REPORT - The Best Experience in the Heart of Asia

DECEMBER/2015 - JANUARY/2016

the best in the heart of Asia ST. ALOYSIUS TECHNICAL SCHOOL WELLINGTON COELHO

WHY I AM WRITING THIS REPORT Clearly, all the trainees have to write a report about their time at St. Aloysius Technical School after the internship is over. So, before your experience even start, they will tell you about it and show you some previous reports for you to get to know the school and the way others trainees did in the past. Hopefully, you will be reading mine and you will find it helpful as well.

I am doing this a little bit different than the other because I don’t want you just to be aware of everything around here, but I want you to get inspired by this amazing experience I had and write your own journey on the best way possible. I am writing this for you.

Here, you will read about my days at the school, get to know how I decided to work with students and a few tips about my almost 7 weeks in Taiwan.

I hope you like it.

Well.

HEY, THIS IS ME! My name is Wellington Coelho, but I have this cool (and easy) nickname that I love: Well. It came out pretty helpful to tell people in Taiwan especially because they think it is easier to pronounce and it also feels a little bit more intimate and friendly.

YOU CAN CALL ME “WELL�

I am from Brazil! (Are you from Brazil?) Yes, very far away from Taiwan. The culture is really different in many aspects, including social behavior, religion and food. Of course I would act cautiously in the beginning because I was a little bit afraid of doing something wrong or disrespectful, but it turned out to be the easiest challenge. I completely love the food and Taiwanese people are really kind, so they will tell everything you need to know to go around without any problem.

I should tell that coming from such a different and distant country might be handy to talk to students and even teachers and other employees. Many students are shy and feel afraid of trying to speak English, but sometimes their curiosity is stronger than the shyness and from this point, you got them. If you can speak Chinese, try as harder as you can to speak English instead of Chinese. If you speak their language, they will not put effort to make you understand them in English. I cannot speak any Chinese and, although it is harder to me go outside, it was very effective inside the classroom.

It means “In Brazil, we don’t speak Chinese”

ENGLISH <3

How I learned English and how it influences on the way I teach.

As you might know, we speak Portuguese in Brazil, which means English is a foreign language to me. I truly believe that people who learn English as a foreign language have a different interpretation from English native speakers, even if you are a fluent speaker. The bright side when you are not a native speaker is that you can understand how hard is it to learn it and during the teaching process, you can easily think about different ways of approaching the students.

In Brazil, the schools usually offer both English and Spanish. In theory, you should speak two foreign languages when you finish High School, but it just not the way it works.

Most of the schools teach kind of a practical language, which is enough only to understand a text or pass the exams for college, for example. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to go to a Bilingual School for High School. There I was able to really learn English from the beginning and also improve my Spanish language skills. Although I have been learning English since I was 7, it was only at High School that I could actually speak a foreign language.

During High School, I finally understood what actually means to learn English. It was not only because everyone thinks is good or because it counts points for college, but because the world looks different when you know English. You feel free to explore and go around different countries since you know a powerful language. It was this kind of motivation that inspired me when I was teaching the kids.

My English background was built from an experience at a bilingual school, from two previous abroad exchange programs and a lot of love for a language that has changed my life completely.

My classmates at the biligual school (Brazil)

My classmates at The Community School (USA)

My teammates in Bogotá (Colombia)

I never thought about going to Taiwan for an exchange program. This is my second internship with Why did I come to Taiwan? And AIESEC and the first one was did I expect to like Stinky Tofu? in Colombia. It was a great experience, but people in South America have so many similarities and this time I was looking for something more challenging and different to be really impactful. So Asia seemed to be the best place to have my next experience abroad.

Thailand was my first option. I started looking for opportunities there in January to travel by the end the year, when I will be graduated from college.

Due national committee politics, they couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t open the process to the end of the year back then. I had to get the MATCH done by the first semester in order to buy the cheapest flight from Brazil since any destination in Asia would be very expensive.

Once Thailand was not available, a few weeks later, I got to know Shelly Lu, from AIESEC This is Angel! She is NCTU, on a Facebook group. She was posting my AIESEC buddy about other experiences available and, and was the first visiting one of them, I found one to person I met when December, at St. Aloysius Technical School.

I arrived in Taiwan.

As soon as possible, I did the interview and was approved. I was so happy to finally find a place to go and an experience to fight for. So I spent seven months â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from May to November - working and preparing myself to what must be the best experience of my life.

Once here, I must make it the b e s t experie nce of my . life.

MAYBE DESTINY?

LEARNING FROM TEACHING

One of my biggest dream is to be a teacher. I will be a teacher one day, but just not now. I just graduated in Marketing and Advertisement and I will pursuit my dream of working with Promotion of Tourist Destinations.

So this opportunity actually represents a chance for me to

experience the classroom, the students and the environment at school from other perspective.

For me now, it was important to get to know more about myself as a teacher and have a taste of how it feels like to deal with whole teaching and learning process.

Morning Assembly. It happens on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday. When It doesn’t rain, of course.

AT ST. ALOYSIUS TECHNICAL SCHOOL As you might already know, St. Aloysius Technical School is a private high school, based in Xinpu Township, around 30 minutes driving (or 50 minutes by bus) from Hsinchu Main Station. Here, the students are divided by subjects, including Mechanical Engineering, Electric Engineering, Multimedia Design and others. Each year, one grade is especially grouped by their English level for the foreign language classes, what helps you check how far you can go with them beforehand. On the other hand, the other two grades are mixed and you should adjust yourself to your class after get to know them during your first time with them.

The school campus is definitely not small. Once you get here for the first time, it may take a while for you to get used to it, but not more than two or three days. You will have a bedroom at school, which is just perfectly convenient! The size is great for what you need, but there are a few rules to use it. It is a not a big deal and if you just remember that you are at a high school with teenagers everywhere during almost the whole day, it will be not a problem. Take care of it properly, it will be your “home sweet home” for 6 weeks.

Other amazing convenience at school is the laundry, located on the 4th floor. You have a washing machine and soap for free at your service to wash your clothes anytime you need. Maybe you would share with other trainee or employees, so check your time to not keep it busy for longer than

A very good place at the school is the Teacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Office. You will have your own desk (can you believe it?) with your name written on it (Can you believe it? Seriously!) and also my office supplies as scissors, clipper, pens, etc. At the office, you will meet all the amazing, kind and helpful teachers.

The English teacher will be more present at your life at school since you will work together, but most of them will talk to you, ask something about your country, give you some gifts and just being adorable. I wish I have brought more souvenirs from Brazil to give each one of them something to thank them for everything. We will absolute love all of the teachers!

And you can count not only with teachers to help you out with something, but with anyone at school, including students and even the guardsman. Some of them cannot speak English, but you will notice how regardful they are in trying to help you somehow. You always have the Google Translate anyways, so make it a way to talk to them and learn some Chinese if you cannot speak their language.

At some point, you will meet the Principle Jerry and the Father. It is really good to talk to them about your experience here. They have a lot of experience since they came from their long journey as they are also teachers and you can learn a lot from them. I am really grateful for everything they taught me about teaching, students and life in general. You can talk to them anytime and it might be, for example, after school while you are trying Stinky Tofu for the first time in the Night Market near school.

At St. Aloysius Technical School, what really makes the difference is the fact that they know exactly why they need an international student here and what to expect as a result. They have been doing this internship program for years now and got experience from each trainee who has been here semester after semester. Remember why you are here and why you are so important in the education process for teenagers. You are here to be a positive changemaker.

Acting Class. It was a special activity offered by English teachers. I was invited to help them out and it was great.

TWO WAYS OF MAKING IT HAPPEN Designing my classes week by week.

Before coming to the school, you probably received an email describing in details your job here.

You had to prepare yourself for working in two different environments: the co-teaching class and the conversation class. In general, the level of English at the school is not high and the ones who have performance above the average are invited to take part of the Conversation Class, where they can improve their speaking skills.

The other ones take the Co-teaching class to improve vocabulary and feel more comfortable with a foreign language. As you can see, they have different purposes and you should design your classes based on the result you should achieve. If you feel unsure about what to do or nervous about your first week, you can always ask teachers.

During my time at school, I had five weeks of teaching since the final exams took place on my 6th week here. Along the way, as planned by the school, I alternate

Co-teaching Class

Conversation Class

the two types of class during the weeks, resulting in two of the co-teaching and three weeks of conversation class. I visited 32 different groups in those 2 weeks, with 28 with a single visit and 4 of them with two visits. On the other three weeks, I had the same schedule for the conversation class with 14 different groups, resulting in 3 different meetings for each group.

So I dedicated myself to the classes entirely during those five weeks and use the final week to write this report since I was completely free. Check your schedule with your assigned teacher to see if you can do the same. If you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a free week after the classes, they will re-arrange your classes during your final week so you can have free time to write it.

The report is very important to the next trainees who are still to come, so make sure you have the proper time to do it.

CO-TEACHING CLASS

Bringing my Brazilian flag to the class was a great choice. Students liked to see it and take photos after.

The co-teaching class is meant to be an alternative way for students to get interested in English, to improve their vocabulary and also to train their listening skills. So everything should be attractive and appealing from a teenager point of view and regardful of their language limitations. They are still learning and you should be a facilitator in this process.

The first co-teaching class should be about your country. It is not a rule, but of course it would be a nice idea to talk about something you know so much. I was just so excited for the co-teaching classes and talk about Brazil! At the same time, I was very nervous. When the time was coming, I kept asking myself if the presentation was good enough to keep them interested and participative. My first presentation was really good and the students reacted very well, but as days were passing by, I was improving the presentation after each class. I asked the teacher what the thought about the class, they gave me some suggestions and tips about how showcase my culture or how to interact with the students. My final presentation was considerably different from the my first one and it shows how much I have learnt in a few weeks.

My presentation was not only to introduce my country, but also to bring back many basic vocabulary such as Colors.

Basically, I used a presentation made in PowerPoint with many pictures and illustrations such as photos, maps and drawings. The final version of my presentation includes 4 parts:

1 About me (name, spelling, age, etc);

2 About my family (mom, dad, brother, grandmother, etc);

3 About my country (Brazilian flag, Brazilian map, pictures, etc);

4 About my city (maps, tourist spots, local activities, food, etc).

In the end, I also show some words in my native language, Portuguese, so they can learn something different and talk to me later.

During 50 minutes, it was very important to make them respond well to the presentation. Not only answering questions, but actually interacting with me.

Some tips I believe are very useful during the co-teaching class:

Use many pictures and ask them what it is in English before you tell them the right word; To make sure they know the meaning of something, ask them to teach you what it means in Chinese.

If don’t know Chinese, ask the teach if they are right or wrong.

Always write the new words on the presentation and train some spelling.

Keep their attention by asking them if they understand what you said.

Ask them until you hear a very clear and loud “YES!”.

Don’t be shy! Be playful and they will feel comfortable as well to talk.

Take students to the board, play games and interact with them as much as possible is the best way to do the co-teaching class.

Sometimes they can be talkative and loud, especially if they are enjoying the class. That is a good sign, but don’t be afraid of asking them to be quiet when they need to.

Prepare something that they can come to the board and help you out during the presentation. I put a lot of maps on the presentation and asked them to help me show where is Taiwan and where is my country. I also asked them to help me show my itinerary of my travel from Brazil to Taiwan. It is a great opportunity for them to learn about the world and also practice some countries’ names in English.

Always take your bottle of water with you. Take care of your voice.

All of the classes were amazing! Some of them are harder than other for many reasons.

Sometimes they just cannot understand you, sometimes they just don’t like English. Every class has its own challenge and this is what this experience is all about.

Help them try to give English a chance. If you are a native speaker, trying to put yourself in a position of learning a totally different language. If you are not a native speaker, remember how hard it was for you when you were a beginner in English. The feeling of being sure they enjoyed your class is one the best I ever felt.

CONVERSATION CLASS The conversation classes are for the ones who have a better performance in English. It can be for reading, listening, writing or grammar.

So although they might have good English grades, sometimes they still feel very shy or not confident at all to speak in class. I tried to push them to speak as much as I could without putting pressure or scaring them out. That was very important. Considering I had three weeks to work with them and check their improvement week by week, I decided to design the class in three different but complementary activities.

FIRST WEEK In order to make them feel motivated to speak, I should make sure they knew the topic. So what could be the theme I was so interested to and I was also be sure they could talk about it? The answer is easy: Taiwan, of course!

So for the first week, I showed them how interested I was in Taiwan by preparing some questions for them to answer. I made some flash cards with questions about Taiwan and put them all on a bag. During the

class, each student had to pick one, read the question and answer it. Then I asked the others if they agree or donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t agree with the answer and we keep going on for two or three rounds.

The main point of this activity is the fact that they know something that I probably donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t and as the questions were coming out, we talked about a lot of different topics and they felt comfortable to share interesting aspects about their lovely country.

SECOND WEEK After the first week, I could check about their English level in each group. I noticed some issues with remembering words. In many times, they knew what the words mean, but couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t remember them when they needed to speak. It is clearly a lack of practice. So I needed to make them think in English somehow. First making them recognize words and then making themselves put effort to remember the words.

Depending on the group, there were two different activities using lyrics of songs. Of course, I would not lose the opportunity of talking about Brazil one more time. So I choose four English songs performed by Brazilian singers, in different levels of difficulty, and also took to chance to ask what they think about Taiwanese singers singing in English as well.

Mixed answers, but very interesting to hear them talk a bit more.

The material was the same for both activities: English lyrics with some blank spaces for them to fill out. If they were in a lower level, I just put the song for them to listen and fill out the blank spaces. Then we checked the answers (always writing the correct spelling on the board) and the meaning of each word. If they are in an upper level, it worked a little bit different. Before playing the song, we played a game first.

I divided them in two groups and they need to guess the words considering the verses. One group at a time, I asked the right word for three times: the first one, I gave them the number of letters on the word; the second one, I gave them a tip about the meaning of the word; the third one, I will let them ask me if there are a vowel or a consonant on the word. They get 30 points if they answer it correctly on the first

time, 20 points on the second time and 10 points on the third time. If they get it wrong, the other team gets 10 points. If the other team know the right word, they get plus 10 points.

When none of team got it right, I will just leave it to the second step of the game. After I asked for all the words, I played the song so they can find the missing words by listening.

Both activities worked pretty well and we had a good time together. Some of groups were more participative then the others, so if you try something like that, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t feel bad or frustrated if it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go well sometime. At the time, you can adjust things and understand what they would be more interested in.

Listen to them, pay attention on how they are reacting and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t afraid of changing your plan. You are learning as much as they are.

Different things, of course, but we are all learning.

THIRD WEEK The final week was definitely the more interactive one. Maybe because they already knew me by then, maybe because I already understood how they felt about English. On the last week, I tried to make them think faster while remembering words in English. It was clearly a huge gap and this time I wanted to see them try harder.

The activity was very simple: I got some viral videos that are or were very popular in Brazil and a promotional video about my hometown. I started the class explaining what are viral videos and social media. I showed the viral videos and after each video, I asked them to tell me what they saw. It could be anything and they need to say one word for around.

There were three rounds for each video and they needed to think fast to say only one thing at time. It was great to compare how long it took for them to remember the words after the first video to how long it took after the forth video. The improvement was clear and they could actually see it, which is important to make them believe that is not as harder as they thought.

On the final part, I showed them the promotional video about my hometown. This time, they had to tell me a full sentence about my city that they could notice from the video, not only a word. Two rounds for this video and, since they had trained a bit with the previous videos, they could build the sentences faster.

MY LOVELY LITTLE MONSTERS

You will fall for them anyway.

Yes, they are little monsters.

But, yes, they are just lovely. It was impossible for me not to fall for them along the way when they smiled to me and kept say “hello” and “hi” every time they see me.

One thing that I never forgot during all these weeks was the fact that they are teenagers and, although they are from Taiwan, teenagers are teenagers anywhere in the word. So they reminded me of myself when I was a teenager, of the friends I had back then and how school was on the past to me.

On my last day at school, I got this card from one of my students. From that moment, I realized how much I am going to miss them.

I got this from a student after our first conversation class.

I told the class i love Dan Bing, so he gave it to me for breakfast.

Some of them still don’t know why they are in school, some of them don’t know why they need to study English and some them have no idea of what they want to be in the future. But this is what High School is all about, right? Among so many students, I just wanted to be their friend and that they would like me just the way I am. But it was beyond my expectations.

They bought me food, they asked me to have lunch with me at my desk, they invited me to play basketball and so many other simple and kind invitations that totally made the difference for me. Of course, sometime they almost drove me crazy or made me lose my voice during the classes, but it is part of the experience. Have fun with them! Don’t miss this opportunity of going back in time a bit and remember how much you miss High School now. I did and I am really glad I did it.

MORE THAN TEACHERS

They are busy, but they are just too kind to let you feel alone.

being here. Teacher Danny is my loyal company to work until late at school. We are workaholics!

Teacher Cindy helped me with the gifts for my family and friends in Brazil, took me have dinner and showed me part of the city. I spent a very good time talking to Teacher Mike about students, classes, politics, Taiwan, China and other many interesting topics.

Teacher Isabel works also at the Students’ Affair office, so I didn’t see her very often, but she as much regardful as the others. Last but not least, Teacher Peter is the one I spent most time with. He took me to have lunch, have dinner, have breakfast, to go jogging in the mountains, to get to know his lovely family and meet one of his friends from college.

I am so thankful for each one of them for being part of the experience with me, for being there when I needed. You can absolute count on them for anything. They are an awesome team!

As I said before, I just love all the teachers! They are really nice and regardful. There around 40 or 50 teachers at the teacher’s office daily. I spent many hours per day at the office, so I got the chance to get to know most of them. Apart from the English teacher, some of the others can speak English, not all of them. The others who don’t speak English were a little bit shy towards me, but they always greeted me, smiled to me and did the Taiwanese way of being so charismatic, even when they are shy.

About the English teachers, they are adorable! I spent most of the time with all of them in the co-teaching class or just chatting a bit at the office when they had time – yes, they are busy! Very busy!

Teacher Jammie was my assigned teacher for this internship and she was always very present during my time here. Teacher Alice was the first one I met when I came to school and I remember how much excited I was just for finally

Peter Danny

Alice Cindy Isabel

Me

Mike

Jammie

WHY THIS WAS THE BEST Living “the heart of Asia” was the best experience of my life.

Not only because I have met so many amazing people or had some the most delicious food I have ever tried, but also because I made it the best experience of my life in all aspects. I came here full of expectations, but instead of just waiting for things to be exactly the way I expected them to be, I put effort to achieve success beforehand.

Curry, Jerry and Leo. They are probably the ones who had the harderst time during the conversation class because their level of English is lower than the other. But probably they are the most excited and participative students I had.

Sometimes it is not only about how they already know, but how interested they are to learn more.

After those amazing 6 weeks in Taiwan, honestly I don’t know if I was what they expected me to be when they decided to have an international volunteer here. What I am sure now is that I learned so much from them and they did much more for me than I could possibly do for them. I am really grateful!

Archery Club. Apart from a great opportunity to interact and get to know the students, Archery is pretty awesome! Thank you, Teacher Emma, for having me!

EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE I spent 7 months back in Brazil working as hard as possible to be able to come here. No one at home actually believe that was a meaningful experience for me or my career, so I could only count on me to conquer it.

It was not easy, it was not cheap. Sometimes I had three jobs at the same time, sometimes I had not job. Many times I thought I would never make it happen. Being here now, writing this report about my experience to you, has proved to me that dreams actually come true and it depended exclusively of myself. I put so much effort to be here that I could not leave without making sure everything worth it. It seems silly or naive to think this now, but after learning so much from a totally different culture, that is the most important thing to me now. I made it happen!

I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know why you are here now, but must be a reason for you to choose Taiwan and St. Aloysius Technical School. I hope this reason will be the motivation for you to do your best here, day by day. So dedicate yourself entirely to this job, to why they need you here. If you need something, you already know you can count on anyone.

So that is all. Live it for real, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget to have fun and make it the best experience of your life.

Taiwan Number 1!!!!

Thank you, Teachers!

Thank you, Students!

Thank you, St. Aloysius Technical School!

Thank you, Taiwan.

Dreams really come true.

But you are the only one who can make it happen.

Thank you, Taiwan!

For everything.