Welcome to English Village—the pride of Yilan County. Every Tuesday, six of us gather in the morning to give some fifth grade students of Yilan County an unforgettable English experience. The entire building is designed to be a simulated English environment, complete with an airplane donated by EVA Air, a fake dance studio, bank, restaurant, etc.
After a group introduction, the students, in groups, run through the stations to practice interacting with us, saying things like “I want to exchange $200 NT dollars to US dollars” at the bank or “Do your eyes hurt?” at the health center. We also play fun games with them to get them to practice using English more. At the end of their crazy adventure, they write postcards in English.
continue reading »
Every May, elementary schools from across Yilan County gather to compete in various English activities. Every school that has a Fulbright ETA placed there is required to participate in at least two of the activities. These range from Vocabulary King to Reader’s Theatre (reading/acting in English) to Sing/Dance to Improv. Our school decided to participate in Vocabulary King and Sing/Dance…since my secondary job title is Dance Choreographer at my school.
continue reading »
As July starts to creep up on me, I’m realizing more and more all of the things that I will miss about Taiwan. One of the biggest things that I’ll miss is teaching my sixth graders. They are amazing: hilarious, smart, sweet, mature, kua zhang, cute, crazy, and everything in between.
continue reading »
Mar26
Today after lunch, my principal met with about 25 top-performing students that had been selected to compete in the English Easy Go competition. I walked in on him yelling at them to participate and encouraging them to sign up and that only if their parents said that they couldn’t go would he let them free. Actually, I was a bit surprised to see the students so scared. One of my students, Jacky, who is a really sweet student and would never lie, was trying to tell the principal that he would not be able to come because he had another engagement. The principal did not find this an acceptable answer and began questioning him to the point where it looked like he would cry. With me standing there, the principal turned to me and said in Chinese, “The reason they do not want to participate is because they hate you.” I wasn’t entirely sure if I translated what he said correctly, so I sort of ignored it and figured he was just joking around.
About two hours later, I left my classroom to get some fresh air and saw no less than 10 sixth-grade students approaching my classroom. Usually when they come to the classroom they are looking for Amy or Lisa since they can speak with them in Chinese about whatever problems/requests they have. But, in fact, they were looking for me. The next thing I knew, all of them were surrounding me and talking in Chinese to each other about how to say this since they don’t know how to translate. Eventually, one girl speaks up and says, “We didn’t hate you. The principal…” and then it cuts off because she gets stuck in the translation. Eventually, she continued saying that he was lying and being mean, but that really they like me a lot. They looked so worried that I really thought that they hated me! It was possibly one of the cutest moments I have ever had here in Taiwan. My students are so sweet.
Jan8
So, I don’t know if it’s the combination of English enthusiasm or puberty but something about Li-Sing Elementary School’s fifth grade class that makes me deaf. Whenever we do chorus-like call and response activities, the girls voices are always just slightly too high for my ear drums. Not only that, but they also feel the need to scream their responses as if I am five hundred miles away from them. That’s not to say that I don’t want to encourage their enthusiasm for English, but sometimes I really wonder if it’s such a good habit to teach the students that screaming English is the way to communicate. I fear that one day they will meet a stranger that will ask them, “How do I get to …?” and then will scream at the top of their lungs, “LEFT TURN!! GO STRAIGHT!!!”
In addition to the high-decibal noise level from the students’ voices, we also use a microphone in the class to be able to talk over the students. This only adds to the overall level of noise, and unfortunately for me, I stand right underneath one of the speakers in the classroom when we teach. I realized this today while teaching the fifth graders and thought to myself that I think the Yilan BOE owes me some compensation for the damage done to my poor ears!
Further detrimental to the health of my innocent ears are the constant fireworks that are set off at random in Taiwan. When Deborah, Eric, Nola, and I went to Tainan last weekend, we must have passed at least three different fireworks shows within our first night. We would be walking along our merry way back to our hotel when out of nowhere, sounds of gunshots would come from the street ahead of us and we’d find that we couldn’t cross the street because in the middle of a mass intersection, someone decided to have a party of fireworks. We were so close in fact that Eric got shot in the eye with some firecracker debris.
And then, how could I forget the constant supply of vans daily roaming around Yilan City announcing random political candidates using huge megaphones. It’s hard to avoid these on your scooter and I don’t think it’s possible for me to go a week without getting at least one blast.
I fear I may come back to the States deaf in July.
