ESOL
School in the Philippines - Shaira Mendoza In the Philippines: We don’t get two weeks of vacation at the end of every term. We only have Christmas and Summer vacation.
project and the exam. We have three full days of exam at the end of every term. All of these are repeated four times through the year.
School starts at 7am and ends at 4pm.
We all speak Tagalog but we are required to speak English in most subjects, as it is the medium of instruction. We stay in one classroom for the whole year. It is really fun because we develop strong friendships.
We can’t choose our subjects. We are required to take all of them. They are, English, Filipino, Maths, Science, History, Technology, and Livelihood Education, MAPEH – Music, Arts, PE and Health and Values Education. Instead of combining credits from all subjects to pass, each subject is graded individually. We receive these grades every term and by the end of the year, we’ll get the average. For each subject we are graded on homework, quizzes, recitation, performance output,
Moving to HGHS was a very big change but I do like it better. I crammed a lot back in my country. It felt really good to know that I have a lot of time here. In HIS (Philippines), we were all Filipinos, so it’s a great experience to be in this school where there are a lot of international students.
Comparing HGHS to my old school back in Tonga - Mele Nginingini First of all both schools have hard subjects. I know it would be easier for me to work, complete tests, exams and homework at my old school as we use Tongan which is my first language. Here it is more difficult for me to learn as I am still struggling with the language but I like the way the teachers at HGHS teach students. Both schools teach mostly the same subjects except HGHS has Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and French. Both wear uniforms. I liked my old uniform but I like HGHS uniform more. There is no winter in Tonga. Both schools finish around the same time, but my old school has only one week of holidays between each term. We have 4 terms also that start on the last week of January and end in the last week of November. My old school is co-educational.
My old school allows hitting (corporal punishment) for boys only. Teachers are allowed to hit boys if they have done something horrible but teachers don’t hit them very hard. My old school has an assembly every Monday and Friday mornings and for special occasions like a funeral. Notices like athletics are read out in front of the whole school. My old school is a Catholic school, not very expensive to attend like some of the other private schools. There are about 30 schools in Tonga. I think the best way to increase or develop English for International Students is for the teachers to give us basic word exercises and test us regularly, making each exercise harder. All of this depends on the student – if they are willing to do it.
Differences between school in Kiribati and New Zealand. Betty Taraua In Kiribati schools starts at 8.00 and finishes at 3.00. When we go to school in Kiribati, we don’t speak English; we speak in our own language. When we are late to school the gate is locked and we have to go back home. We have 6 subjects and in Kiribati we don’t have poly groups. However we have only one lunchtime. School breaks at 12.00 and all the students go inside the dining hall. First we go and order our food, and then we go and sit around the tables and wait for our food. The people who work inside the hall bring our food to us. We are not allowed to stand up and take our food because there are people who
bring our food to us. After we have eaten they take all our rubbish to the rubbish bin. Then we go to our last period when the bell has rung. In NZ school starts at 8:40 and when we are late we need to go first to the office and take our pass. We always speak English at school in NZ, but we have Poly in school and we have two lunchtimes. We break at 1:25, then we go and buy our food and sit near the classrooms or near the library and eat. When we finish we take our rubbish to the bin and wait for the bell to ring.