It's Oral Presentation time for my students here in Taiwan.
They're nervous but they're giving their 3-minute speeches... and getting steadily more competent in doing so.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Alice
On December 24, the Languages Department organized a concert in which fifteen acts appeared. Some of my students participated and here is one of them - Alice.
They're wonderful kids here at the school and I enjoy them very much. As you watch Alice, you can see the talent. They worked very hard preparing for their perfor...mances and the students and teachers really enjoyed the 90 minute show they put on. There was a teacher who was the driving force behind the organization: Brian Deschenes from Montreal. I thought the whole idea of a talent show was a dumb idea and not at all suitable but Brian did such a great job and the kids participated so whole-heartedly that I realized I had been quite wrong-headed about the whole thing and that it actually did have value.
Friday, January 1, 2010
The Room Is Rocking...
1:35 am January 2, 2010. So many earthquakes... This one was so minor - the room rocked for a couple of seconds. Other times, the whole building moves back and forth and things fall on the floor. So disconcerting.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
The Night Before Christmas
Christmas is a funny thing here in Taiwan - I confess that I don't understand it.
There are Christmas trees everywhere and Santa Claus is a visitor in many shop windows. Yet, December 25 is not even a single day holiday as it is in Korea... it's work-as-usual for everyone. My school has been generous enough to give us foreign teachers the day off on December 25, viewing it as an important day in our particular culture... very considerate, indeed. Unfortunately, our students will all be in class as usual tomorrow and our Taiwanese colleagues will have extra classes to cover in our absence. I felt badly when I learned this from my students.
December 24 was the day on which the foreign language department held a talent show in which the students performed. There were singers and dancers and all had a wonderful time. I had initially been skeptical of this and hadn't seen any educational point to this but I was wrong. The students prepared diligently for this show and presented well... they gained confidence and emerged stronger from the experience. I was delighted to be proven wrong in my assessment of the project. There was a lot of value in it.
I was one of the three judges so I had no opportunity to video record the proceedings. Fortunately, one of the Taiwanese teachers was doing this with a wonderful JVC Everio HD camera and she has promised me the raw data from her recording so I expect to be able to take some excerpts and post them next week when I get back to school. My Taiwanese colleagues are very friendly and cooperative people and thoroughly professional teachers... I was used to working with people like this in Korea and I'm delighted to find that Taiwan teachers are just the same.
My Christmas Day plans are strange... The senior French teacher, his girl friend and I are going to a local restaurant which calls itself COFFEE SHOW. The lady who operates it serves western style food and appreciates it greatly if one reserves and orders in advance because she prepares the meal from the very beginning. If one just drops in, as we often do, it means a long wait. The food is excellent and the price is very reasonable... friendly service (even if I don't understand what is being said!).
Today I took my motor scooter to the Yamaha dealer down the street. My old scooter (more than ten years old and I'm at least the third owner) had suffered from starting problems. He solved that so quickly he didn't even charge me anything. So today I asked him to repair the speedometer which has not worked during the time I've had it. That was about an $8 repair! I'm sure it would have cost me about $50 in Canada or the US. That brings my total investment in this scooter up to about $160 (US) - and this is what takes me to school and back each day, takes me shopping in nearby towns and to Taichung City when I choose to go there... and all at very low cost. I can't ever remember a $160 purchase being so productive. It ain't pretty but it sure is proving reliable.
It's Christmas Eve and I have a mosquito in my apartment that is annoying me greatly. I can't ever remember a mosquito on Christmas Eve.
There are Christmas trees everywhere and Santa Claus is a visitor in many shop windows. Yet, December 25 is not even a single day holiday as it is in Korea... it's work-as-usual for everyone. My school has been generous enough to give us foreign teachers the day off on December 25, viewing it as an important day in our particular culture... very considerate, indeed. Unfortunately, our students will all be in class as usual tomorrow and our Taiwanese colleagues will have extra classes to cover in our absence. I felt badly when I learned this from my students.
December 24 was the day on which the foreign language department held a talent show in which the students performed. There were singers and dancers and all had a wonderful time. I had initially been skeptical of this and hadn't seen any educational point to this but I was wrong. The students prepared diligently for this show and presented well... they gained confidence and emerged stronger from the experience. I was delighted to be proven wrong in my assessment of the project. There was a lot of value in it.
I was one of the three judges so I had no opportunity to video record the proceedings. Fortunately, one of the Taiwanese teachers was doing this with a wonderful JVC Everio HD camera and she has promised me the raw data from her recording so I expect to be able to take some excerpts and post them next week when I get back to school. My Taiwanese colleagues are very friendly and cooperative people and thoroughly professional teachers... I was used to working with people like this in Korea and I'm delighted to find that Taiwan teachers are just the same.
My Christmas Day plans are strange... The senior French teacher, his girl friend and I are going to a local restaurant which calls itself COFFEE SHOW. The lady who operates it serves western style food and appreciates it greatly if one reserves and orders in advance because she prepares the meal from the very beginning. If one just drops in, as we often do, it means a long wait. The food is excellent and the price is very reasonable... friendly service (even if I don't understand what is being said!).
Today I took my motor scooter to the Yamaha dealer down the street. My old scooter (more than ten years old and I'm at least the third owner) had suffered from starting problems. He solved that so quickly he didn't even charge me anything. So today I asked him to repair the speedometer which has not worked during the time I've had it. That was about an $8 repair! I'm sure it would have cost me about $50 in Canada or the US. That brings my total investment in this scooter up to about $160 (US) - and this is what takes me to school and back each day, takes me shopping in nearby towns and to Taichung City when I choose to go there... and all at very low cost. I can't ever remember a $160 purchase being so productive. It ain't pretty but it sure is proving reliable.
It's Christmas Eve and I have a mosquito in my apartment that is annoying me greatly. I can't ever remember a mosquito on Christmas Eve.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Furniture Delivery in the Morning and Earthquake Tonight.
This morning my shipment arrived from Korea. Clothes, books, furniture... the residue of the last eight years. Thirty-two boxes, ranging from the manageable to the unmanageable and I have now unpacked all but four - and that's quite enough for one day. Hyundae Shipping were expensive and the almost four months' wait was not short but the job was really well done. The boxes arrived looking as fresh as when they were packed in my apartment in Korea. And one of the Chinese employees spoke enough English that we were able to sort things out quickly, efficiently and quite amicably.
The Taiwan company was just as efficient as the Korean companies. They called in advance to set up the time - I had specified that it must be a Saturday - and said they would be here between 10:30 am and 11:30 am. They arrived early at 10:15 and had finished and gone in an hour.
And this evening, after a day's unpacking, we had an earthquake. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/19/taiwan-earthquake.html. This is the third quake here in the almost four months I've been here. It's disconcerting to be sitting at my desk marking student essays watching my desk move! And wondering... Would it be a good idea to go outside now? And should I use the stairs rather than the elevator?
Then my neighbor, the French teacher, came barging in through my front door - I leave my front door unlocked in case he wants to barge in - and said: "Let's go. We should get out of here. The aftershock will be worse". I was a touch skeptical because by now my apartment was no longer rocking and things looked normal again and I could go into the kitchen and start picking up the things from the floor. So I asked him if our Chinese neighbors had already gone out. He banged on their door and they opened with puzzled looks on their faces as he explained to them the necessity of immediate evacuation.
The daughter, our neighbors are a mother and her two grown daughters, smiled at him and explained that there was no problem. I convinced him that they had lived here all their lives and were better judges of the situation than we so he settled for coming into my place, watching part of an old Laurel and Hardy movie and having a glass of Glenlivet to calm his nerves.
These earthquakes are unsettling - and there's no pun intended there.
The Taiwan company was just as efficient as the Korean companies. They called in advance to set up the time - I had specified that it must be a Saturday - and said they would be here between 10:30 am and 11:30 am. They arrived early at 10:15 and had finished and gone in an hour.
And this evening, after a day's unpacking, we had an earthquake. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/19/taiwan-earthquake.html. This is the third quake here in the almost four months I've been here. It's disconcerting to be sitting at my desk marking student essays watching my desk move! And wondering... Would it be a good idea to go outside now? And should I use the stairs rather than the elevator?
Then my neighbor, the French teacher, came barging in through my front door - I leave my front door unlocked in case he wants to barge in - and said: "Let's go. We should get out of here. The aftershock will be worse". I was a touch skeptical because by now my apartment was no longer rocking and things looked normal again and I could go into the kitchen and start picking up the things from the floor. So I asked him if our Chinese neighbors had already gone out. He banged on their door and they opened with puzzled looks on their faces as he explained to them the necessity of immediate evacuation.
The daughter, our neighbors are a mother and her two grown daughters, smiled at him and explained that there was no problem. I convinced him that they had lived here all their lives and were better judges of the situation than we so he settled for coming into my place, watching part of an old Laurel and Hardy movie and having a glass of Glenlivet to calm his nerves.
These earthquakes are unsettling - and there's no pun intended there.
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