Week Seventeen - Personal and Professional

My Primary 6 class!

It really doesn’t seem like four months ago that I was back in my bedroom in Northern Ireland, packing my bag for what was going to be an amazing trip to Hong Kong. My expectations were high for the trip and I was really excited for what lay ahead, but I can honestly say that living in Hong Kong has surpassed all the hopes and expectations I had. It is a fantastic place with friendly people and it holds on to its Eastern traditions, while embracing much of what is good about the West. 

Meeting with the principal and student teacher co-ordinator

Before coming to Hong Kong I knew only a little about Chinese traditions and the culture, however I have been well and truly immersed in the culture here and I have learnt so much about the Chinese people.  The multi-cultural society of Hong Kong is something which is fascinating and I have also become familiar with the vast number of religions which exist here. The most interesting thing for me to see has been how despite these many religions and cultures, the people here live harmoniously and without fear of prejudice. People are encouraged to share their beliefs and ideologies and I feel that our own country of Northern Ireland can learn so much from the people and society here.  

My Primary 2 class!

The people have been so kind and welcoming to us during our time here. I have made so many good friends both local and international and I look forward to seeing them in the future if I return to Hong Kong. The friendliness and welcoming attitude of the Hong Kong people was really shown to me during the home visits with the school, through activities in our halls organised by our fellow students and also through my teacher on teaching placement, who always gave of her time to help me prepare for teaching.

From a professional point of view I feel that my time in Hong Kong has added to me understanding of the strategies and methods which are necessary to promote quality learning in the classroom. I have been given a clearer insight into where the Northern Ireland Curriculum excels, and where it can be developed and altered for the benefit of the children. Through teaching in the Jockey Club primary School I feel that I have learnt so much about the education system here in Hong Kong and I can now compare the education system here and in Northern Ireland. One of the most obvious things I have noticed through my teaching placement was how greater emphasis is placed on rote learning in Hong Kong; where the teacher tells the children information and the children learn through retaining and recalling this information. In Northern Ireland much more focus is placed on ‘learning through doing’, where the children are encouraged to interact with one another and learn by their experiences and also through their peers. I attempted to promote group work and ideas such as ‘think-pair-share’ during my time teaching in the classroom here, as I feel that this is a teaching strategy which is extremely beneficial in a child’s academic and social development.  

Ms Kwok embracing some or Ireland!

I thought that since I have talked about the things I have learnt about Hong Kong and China during my time here, and also what I have learnt about the education system here, I should probably finish by thinking about what I have learnt about myself through this amazing experience. I have never been away from my home for this length of time, and I often wondered how I would cope with being away from what I perceive as “normality” for so long. Coming to Hong Kong has shown me that while I may still enjoy home comforts, I have a greater appreciation of what it means to live and work in a different country. For many years I thought that I would only look for a job in Northern Ireland when I graduate from Stranmillis, however I now see how naive a view like that can be. As graduation looms on the horizon, it is both comforting and exciting to know that there are many prospects and opportunities for teachers outside of the United Kingdom. I feel that coming to Hong Kong has given me a global view of teaching, and I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to develop my teaching profession in this magnificent country.

A farewell dinner with friends in halls!

Week Sixteen - Professional

I have come to realise over the last couple of weeks just how different the teaching styles are between Northern Ireland and Hong Kong. While I have thoroughly enjoyed my time teaching here, I cannot deny that it has been challenging teaching English as a second language to the children here and it has shown me how difficult it can be for teachers back home who are faced with teaching children with ESL who speak very little English. One of the hardest aspects has been trying to motivate and encourage children who have very little English vocabulary, as many of the children who originally come from Mainland China are not very open to learning English and I get the sense that some wonder how important it is to learn English. It is obviously difficult for them to progress and develop their language skills as the few English lessons they have during the week must be the only times they hear the language being spoken, due to the fact most of their parents do not understand any English. 

The girls giving me a tour of the Old Railway Station

The sights and smells of Tai Po Market

The school has been looking to use the 5 English speaking students as much as possible to develop the children’s English as they see us being at the school as a great opportunity. They do not have student teachers very often and so to have English speaking students is seen as a great resource which the school can use. We have been playing games with the children during recess and looking for any opportunities to talk to the children in a more informal setting. The school also organised a ‘tour of Tai Po’ which involved groups of around 6 or 7 children taking each of the student teachers around the sights of Tai Po. While I thought that I had seen all there was to see in Tai Po as I have been living here for the past 4 months, I was pleasantly surprised to visit areas which the locals were able to give me a better insight to. We visited the Old Railway Museum, the famous temple in Tai Po and the Tai Po Market, which is a surreal place. Seeing chickens, fish and many other things being killed in front of your eyes is not my idea of a Saturday morning well spent....especially when you’re not feeling the best!! The sights and smells of the Tai Po Market certainly made for a very interesting trip. The day was obviously enjoyable for me, getting to know the children better outside of school and meeting some of their parents was a great experience. However I was happy to see how important the day was for the children who took me on the tour. Their confidence grew as the day progressed and they had the opportunity to practice their English skills in a comfortable environment outside the school setting.

Mark and Ronnie

Robbie, Edgar and Jordan

I was also given the opportunity this week to visit some of the children’s homes, experiencing what life is like for them in the home setting and seeing how they are encouraged by their parents to learn the English language. I was able to play games with the children, talk with their parents and enjoy a meal with the family. The families showed great generosity inviting me into their homes and I was extremely grateful for this great opportunity provided by the school. The parents seemed to enjoy the experience of being able to find out more about Northern Ireland and hearing the comparisons between the schooling system in Hong Kong and Britain. The home visits and other arranged activities may have been organised for the benefit of the children, allowing them to practice and develop their language skills, however I am extremely grateful to the school for giving me the opportunity to meet new people and for giving me an insight into how important Hong Kong people view learning the English language. 

Jordan showing his skills on the piano

Since it is our last few weeks in Hong Kong and some of the international students are beginning to leave for home or on their travels, the international office organised a leaving party last Friday. We talked to students who will be coming on exchange programs all over the world next year, looked at pictures from the semester and of course enjoyed some pizza and other party snacks! It was a fitting way to end and to say goodbye to many of my friends and I hope that in the future I will meet some of them again, either through my travels or possibly through my profession. 

HKIEd International Students 2011

Week Fourteen and Fifteen - Personal and Cultural

Like Del Boy I have always dreamt of becoming a millionaire, and last week my dreams came true..... I stepped off the plane in Hanoi with 5 million in my pocket. Unfortunately, it was only Vietnamese Dong but it still felt good to be a millionaire for a week!

This blog entry is slightly later than usual as I have been trying to think for the last number of days of how to summarize the time I spent in the wonderful country of Vietnam during my Easter holidays. Four years ago I had the amazing experience of travelling to India to work in a slum with a group from my school. I will have lasting memories of Delhi and some of the sights I witnessed in that country will stay with me forever. When I arrived in Vietnam it became clear to me that there are striking similarities been India and Vietnam. However, when you look deeper into the culture, the people and the beauty of the country, Vietnam really does stand out on its own. If you take the city of Hanoi at ‘face value’ it appears to be quite dirty, ‘backwards’, in some cases almost tacky, and most of all extremely busy. However, the country is developing extremely rapidly and the people of Vietnam are proud of their country and also friendly despite all the history with the West. Rachel, Michael, Simon and I spent a week in Hanoi, which is located in the North of Vietnam, and is the capital of Vietnam and the second largest city behind Ho Chi Minh City. The traffic was the first thing we remarked on as we left the airport and it is beyond anything you can imagine. For a city with a population of 6.5 million, there are around 4 million motorbikes and scooters – believe me when I say it is total chaos on the roads! When crossing the road on our first night in Hanoi we felt that our lives were at serious risk, but after a few days we realised that just walking calmly across the road meant that all the cars and scooters swerve to avoid you! (Simon even talked about walking across the road with his eyes closed but we knew that he was all chat!)

 

Top Gear is one of my favourite TV programmes and I always love to see the specials where Hammond, May and Clarkson travel to a far off land to carry out a daring and usually completely ridiculous task! One of my favourites was the Vietnam special where the three travelled from Ho Chi Minh City in the south to Halong Bay in the north on motorbikes. I remember Clarkson describing  Halong Bay, their finishing point, as the most breathtaking and spectacular place he had visited and I had always held ambitions to visit it after seeing the unbelievable pictures on the programme. On our second day in Hanoi we travelled for around 3 hours to Ha Long Bay which was everything I had hoped and expected it to be. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is currently undergoing a voting process to become one of the official wonders of the world. It is a spectacular limestone maze with over 3000 islands standing tall in the water, each with its own caves and passageways.   

We had the opportunity to visit a small floating village which is in the middle of the bay and we kayaked around the different coves and passages under the rocks. It is an extremely tranquil place but it seems hard to imagine living in such a place as that. The people who live on these floating villages are born there, they fish there and they spend all their time there, never going on dry land. People on small boats attempt to make a living selling fruit as the bigger tourist boats pass by and I was able to witness an entire family’s home, including their bed, possessions and family dog on a small 4m² barge.

We visited the ancient capital city of Vietnam, Tam Coc, which is located around 80km from the centre of Hanoi. It is famous for its two temples which are amazing in their own right, but it’s hard to look past the beauty of the surrounding countryside. It gives a view of the ‘real’ Vietnam, renowned for its scenery and the bike ride through the countryside was definitely the highlight of the trip for me.  We then had a relaxing row down the Ngo Dong River which twists through the valley and into cracks in the karsts. It was meant to be a very relaxing trip but no-one told Simon and I that it was a 6km round trip, and that a 70 year old women (possibly 80) was going to be rowing for us! We felt that it wasn’t fair to just sit back and let her do all the rowing so we decided to lend a helping hand but after the first 3km I was ready for a much needed rest! Needless to say the woman had a good laugh as we abandoned the oars and lay down on the floor of the boat!!

I had decided before I went to Vietnam that I was going to buy myself a nice tailored suit and on the first day we arrived it was Michael, Simon and I splashing the cash instead of Rachel for a change! We were fitted for our suits on the first day we arrived and picked them up 4 days later. I decided to get myself a grey suit as I will get a lot of use out of it (or at least that is what I’ve been telling my mum!) They were about a quarter of the price you would pay back home, so I’m very pleased and maybe I’ll get myself another one if I ever visit Vietnam again!

I am really grateful to have had the opportunity to visit many places during my time away on international placement. It has been an amazing experience to learn about new cultures and the different way of life in these Asian countries. Vietnam also gave me a welcome reminder of the kinds of things I saw during my time in India – that it is not fair to judge a country on first impressions or by what you have heard. While Vietnam appears to be a ‘poor’ country, it is a country which has come through its difficult past with great dignity and the people do not continue to hold grudges but look to move on and build up their proud country. One of the tour guides we had, spoke of his love for ‘his’ country, and it was clear to see that he had a great sense of pride in what his country has achieved. I am extremely glad to have visited such a beautiful country and hopefully in the future I will get the chance to travel to other parts of Vietnam, as I know that there is plenty more that this great country has to offer.

  

Week Thirteen - Professional

Teaching in the Jockey Club Primary School commenced this week and it has certainly been a week of new experiences for me! I have always found teaching practice back home a demanding and tiring few weeks but inevitably it has always shown me that I love to teach and the hard work is well worth it in the end. I have found school life in Hong Kong to be slightly more relaxed as I am only teaching English as a second language to children in year 2 and year 6 (our p3 and p7). However the most challenging part has been trying to adapt to a new way of teaching, constantly having to remind myself that this is a foreign language for these children and I have to cover all parts of the English language, regardless of how small and insignificant they may seem to me! Teaching the children has also made me more aware of the need to be a good communicator, presenting new words accurately and discussing things clearing with the children. My first lesson was on the topic of cows and why they have four stomachs, so as you could probably guess, Ballymena people tend to say the word ‘cow’ a lot differently from others in the world! (I quickly realised my mistake though and everything became a little clearer for the children!!) One of the most challenging aspects of teaching here has been trying to help those children who are from Mainland China. There is a very distinct lack of motivation from most of these children to develop their English language skills and it is very obvious that they have few opportunities to practice and refine their skills at home. It is difficult for me to offer them words of encouragement as they carry out their tasks, as they just do not understand what I am saying. I have tried to communicate with them through the class teacher but I feel that for these children to progress in their English, the work in the classroom needs to be adapted in a certain way to suit their needs. I have tried to include visual prompts as I teach and from time to time I have other children in the class translate so that they can understand exactly what is going on. I realise that these methods are very basic, however it is important for these children to practice these skills at school as this is very often the only place they can learn the English language.

The 7 storey Jockey Club Primary School

 The teachers in the school have been extremely friendly and helpful, and we have had a meeting with the head of the parent-teacher association who would like us to carry out home visits to see some of the children in their home setting. This will be an excellent experience not only for the children as it will give them the opportunity to practice and become more confident in speaking English, but also for me as I visit the parents and interact with them.

As the numbers of children who enter our primary schools in Northern Ireland with English as a second language increases, I feel that this experience of teaching English in Hong Kong will help me to develop teaching strategies and a better understanding of how best to teach ESL children. (I will hopefully have more pictures of the school and of me teaching after Easter) 

Week Twelve - Professional

This week I had the opportunity to visit the primary school I will be teaching in during my teaching placement here in Hong Kong. The school is called the Hong Kong Jockey Club Primary School and it is located on the campus of the university. Schools in Hong Kong are banded according to ability, so band one has more able children attending the school, whereas a band three school is for those children who struggle, frequently due to a learning difficulty. The HK Jockey Club Primary school is classified as a band one school and there are around 500 pupils in the school and three classes in each year group, with approximately 30 pupils in each class. This banding system is very different to Northern Ireland where children with special educational needs are included in mainstream primary classrooms, allowing them to have the opportunity to enjoy education alongside their peers. The range of abilities within the NI classroom is obviously quite broad because of this, and teachers face greater challenges looking to differentiate work in order to meet the needs of all pupils, regardless of their level of ability. While differentiation is key in the Northern Ireland Curriculum, it plays less of a role here in Hong Kong due to the banding of schools. During my meeting with my teacher I enquired about how I should look to differentiate the learning in the classroom and she said that no differentiation was needed, and that I was to set the work at an average level. Approaching teaching in this way seems very strange to me as, for three years in Stranmillis, differentiation has been at the heart of my planning and teaching during each of my school placements. I feel that differentiation is vital in any classroom, as it is extremely difficult to create a lesson in which all 30 children in the class learn and progress. It will certainly be interesting over the next number of weeks to see this different approach to teaching in the classroom. 

The school also runs in a way which is very similar to a secondary school back home as there are individual teachers for each individual subject, for example one teacher specialises in English, one teacher specialises in Chinese, one in P.E. and so on. I look forward over the next number of weeks to see the contrast this structure has from our typical Northern Irish schools, where one class is taught all subjects and areas of the curriculum by one teacher. I will be teaching English to a primary 2 and primary 6 class during my time in school, and my teacher Ms Kwok is actually a recent graduate from the Hong Kong Institute of Education. She has been extremely helpful in explaining to me what the Hong Kong Curriculum focuses on and she has also been very eager to hear if I have any ideas from my experience of the Northern Ireland Curriculum, which could be integrated into the classroom. Ms Kwok has explained to me how important assessment is within the Hong Kong Curriculum, and how there is so much pressure on teachers to ensure that children are prepared for frequent examinations which take place throughout the school year. 

I am looking forward to experiencing a way of schooling which seems so different to Northern Ireland. Hopefully I will be able to learn from this great experience and bring new ideas home with me, which will enable me to develop my teaching strategies and become better equipped as a teacher.