up business and promote "winter camps" they run on the weeks after public school lets out in mid-January leading up to the Lunar New Year, this year falling on February 2nd. Only on New Year's Day do students have off, but if it falls on a weekday, they have to make it up with classes on a Saturday, anyway.
Because of my American upbringing, with special dinners and days off from school, and my Jewish heritage celebrating Hanukkah in December according to the lunar calendar, I have the spirit and like to share it. Taiwanese students have a conception of America as a 'Christmas' country and I like to rectify that misconception . So when the Kang-Chien Publishing agents come calling me for enrichment or judging assignments at public school contests, I am happy to go.
On Saturday, December 8th I did a three hour enrichment program at Jia-Tong Middle school in Changhua. I did a “Season’s Greetings” program. It was the first of a number of holiday events leading up to the Lunar New Year on February 5th.
The event in Yuanlin county went very well. Twenty middle school students got a lot out of it and had a great time with my "Season's Greetings" PPT and activities. The teacher that asked for me through the publisher's agent had never seen anything like it. She said when The Ministry of Education sent an expat for enrichment, they usually played Monopoly with the children or wasted their time. But from the start, with my ten-page booklet, I mixed the children into homogeneous groups with a 'one-to-five count off', used a reported speech introduction, and taped the large posters to the back wall of the classroom fir presentations after cooperative learning preparation.
The four group members, to the organizing and copying their report on the posters to prepare for oral presentations, it wall all a revelation that I hope the teacher, her colleague whom she beckoned, and principal who stopped by to make a cameo. They then had a YouTube viewing and singing of George Harrison's "Ding-Dong Ding-Dong" before I went into the final component; a telling of "Gift of the Magi"
that the students understood and appreciated. If I had managed time a little better and the other side of the posters were blank, the children could have then done a re-telling of the story from recollection written for reports, but I took my time and didn't rush. It all worked out well.
The four group members, to the organizing and copying their report on the posters to prepare for oral presentations, it wall all a revelation that I hope the teacher, her colleague whom she beckoned, and principal who stopped by to make a cameo. They then had a YouTube viewing and singing of George Harrison's "Ding-Dong Ding-Dong" before I went into the final component; a telling of "Gift of the Magi"
that the students understood and appreciated. If I had managed time a little better and the other side of the posters were blank, the children could have then done a re-telling of the story from recollection written for reports, but I took my time and didn't rush. It all worked out well.
On December 24th, I was a judge at an English choral competition.
Then, on December 27, I was asked to officiate at an English Recitation contest at Shuang-Wen. The students had prepared well for it but the rules were not fair; Participants were told prepared to read three very short stories from their ESL textbooks. Then, they were randomly given one to read. The
problem was the stories were not evenly difficult.
A foreigner from another publisher judged with me. I saw him looking over at my score sheet in amazement at the detail; 40% each pronunciation and intonation, 20% body language. I subtracted a point for each error I detected. I didn't ask how the other invited foreign judge scored. It was a pleasant end to an enjoyable holiday teaching English in Taiwan.
A foreigner from another publisher judged with me. I saw him looking over at my score sheet in amazement at the detail; 40% each pronunciation and intonation, 20% body language. I subtracted a point for each error I detected. I didn't ask how the other invited foreign judge scored. It was a pleasant end to an enjoyable holiday teaching English in Taiwan.
Copyright © 2019 by David Barry Temple. All rights reserved.
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