successisthesumof smallefforts...school ningpocollege mskongkit-yi (years of teaching: 25)...

Teaching practices presented with the AwardTeaching practices presented with the Award

Teaching practices presented with the AwardTeaching practices presented with the Award

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獲卓越教學獎教師





Teaching Philosophy


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" 'Many small streams make one big river.'With persistence and concerted efforts, ateam of dedicated teachers taking tinysteps towards building an authenticEnglish learning culture in their school hasproven a big success in transforming theschool culture and raising students'English standard. At Ning Po College, theteam of English teachers named theirefforts 'CHANCE'. "

Success is the sum ofSuccess is the sum ofsmall effortssmall efforts

▲ Left to right: Ms WONG Mei-chu,Ms KONG Kit-yi, Ms LIU Qianzhao

TTeeaacchheerrss pprreesseenntteedd wwiitthhtthhee

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Subjects taught

English Language (S1-6)

School

Ning Po College

Ms KONG Kit-yi(Years of Teaching: 25)

Ms WONG Mei-chu(Years of Teaching: 9)

Ms LIU Qianzhao(Years of Teaching: 4)


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Subjects taught


School

Ning Po College





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Subjects taught


School

Ning Po College





20142014 // 20152015 行政長官卓越教學獎薈萃行政長官卓越教學獎薈萃Compendium of the Chief Executive's Award for Teaching ExcellenceCompendium of the Chief Executive's Award for Teaching Excellence050


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English Language Educatio

n

Key Learning Area

Mini-strategies inthe classroom that trigger

off the butterfly effect inreshaping students' attitudeand performance in EnglishIInn

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藝術講求創意與創

新，教導學生學習藝術，也要

千變萬化，迎合學生的程度與需

求。救恩書院視覺藝術科簡李麗池老師

致力於校園營造別開生面的藝術氛圍，整

個校園都佈滿學生作品，藉互相交流與觀

摩，讓學生彼此增進藝術造詣。她亦以

身作則，每年推出不同類型的視覺藝術

項目讓學生參與，題材層出不窮，

與藝術不斷創新的精神如出一

轍。

教教師師

專專訪訪



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The journey begins with small steps"We never want to surrender to the reality that our

students, the majority of which come from grass-rootfamilies with little chance to be exposed to English in aChinese-medium school, could not learn good English,"said Ms Wong, the Chairperson of the English Panel atNing Po College. Instead, the team of English teachershas decided to give their students a chance; a chancefor them to build the competence in mastering English.They start off with the most basic step: to nurturestudents with proper study habits, build up theirconfidence in using English. Once students haveacquired basic language awareness, they would beprovided with opportunities to become independentlearners, and the whole learning cycle would bepropelled by students themselves. That's why they callthis reform "CHANCE": (Confidence, Habit,Awareness, New experiences, Challenge andEmpowerment).

The teachers, who have "big" hearts, dare to dream"big". The first step they take is to start trainingstudents in English speaking. "We do what the primaryschool kids do; we read aloud together in the class forfive minutes every day. In this way, even the studentswho are poor in English speaking would feelcomfortable reading aloud in a group." Ms Wongcontinued, "The reading materials we choose, such aspoetry and scripts, really motivate our students to learn."The training in speaking is followed by free writing ona regular basis. Free writing allows students to writeworry-free, without the frustration of making mistakes."It wasn't easy for us in the beginning," admitted MsKong. Their efforts soon paid off. With teachers'encouragement to write freely, students are now keenon writing, not afraid of making mistakes anymore.

Motivating less able students to learn English hasbeen an important goal for the teachers at Ning Po."Whenever students with stronger abilities dominate inthe class, the weaker ones tend to remain silent andmuddle through. That's why we often assign differentroles to students, shifting their duties from time to time,so that everybody in the class gets a chance to play amajor role in learning activities," said Ms Kong.Often, students are given ample time to prepare forclass in advance in the form of pre-learning activities,which helps learners feel more secure and ready to

participate in classroom activities."We ask all the students to speak

English in class and even afterlessons," said Ms Wong. "They

may not be able to speak thelanguage properly in thebeginning. But that'stotally fine, as long asthey are willing to take

the first step to speakEnglish."

As a teacher of an S1

class, Ms Liu, has gone as far ashaving all the class duties performedin English. "My students are now soused to conversing with me in English," Ms Liu smiled with a sense offulfillment. These tiny steps, as theteachers called them themini-strategies, have shaped upstudents' confidence in using English. "We know thatif we deal with all problems at one time, it simplywon't work," admitted Ms Wong. "So, we opt for smallsteps; it may take longer time to reach the goals, butwe hope students would stay in the path longer, as wewalk with them hand in hand."

Full immersion in English"Parents often tell us how

impressed they are when theysee their children immersing inthe world of English learning,"Ms Kong expressed. Over theyears, students have becomemore eager to take upchallenges in English activities.

Participation rate has soaredin most English-relatedextra-curricular activities, suchas Halloween Party, EnglishEaster Camp, English Outing,Public Debating Contests andmany other events. "Thestudents engaged in thecompetitive English activitiesmay not necessarily be the ones who score betteracademically, but they are willing to take upchallenges, working hard to master English as a secondlanguage. We truly appreciate their positive attitude,"Ms Kong commented.

Teachers united on a shared sense of missionThe changes brought by "CHANCE" never came

easily, all three teachers admitted. In the first year ofimplementing the reform, some students in the schoolshowed a bit reluctance to accept the change. "It won't

be possible if we, the three determined pioneers, didnot have so much faith in this reform." Ms Kong said.Indeed, the reform has brought about a big increase inworkload for the teachers in terms of lessonpreparation. Despite the increased workload, theteachers believe that the change and improvementfound in students is worth every bit of their efforts. "In

the beginning, it was tough.But we persevereand stay determinedon our path. Thesmall steps havesoon built uponthemselves, and havecreated a sort ofsnowball effect." MsWong explained.They find that theirefforts have paid offwhen they witness achange in theirstudents. "For examplea few years ago,students relied on thescript that I prepared for

them during presentation of the bi-weekly Englishmorning talk. Now they are more self-assured andhave improved so much that they can write their ownscript. I play the role of a facilitator only. Thisexplains why the workload incurred by the reform willeven out in the long run." Ms Liu elaborated. Downthe road ahead, the teachers aim to continue their"CHANCE" reform and continue to explore more newtactics, provide more challenges and learningexperiences so as to enable their students to reach ahigher pedestal in English learning.

▲Mini-debates as regularlunchtime activities

▲ Regular panel discussions areheld to plan and evaluate theeffect of new strategies

▶The 15-day Summer EnglishImmersion programme isbecoming increasingly popularamong lower form students

◀ Learning English throughinteractive drama activities.

▼ Teachers motivate student to learnEnglish through different ways.

▲ Guests and experts areobserving how effective teaching strategies can beconducted in real classrooms



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Subjects taught


School

Ning Po College






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Throughout the last 6 years, we persist. Weact together. We witness changes in the abilitiesof our students. Some visitors who have cometo observe our lessons have made a comment -it's a miracle. But the miracle of Englishlearning at Ning Po College does not have onesingle ground-breaking initiative. It is just asnowball of mini strategies multiplying the effectas it rolls across these years. It is just a storywith teachers' joint effort and blind faith on aseries of small steps that bring about a majorimprovement.

We have a very deep-rooted belief in education. Ifstudents can develop "confidence" and form goodlearning "habits", they will be able to performsatisfactorily. If students who have potential want toexcel in their English Language, developing theirlanguage "awareness" will be an essential step. Ifstudents can be provided with "new" learningexperiences, stimulated and "challenged" in authenticsettings and culture of the language, they can be"empowered" to sustain improvement and the learningcycle by themselves. Then, they will be the ultimatewinner in the battle of English Language learning.

Conceptual framework - CHANCE"CHANCE" is the six necessary stages for

developing our students into proficient languagelearners possessing both confidence and competence.They include: Confidence; Habit; Awareness;New experiences; Challenge; Empowerment.With this development model, all panel members canstay clear-minded of where we are all heading towardsand aiming at, achieving success in our teaching.

Confidence:building students' confidence

To build up students' confidence in using English,we decided to start off by developing students' speakingabilities with "5-min reading aloud time". It involvesreading aloud of literary texts ranging from poems toscripts for role play. Reading aloud has beenincorporated into every English lesson as a panelpolicy. As a result of this strategy, even the weakeststudents are motivated to learn as it removes the threat

of the lack of vocabulary and what students need to dois simply read aloud and enjoy the beauty of thelanguage.

The subsequent step to the "reading aloud" activityis "10-min speaking activities". As language teachers,we clearly understand that the stronger or more activestudents will dominate while weaker students willremain silent in speaking activities which lack carefulplanning. We have therefore introduced the following"mini strategies" as part of our classroom strategies toensure that students can actively take part in everyclass and feel secure to participate in classroomactivities. This is done not only through the policy ofthe complete use of English by students and teachersbut also by promoting the use of group work, pair workand role-assigning practice. This allows students to beengaged in accomplishing a task in English and boostsparticipation rate by easing their stress of makingmistakes in front of classmates. Peer learning hasgreatly increased students' sense of security in makingnew attempts in learning English.

Equal emphasis on reading aloud and speaking is putin extra-curricular activities so as to maximise students'opportunities in English learning and confidencebuilding. A number of activities have been organisedboth inside and outside the school, such as in-houseradio broadcasts, programme recording with RTHK,Speech Festival and Study Tours to Singapore.

With all the teachers' effort, over the years, a numberof students have volunteered to take part in at least oneof the above, in which students could use English forauthentic purposes.

Habits:sustaining students' learning by habit formation

As the confidence building strategies start to achieveresults and students start to form good learning habits,their learning is further sustained by learning processes,

captionsate54a:▲Students get empowered by leading English activitiesate54b:▲Enhancing students' confidence and English culture through various activitiesate54c:▲New experiences enable students to gain recognition

such as participation in mini projects, through whichstudents familiarise themselves with co-operativelearning strategies, such as peer-learning, presentationin groups. These learning processes can enablestudents to form independentlearning habits that are vital tofacilitate lifelong learning. In orderto sustain students' commitment ona regular basis, free-writing is alsointroduced to encourage studentsto write in authentic situations.This strategy can help studentsovercome the hurdle of writingby encouraging them todevelop the habit of freewriting.

Awareness:raising students' language awareness

5-min SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) Teaching isimplemented to reinforce students' understanding ofcommon sentence patterns. Students' languageawareness is further raised through the 10-min MentalProcessing Time, which offers regular bite-size readingand mini reading tasks during class time. Theseactivities can help students grasp the basic fabrics ofthe English Language.

To enhance students' awareness in the EnglishLanguage, both language arts and non-language artscomponents are integrated into different parts of ourformal curriculum. Students are well exposed todifferent elements of the English Language curriculum,including poems, songs, short stories and drama duringclass hours. Debate is also piloted and has receivedgreat responses from students.

New experiences, Challenges and EmpowermentAs students are getting more ready to move up the

ladder and take on even higher challenges, a widevariety of English activities and inter-schoolcompetitions and opportunities for them to take onroles of organisers are provided. These serve as "Newexperiences" and "Challenges" that stimulate studentsand keep them engaged and motivated. The last stage

of "Empowerment" emphasises the importance forlearners to operate freely in real-life

communicative situationsand be able toappreciate differentcultures through thelanguage. Our studentsin higher levels are ableto benefit from theseprovisions.

◀ New experiences enable studentsto gain recognition

◀ Enhancing students' confidenceand English culture throughvarious activities

▼Students get empowered by leading English activities

Teachers'Teachers'SharingSharing

Throughout the last 6 years, we persist. We act

together. We witness changes in the abilities of our

students. Some visitors who have come to observe

our lessons have made a comment - it's a miracle.

But the miracle of English learning at Ning Po

College does not have one single ground-breaking

initiative. It is just a snow ball of mini strategies

multiplying the effect as it rolls across these years. It

is just a story with teachers' joint effort and blind faith

on a series of small steps that bring about a major

improvement.

Conclusion





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Subjects taught


School

Ning Po College




Teaching Philosophy

Enabling students toEnabling students toexperience the real world inexperience the real world intheir English lessonstheir English lessons

▲ Left to right: Mr TOONG, Kevin Michael,Mr DRYSDALE, Matthew James, Ms HOKin-ling, Holly, Ms LUK Ka-yan,Chermaine, Ms WONG Hiu-ching, Rachel

"With the vision to provide quality educationand individual attention and care forstudents, Good Hope School has developedan integrated approach of teaching Englishin class, blending English Language,literature and drama together to providevarious creative platforms for the students toput textbook knowledge into practice. Thisteaching philosophy, coupled withstrategically-designed co-curricular activities,can allow students to learn throughexperience."


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Subjects taughtEnglish Language, English Drama,

English Literature (S1-6)

School

Good Hope School

Ms LUK Ka-yan,Chermaine

(Years of teaching: 12)

Mr DRYSDALE,Matthew James


Ms HO Kin-ling,Holly


Mr TOONG,Kevin Michael


Ms WONG Hiu-ching,Rachel




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Website:http://www.npc.edu.hk

Ms WONG Mei-chu

Tel: 2345 5633

Fax: 2341 8282

Email: [email protected]

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Raising students'English standard throughan effective languagecurriculum plan titled

"CHANCE"

Ways to Obtain Informationon the Teaching Practice

Contact

The awardees have led the English Panel in theschool to devise a six-stage plan to develop the basicEnglish competence of their students and raise Englishstandard in their CMI (Chinese as a medium ofinstruction) school since 2009. The design of their planis underpinned by a conceptual framework calledCHANCE (Confidence, Habit formation, Awareness,New experiences, Challenges, Empowerment), whichguides the setting of learning objectives for each stageof language development. The CHANCE frameworkhas succeeded in facilitating students' language learningand enhancing their English Language communicativecompetencies.

A range of well designed resources and teachingmaterials are used to develop students' confidence,encourage good habit formation, raise languageawareness and promote communicative languagelearning in the school. A reading culture is promotedby adapting different text types from various literary/imaginative sources to enable learners to acquireeffective reading skills and form good reading habits.The effective implementation of the school readingprogramme, establishment of classroom routinesconducive to good habit formation, and alearner-centred curriculum have succeeded in nurturingstudents to be capable of independent learning.Students learn and make progress according to theirabilities and pace, and make steady improvement intheir command of the English Language. An array ofextra-curricular activities is in place to give ampleopportunities for students to practise English inauthentic situations. Through the promotion ofintegrative use of language in various activities and awide range of learning experiences like the use of miniprojects and free writing/ journal writing, students'self-learning habits are nurtured and communicativecompetence enriched. Strategic planning and timelyimplementation of these effective learning activities notonly promote collaborative skills and co-operativelearning among students, but also enable students to

achieve personal, intellectual development and culturalunderstanding.

The teachers have succeeded in changing the schoolculture and devised exemplary teaching practices basedon their conceptual framework titled CHANCE.Through the continuous efforts of the teachers, a schoollanguage policy has gradually been formulated, inwhich the use of English is promoted both inside andoutside the classroom. The whole school approach topromote an integrated use of language through differentlearning experiences has proved to be effective insupporting students' language development. Theteachers are highly dedicated to their work and havedemonstrated excellent collaboration in building up amotivating learning environment that improves thequality of education for their students.

The awardees have been disseminating the school'sinitiatives and good practices to parents and the publicthrough forums and seminars. They work with staffmembers in their school to promote professionaldevelopment. Their efforts have led to a positive andharmonious school culture in which teachers workcollaboratively for a common goal.

▲ Students engagedin quality interaction

successisthesumof smallefforts...school ningpocollege mskongkit-yi (years of teaching: 25)...

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