Visit X: Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School

The tenth and last school visit.



The Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School is unlike any school we have visited. The campus is quite unorthodox compared with that of the other schools we have visited. While other schools usually have one or two main buildings, Rudolf Steiner has several buildings in its large campus. Its philosophy is very different as well. Although it is a Christian school, it accepts other religions and encourages its students to get to know a variety of different cultures and religions.



Moreover, the school believes children should learn through being active and being hands-on, as opposed to always sitting in front of a desk all day. Therefore, there are plenty of arts and crafts and music weaved into lessons, educating not only students’ minds, but bodies as well. Also, instead of traditional textbooks, teachers like to use fairy tales to teach young children. It is believed that the morals from these tales are great material to let students learn about life. It is also believed that young children should be taking tests at a young age; as such, the school discourages them from taking tests in primary school. Such a concept is very new to me, because once children have been thrust into primary school in Hong Kong, learning seems to be for acquiring high marks in tests and examinations. Competition is tough as well. However, in Rudolf Steiner, the school children seem to learn through having an enjoyable time. There even are opportunities for them to learn gardening and make mud bricks to construct small buildings.



What made the deepest impression was the fact that although the teaching and learning taking place in this school is so different from that in its counterparts, in the end the VCE results of its students are still comparable to those from other schools. This has made me think about the way students learn in Hong Kong. When students graduate from secondary school, those with high marks in the public examinations are labeled as ‘successful’, but they usually lack creativity and independent thinking. If the emphasis on assessment can be shifted to the actual learning of students, students can still achieve good marks while actually learning things rather than being ‘spoon-fed’ content knowledge.

Visit IX: Fitzroy High School

The ninth school visit.

In the prior eight visits, we had been to institutions ranging from a primary catering to new migrants and refugees, to one of the most prestigious secondary schools, to a military school. On 21st June, the day of the ninth school visit, we went to yet another type of school.

Fitzroy High School is relatively new in that it reopened as a new school in 2004. The school is structured so that it is similar to a primary school in order to make the transition to secondary schooling smoother. For example, for junior secondary, a teacher teaches the same class several subjects so that the teachers and students can form a closer bond. The students can also form close-knit groups. Moreover, unlike the more traditional schools, Fitzroy tries to integrate different subjects under the same theme in order to promote deep learning. For example, the theme might be plants and students would learn about “plant communities” in science, the history of these “plant communities” in history, and botanical drawings in art.

I had an opportunity to observe a Year 11 studio arts class. The class had 1 teacher and 2 teaching assistants presiding over eleven students. For that particular lesson, the students were asked to decide on what they want to do for their term production. The students had plenty of freedom in terms of the form in which their production may be. For example, it could be a painting, a sketch, or even a Photoshop production. Although I didn’t study art during my secondary school days, I know that students weren’t given such freedom for assignments. Usually, students had to all do the same form of art for the ease of assessment.

Moreover, I found the interaction between teachers and students quite interesting and new. Like other most other schools we have visited, the teachers like to move around the classroom to check on the students’ progress, provide feedback and give suggestions if necessary. However, the teachers liked to discuss with students concerning their ideas and their form of production. That way, students could become clearer about what theme they wanted to choose and what tools they could use. Also, the teachers would give a lot of choices to students to push them along if they weren’t making much progress. Ultimately, though, the students would have to make the choices themselves.

For students who had already decided on what they wanted to do, the teachers sometimes set up simple exercises on-the-spot in order for students to be more proficient skills-wise. For example, the teacher might ask a student using Photoshop to play around with certain tools or features.

I think students in that particular class have a lot of freedom to do what they want, yet not have their learning compromised. In contrast, in Hong Kong, students seem to learn in order to be assessed, even for subjects like art where creativity and freedom is so vital. Students should be allowed more space to think and create.

Visit VIII: La Trobe University International College

The eighth school visit.

Although we have been having lessons in the International College for almost four weeks, we didn't really have a chance to experience how regular English classes were conducted in the IC. We finally had that chance on Friday morning, 19th June.

The class I observed was of level five, which is quite advanced considering that the highest level is level six. For the lesson we observed, the students were taught how to paraphrase secondary resources for use in papers. This was to prepare them for their essay writing come the end of the term.

Since the students had already learnt a bit about paraphrasing, the teacher started the lesson by asking the students' what is meant by paraphrasing, in addition to why, where and how to paraphrase. The students were able to give meaningful but simple answers on which the teacher built on when giving his feedback. I think this is a good method of concept checking, as this activates students' schemata and contextualizes the lesson, as well as allowing the teacher to get an idea of what the students do and do not know. The teacher can then 'fill in the gaps' if students do not fully understand something.

It was then mainly group work the rest of the way. The students were asked to brainstorm methods of paraphrasing, for example changing active voice to passive voice and using synonyms. Then the students were given a short paragraph from a piece of reading and a paraphrased version of that paragraph. They were asked to compare the two and identify the methods of paraphrasing used. This was again another good method to check whether the students know the methods and if they actually understood how the methods were used. However, when the teacher went on to explain the answers, a lot of lecturing occurred and it could be seen that a lot of students seemed 'disengaged'; many of them stared at the teacher with blank expressions. The lecturing could be because of time constraint and the teacher couldn't afford to extract responses from his students, but I think the teacher could have picked out key points to discuss with students instead of going through every single answer himself.









After that, the groups were given different passages to paraphrase. They were given poster-sized paper on which to write on so that they could present their work to the class later. An interesting method the teacher used in order to get students to finish on time was that even though the teacher had set aside 25 minutes for this part, he told the students that they were given 20 minutes. This made sure students would finish within the 25 minutes the teacher had planned for.

The lesson ended with the presentations and also some general feedback from the teacher.

Visit VII: Defence International Training Centre: Laverton Base

The seventh school visit.

This time though, the school was of a slightly different nature when compared to the previous ones we have been to. The Defence International Training Centre in Laverton was actually a military school. However, the class we participated in consisted of teachers who were doing further studies or teachers-in-training just like us.

The usual practice for our school observations was that we would get a short introduction about the school and move on to observe a lesson or two. This time around, however, we were received as 'part of the class'. The first thing we did was an activity where we had to find someone we didn't know and get to know him/her. The teacher played a piece of music to indicate that we had to start looking. We rotated partners every few minutes. I think this is a great way to practise oral English for both the students in DITC and us. From what I could observe, the students were quite willing to talk to us strangers. Also, most of them spoke quite confidently too. I think that might be a result of having been in an English-speaking country for three months already. Since the students come from different places, their only common language is English, encouraging them to speak that language during their stay in Australia. Having spoken mostly English for that amount of time probably contributes to a boost in confidence.

Part two of our school observation was actually participating in a regular lesson as part of the class. The topic of the class was the teaching of vocabulary to students of an intermediate level. I found that the way in which us teachers-in-training were taught was quite similar to the way in which most of the students in our other visits were taught: the teacher first tried to activate our schemata and tap into our prior knowledge, contextualizing the lesson. This helped us understand the focus of the lesson and prepared us mentally for what was about to come. Also, the teacher always tried to extract answers and ideas from us instead of always giving them out herself. The teacher was always able to guide us to the answer or idea she was looking for with her questions and hints. After some teaching, we did some group work on how to teach vocabulary. As we discussed, the teacher constantly moved around to check on our progress, give us suggestions and saw if we needed any assistance. She was rarely stationary at any one spot for a prolonged period of time. This kept everybody focused on the task at hand because everybody knew what they were supposed to do and even if anyone ran into any difficulties, she was there to help.

Also, I was able to acquire some content knowledge myself. Before the visit, I had little idea of what concept-checking questions were and how to ask them. I also was not aware that there were so many factors to take into account when teaching vocabulary, for example the connotation.

It was a fruitful visit.

Visit VI: Glen Eira College English Language School

The sixth school visit.

The Glen Eira College English Language School is a bit similar in nature to the Blackburn English Language School. Glen Eira helps new arrivals, international students, and students requiring short-term English language instruction make their transition to mainstream colleges.

I was able to observe a little bit of three different classes - an elective class (gardening), an ESL class, and a studies of society and environment (SOSE) class.



The gardening elective was quite interesting because in Hong Kong, it would be quite difficult to find a school which offers courses on gardening, since it is not popular. Electives such as gardening provide great opportunities to students interact with each other and practice the target language in a context they are interested in. It would be even better if the teacher could help and encourage the students to speak in the target language; during the observation, the teacher did not seem to care much even though several Chinese students constantly chatted with one another using their mother tongue.

In the ESL class, the students were in Year 10, and in the lesson I observed they were working individually on their posters. The posters all had a piece of food packaging (flattened cardboard box) in the middle, and the students were asked to identify and analyze the persuasive language used on the packaging. The students seemed to be quite interested in the activity because their posters were quite colorful and creative. Allowing students space to be creative can sometimes motivate them more when doing a task, helping them achieve the aim of the particular task more easily. Aside from the creativeness, it seemed that the students were able to identify and explain a lot of instances of persuasive language as well. Using material which students could relate to (e.g. Oreo box) also helps to raise their interest. The students were also asked to give an oral presentation of their posters. There was only enough time for one presentation though. During that presentation, the teacher would sometimes joke casually with the student when he touched on certain points (e.g. how cookies can fatten you). This loosens up the atmosphere and the student would become more relaxed and as a result present more naturally and confidently with less inhibition. Such a practice is new to me because in Hong Kong, during presentations the teacher usually keeps quiet until the end of the presentation.



In the SOSE class, the age of the students ranges from 11 to 17. They are in the group 2 SOSE class, meaning their level of English isn't that high as they are only preceded by the group 1 class. In the lesson I observed, the students were working on difficult vocabulary found in an article on climate change. The students were asked to copy down a list of difficult words provided by the teacher and look their definitions up in the dictionary in their native tongue. The teacher then got the students to try their best to explain the terms in English. The teacher then practiced reading the words together with the class. This lesson was quite similar to typical Hong Kong classes as there was mostly silent work and drilling. On the other hand, it would be quite difficult to carry out a communicative lesson since the students don't have the vocabulary to communicate with each other using the target language.

Visit V: Blackburn English Language School

The fifth school visit.

The Blackburn English Language School is a government school which provides English language education for international students and students who have just arrived in Australia. Both students of primary and secondary levels study there.

I was able to pay a visit to a Primary Three class, in which students were either seven or eight years of age. It was quite a small class with only 10 students - a big luxury compared to the typical class size of 35 - 40 in Hong Kong primary schools. The benefits of having such a small class could be easily observed - when the teacher wanted the students to practice the questioning structure of "How do you go to school?" and the structure of "I go to school by (mode of transport)", all the students had a chance to practice at least one of the structures orally.



Also, during the following activity in which students were asked to interview their peers concerning the mode of transport they take in order to go to school, more attention could be paid to each individual student. Students feel that they are being valued in the activity as the teacher is able to show every student that she cares about them by praising them and/or correcting them. As a result, all the students participated actively in the activity. Based on these observations, I think that the teacher succeeded in taking advantage of having a small class.

From my own experience and observation, this type of communicative activity is quite rare in Hong Kong because of the big class size, and even when such activities are carried out, many students choose to not participate in them, speaking in their mother tongue instead of the target language. While there may be multiple factors contributing to such a phenomenon, the big class size is certainly one of the more significant ones.

Aside from the class observation, another point of interest is how the school encourages students to use the target language - English - and takes advantage of every opportunity to give students the chance to do that. After the principal and vice-principal gave us a brief introduction to the migration in Australia and the school, Year Eight student from mainland China were invited to give a speech in front of us. Then, the student and her classmates toured us around the campus, describing places of interest to us as we went along. Such an atmosphere created by the school effectively sends a message to students - practice English whenever they can.

I think the active participation of the Primary Three students mentioned earlier could be the result of such an encouraging learning atmosphere created by the school.

Visit IV: Macleod College

The fourth school visit.



Macleod College is a government school which provides education at a variety of different levels: from prep year all the way up to year 12. The students there are mainly Australians and speak English as the first language.

A feature which distinguishes Macleod College from its counterparts is its use of teaching space. Unlike most other institutions, many classrooms in Macleod college are 'open' classrooms, meaning there aren't actually any doors and there are openings which lead to the corridor or to other classrooms. There was also one instance during the visit in which I saw three classes in progress simultaneously in three different corners of one big room.







Such a feature is quite 'revolutionary' to me because the idea of having open classrooms is absent in Hong Kong. I have never seen or experienced such a learning environment, nor have I ever imagined having an open classroom in a school. It is tough to see this type of setting in my hometown because of the assortment of difficulties it may cause: noise from one class may interfere with another class, things going on in the corridor or a neighbouring class may cause students to lose their attention, teachers may be taken out of their comfort zone because they are no longer in a traditional classroom setting and so on and so forth.

However, during the visit, it seemed that the listed problems listed above weren't as serious as I had first anticipated. In the big room with three simultaneous classes, although it was inevitable that students would hear the sounds generated by those of the other two classes, it seemed that the majority of them were still able to concentrate on the task at hand or pay attention to the teacher if he/she is giving instructions. This is because before the teacher issues the instructions, students are gathered in front of the teacher to make sure everyone can hear clearly. Also, as students commence their work, the teacher is not stationary at the front but constantly moving about to ensure the students are on the right track.

Another important factor is that the students have gotten used to such a classroom setting. Since the school offers education from prep year to year 12, many of the students might have been experiencing open classrooms since at a young age. They know what to expect and what is expected of them when attending classes in open classrooms.

In terms of language learning, there are also benefits. Different classes can collaborate to provide opportunities to interact with pupils from other classes in order for them to practice the target language with different people, allowing them to individualise their language learning by discouraging them to keep practice with the same group of people over and over again.

In essence, I believe that if the students can get used to a classroom setting and know what to expect, as well as what is expected of them, implementing open classrooms can also work in Hong Kong.

Toning Up

Tone.

A lot of times, when doing a piece of writing, it is all too easy to become lost in the sea of things that we need to be aware of: the content, the tense form, the vocabulary, the sentence structures, the punctuation, the paragraphing... From my own experience (to be more specific, from what I remember of my pre-test), not enough attention is paid to the tone of the piece of writing (or even identifying what the tone should be), especially when it is a formal piece of writing.

And even if, on the odd occasion, I do remember to consciously pay attention to the formality and tone, there are bound to be slips, for example a personal pronoun here and there or some phrasal verbs sprinkled throughout; and before the class on tone, I didn't even know that all phrasal verbs reflect a certain magnitude of informality!

I think the class served to raise my awareness of tone for different pieces of writing and what to look for when trying to write a formal letter.

Visit III: Sacre Coeur

The third school visit.

In contrast to the previous school, Sacre Coeur is a Catholic girls' school. Sacre Coeur is French for "Sacred Heart", and has around 150 schools in 44 countries.



Unlike the previous visits, we were only able to observe one lesson instead of two. This time, My group and I observed what was supposed to be a Year 10 science class. However, the lesson became a self-study period because the girls had a test later that day. We weren't able to experience any teaching and learning approaches or methods in class, but we were able to have a chat with some of the girls about their school.

The girls were quite talkative and very helpful, possibly a result of the close teacher-student relationship the school boasts and the huge variety of extra-curricular activities the school provides.

According to our conversation with the girls, as far as language is concerned, because almost all the girls in the school have English as their first language, they usually study more literature and writing than traditional grammar. They said that they have done essays on literature such as selected plays by Shakespeare and selected movies. There are students from overseas, the girls mention, and there are ESL classes for those students. However, how English is taught or learnt in these classes are unknown. Another point of interest is that students who are not proficient enough in English are given translators to aid them during class.

For teacher-student interaction during class, the girls say that it varies from teacher to teacher. Some teachers encourage students to discuss about issues introduced in class, however some teachers prefer quiet classes, for example maths class where students are expected to listen to the teacher and then do exercises and drills. The girls also mention that as they near Year 12, the year when they need take the public examination, things in school will become more and more exam-oriented, for example teaching them how to approach certain examination questions and what type of maths notes to bring into the examination hall.

This school reminds me of the Diocesan Girls' School in Hong Kong, which also an elite girls' school which excels in academics while being able to provide a wide variety of extra-curricular activities for its students. A big difference is, again, the willingness of students to speak up. In general, Hong Kong students are much more reluctant in speaking out what they think.

From the experience in Sacre Coeur, perhaps a way to alleviate the above mentioned issue is to provide more opportunities to socialise in the target language as well as foster a closer teacher-student relationship so as to encourage students to make use of the target language.

Visit II: Melbourne Grammar Senior School

The second school visit.

What a stark contrast to the previous school.



The Melbourne Grammar School is a private boys' school, with its population of students mostly European, along with around 20% - 30% Asians. The campus is gargantuan, and it doesn't at all look like a secondary school. It looks more like a university, with its own cinema, performance hall, orchestra rehearsal hall, dormitories, standard swimming pool, gym, weight room... the list could go on and on.







Although the hardware is so advanced and developed, I found that the approaches used in teaching another language is very similar to that of Hong Kong. My observations were based on two lessons - Year 11 German and Year 11 French.

In the German class, the theme of the lesson is on the German school system, e.g. in what year do children study kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, the subject streaming, etc, and the main foci are vocabulary and pronunciation along a bit of grammar as well. In that lesson, as far as the staging is concerned, there didn't seem to much staging, as students were given worksheets, which seemed to photocopies, to work on, and the teacher would ask students for answers. There was also a reading part where the students were given a German text, and students took turns reading. The teacher usually asked for peer correction before giving her own feedback. There was also a teaching assistant who acted as an advisor and went around the room to check on students' progress as they were working on their worksheets and answer any questions they might have.

Aside from the extra teaching assistant, the lesson was very similar to typical English lessons in Hong Kong, where worksheets and exercises are given and language is practiced through repeated drilling. The main difference is the teacher needed not try very hard to extract responses from the students. In Hong Kong classrooms, students are usually very reluctant to speak up or ask questions.

In the French class, there was only one teacher, and the focus was on direct and indirect speech as well as listening. This class was very similar to the German class, where students were given worksheets, and the teacher asked for answers after a certain amount of time.

Though both classes were mainly taught in English, in the latter class, the teacher liked to code-switch and use the target language to pose questions to the students. The students usually were able to comprehend what the teacher had asked.

For the French class, in the listening part, the teacher stopped the tape when she saw that her students were having difficulties and read the tape script herself at a slower pace. She then played the tape again for her students to check their answers. This doesn't not usually happen in Hong Kong classrooms. Teachers usually play the tape once and then check the answers with the students. I think the approach used by the French teacher is a lot more effective because we need to take into consideration the students' standard in the target language when giving them tasks.

It could be just me, but it seems that while the hardware of the school is very developed and modern, the teaching methods adopted by the teachers are quite traditional.

Visit I: Springvale Primary School & English Language Centre

The first school visit.

And what a visit it was.

The school has a mixture of multiple cultural backgrounds, including Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese, Sudanese, Pacific Islanders and Burmese. Some of those students are actually refugees - victims of war and disaster.

Upon our arrival, we were broken up into groups and sent to different classrooms to observe classes of different years. My group and I visited 2 classes, one comprised 10 students, all of whom were 5 to 6 years old, while the other consisted of 7 students who were around 10 - 11 years old.



The atmosphere is very much different from Hong Kong. To begin with, the number of pupils is very small when compared to the 35 - 40 students Hong Kong classrooms typically hold. Because of this, the teacher is able to pay more attention to each of the students and know more about each individual. In the younger class, as we were observing the children work, she would tell us about a certain student's character every now and then.



In addition, unlike the popular chalk 'n' talk approach adopted by many teachers in Hong Kong, the teachers there liked to use activity-based learning and elicit responses from the students instead. For example, for the younger class, the teacher let her students do hands-on activities like coloring and matching to learn the letter 'b' and some letters which start with the letter. For the older class, the teacher only asked questions and elicited responses from her students; further guiding questions were asked if needed. The teacher also let students use building blocks to learn about fractions.

I believe making use of activities to help students learn is a much better method than lecturing them. This prevents students from losing attention easily and allows them to learn through hands-on experience, helping them to put what they have learnt into their long term memory.



In the Hong Kong context, it is difficult to implement activity-based learning to a large extent because of the often packed syllabus. Therefore, a possible change would be to have a little bit of lecturing at the beginning of a lesson to present the background knowledge needed to carry out subsequent activities.



Seeing how harsh the background of most of the kids at the school is, I can truly understand how lucky and spoilt many of the students (including myself) in Hong Kong are. We should really cherish our opportunities to learn and be educated.

Impression of MELBOURNE

Tranquil.

Laid back.

Green.

Welcoming.



Those were the first things which came to mind upon my arrival. Because I had lived in Vancouver and Burnaby, Canada for four years, Melbourne quickly reminded me of life there: the fresh air, the trees, the electric cables above ground, the lack of high-rise buildings... the list could go on. For a moment, I thought of the word 'home'.



Then I remembered the coldness and the dryness I'll have to cope with for the 8 weeks to come; 'home' quickly dissipated.

I am no stranger to life outside of Hong Kong, so I wasn't as excited or nervous as everyone else. Yet, having been in Hong Kong for almost 9 years, it feels great to sort of break loose from the forest of metal and concrete. Being able to see for miles without any obstruction from a tall building is really a sight for sore eyes for me.

And the air? Man, the air in Hong Kong can't compare to this.

So far, so good in Melbourne.