PAEAN Jan 2015
Education Team
Background of the school
Manjiang Xiang Secondary School
• Generally low level of English
• Start learning English at Primary 3
• Not interested in learning English
• Especially weak in oral speaking and writing
• Seldom have opportunity to use English or
to speak in English
Objectives
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
To strengthen students’ speaking skills
To improve students’ English pronunciation
To enhance students’ ability in English self-learning
To broaden students’ horizons
Workshop
No. of participants: 40
Primary 7 and 8
Grouping:
8 students per group
(5 groups in total)
Rundown of the Workshop
Service Day 1
Lunch break 45min (1200-1245) 12 Jan
1. Self-introduction
2. Warm-up game --- General
3. Grouping --- MEMO game
4. Warm-up game --- Pictionary
5. Icebreaking within group
Service Day 2
Lunch break 45min (1200-1245) 13 Jan
1. English songs teaching (I)
•
Do Re Mi
•
Memory
After school 45 min (1630-1715)
1. English songs teaching (II)
•
You and Me
•
Let it go
Service Day 3
Lunch break 45 min (1200-1245) 14 Jan
1. English pronunciation (tongue twisters) training
•
Chinese whisper game
•
Minimal pairs
•
Tongue twisters
After school 45 min (1630-1715)
1. English pronunciation (tongue twisters) training
•
Minimal pairs revision
•
Tongue twisters revision
•
Paragraph reading training
Service Day 4
Lunch break 45 min (1200-1245) 15 Jan
1. English cartoon appreciation
2. Group presentation: subtitle writing and performance
2 minutes video clip from “Frozen”
After school 45 min (1630-1715)
1. Writing about dreams
Service Day 5
After school 45 min (1400-1530) 16 Jan
1. Singing competition
2. Tongue twisters competition
3. Quiz on new vocabularies in
workshops
Project execution and
students’ performance
Problem with the original proposal
1.
2.
3.
4.
Wrong dates
Neglecting the teachers and parents
Material constraints: small venue
Students’ actual English abilities and the difficulty of
contents
Changes in the finalized agenda
1. Prolonged time
2. Meeting with teachers, demonstration class and
visiting local families
3. Change contents: workload, difficulty, order
Highlights
1.
2.
3.
4.
Good preparation
Students’ eagerness to learn
Plenty interactions
Deeper cooperation
Setbacks
1. Lack of comprehensive understanding of Xiushui
education
2. Students’ weak knowledge base
3. Timing
4. Super busy OCs
5. Gap between 7th and 8th graders
6. Shyness
7. Internal differences
Demo Class
1.Brief Introduction
Activities
Time (minutes)
Reading the poem
5
Understanding
5
Translation
10
Story sharing
10
Grammer
10
Demo Class
2. Evaluation
Strengths
- Recognition of the beauty of language
- Improvement of spoken English
Weaknesses
- Limited time for the sharing session
- Difference in ways of learning grammer
Feedback
Feedback
Overview:
Generally good
Objective: practical
→ can provide actual help to the students while raising students’
interest
→ students’ questionnaire shows that they like the workshop very
much
Feedback on demonstration class
1. Projection of sound
→ we speak too softly
→ students difficult to follow
2. Lack of handout
→ students cannot copy down the timeline illustration
→ though students find our illustration is clear enough
→ cannot make reference to it during revision
Feedback on workshop content
3. The use of multimedia
→ teaching materials is fun and interesting
→ allow students to learn in a more interactive way
Feedback on use of languages
4. Members would try to use short phrases during lesson
→ teachers original worried that the students’ listening ability
→ therefore seldom use any English apart from reading the English
content in the book
→ find our practice received good feedback
→ would try to use more phrases during lesson to train students’
listening ability
Feedback on future teaching content
5. Focus more on listening, speaking and grammar skills
● questionnaire collected by the school, students wish to learn
more about these skills
Project evaluation
Evaluation on the objectives set
1. To strengthen students’ speaking skills
- Bilateral teaching approach
- Active participation and gave satisfactory responses
- Chances to speak English in front of their classmates
- Place suitable pauses when reading aloud
- Speaking skills had shown some improvements
- Confidence in speaking English might need to be further built up
Evaluation on the objectives set
2. To improve students’ English pronunciation
- Most of them could not pass the tongue twisters accurately during the
Chinese Whisper game
- Started to pay attention to their pronunciation
- Could manage to pronounce most of the words correctly at last
- Impossible to spot all their mispronunciation and make corrections one
by one
- Have realized the importance of correct pronunciation
- Further improvement is then foreseeable
Evaluation on the objectives set
3. To enhance students’ ability in English self-learning
-
Songs and cartoons as our teaching materials
Opened up more ways for achieving English self-learning
Group tasks and discussions
Learn through exchanging ideas with their peers
Evaluation on the objectives set
4. To broaden students’ horizons
-
Non-academic exposure
Transform leisure activities into a learning process,
Get to know more about foreign culture
Unfamiliar jobs
Achievements
1. Ensure the continuity of the project
2. Arouse students’ interest in learning English
3. Inspire teachers on teaching methods
4. Enrich the school resources for English learning
Improvements/ Suggestions
1. Only 40 students can join the workshop
2. Not much time for students to practise
3. Continue to do pronunciation training with some modifications
4. To bring them more English learning resources
Future Plans
Future Plan
1. Maintain close relationship with local staff and teachers
● can have assistance during the planning stage
● ensure effectiveness
Future Plan
2. Have a close coordination with the local staff
● required materials and equipment should be sent
● ensure programme run smoothly
● keep track of students performance
Future Plan
3. Follow up communication with students
● monitor the students’ state of mind
● make sure they understand each purpose
● avoid any undesirable negative sentiments
Future Plan
4. Keep track of all the difficulties encountered
● useful information could be passed
● can assist the future project design