Based in Hong Kong, backed by the motherland, facing the world, a new international English education

Lutheran Tsang Shing Siu Leun School Upholds the core concepts of "Christ, Caring, and Internationalization" and takes "based on Hong Kong, backed by the motherland, facing the world" as the development direction, attaches great importance to biliterate and trilingual teaching, and lists English teaching as a key development project. The school is committed to building an immersive English learning ecosystem through multi-dimensional and systematic teaching planning. From teacher development, international certification, resource integration to teaching innovation, it comprehensively helps students improve their comprehensive language skills, expand their international horizons, and truly use English as a bridge to build a link to the world.

Professional team of foreign teachers improves learning happiness

In terms of teacher development, the school specially hired five professional foreign teachers from different regions with rich teaching experience to form a teaching team with clear functions and caring first. Principal Ye believes that allowing students to build a sense of security and confidence in English is the basis for teaching. Therefore, he insists on letting students feel the teacher's care and support first, and then gradually advances the teaching content.

Based on the language foundation and development needs of students of all grades, the school has created a scientific stepped curriculum system: in the first and second grades, two foreign teachers lead the PLP-R/W and Space Town junior primary courses respectively, and provide help to students with weak English foundation during homework tutoring time; in the third and fourth grades, for students with better English proficiency The students have set up an "International Group", with two foreign teachers serving as English teachers to strengthen in-depth language teaching. In response to the needs of fifth and sixth graders for further studies, the school specially arranges a foreign teacher to teach entrance interview skills. The English group teachers collaborate throughout the process and regularly organize mock interviews for parents to observe, ensuring that parents understand students' progress and development needs in a timely manner.

In their spare time, foreign teachers also actively create a relaxed environment for English use, and encourage students to communicate naturally in English by organizing activities such as morning English chats and interactive games in English during breaks. They also make innovative attempts to let students take the lead in classroom sessions to help them build a sense of learning achievement and happiness in practice.

Closely adhere to the international education framework and build global citizenship awareness

The school implements the concept of "Christ, Caring, and Internationalization" and offers international education subjects, which are taught by foreign teachers and local English teachers. The curriculum deeply integrates global issues to help students broaden their international horizons and establish a sense of global citizenship. In order to ensure that the curriculum is closely aligned with international authoritative standards, the school attaches great importance to the professional development of teachers and arranges for them to participate in professional training. Up to now, many teachers have successfully obtained the "United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Certified Teacher Certificate", providing a solid guarantee for high-quality teaching.

The curriculum design is based on the "PISA Global Literacy Framework", and the teaching team tailors the school-based teaching materials. The content covers the fields of culture and cross-cultural exchanges, the world and the earth, sustainable development, etc., and follows the principle of starting from the shallower to the deeper: the lower grades focus on topics such as food, national flags, and architecture, and the upper grades extend to world current affairs issues such as endangered animal protection and global ecological governance. By using English as a communication bridge, students can develop four core competencies: analyzing global issues, understanding diverse viewpoints, conducting cross-cultural interactions, and taking action for collective well-being.

Teaching adopts a "no exam, no textbook" model, and carries out diversified assessments in the form of project studies to break down subject barriers. At the same time, digital tools such as iPad, Padlet, and Kahoot! are used to enhance the interactive classroom experience. Judging from student feedback, most students have shown a strong interest in the international education subject and believe that the course is both interesting and informative. It not only helps them broaden their horizons and accumulate unforgettable knowledge, but also stimulates their initiative in English learning and significantly improves their English application ability.

Interdisciplinary integration and empowerment to improve language and knowledge

The school uses activities as a carrier to extend English learning into the teaching of various subjects. Taking the subject of International Education as an example, because it involves diverse concepts and global issues, the teaching process naturally incorporates elements from multiple fields: for example, it incorporates knowledge of visual arts and guides students to create environmentally-themed posters; it combines the principles of mathematics and economics to teach currency exchange-related knowledge, so that English learning can deeply penetrate into various subject areas and achieve the goal of interdisciplinary integration.

Outside the classroom, the school holds an "International Education Week", with "World Cultural Clothing Day" and fashion shows as activities, paired with fun booth games, allowing students to use English flexibly in practical experiences and stimulate English learning motivation through diverse topics of interest. The school also uses the International Education Department as an entry point to launch the "Future Guardians of the Planet" series of activities around the theme of sustainable development, and conducts interdisciplinary booth games and workshops. It is also open to community kindergarten students to expand the scope of the activities.

In addition, combined with the concept of "Christ and Care", the English Department and the Bible Department jointly carry out interdisciplinary activities: During Thanksgiving, students are organized to write gratitude cards in English to convey their gratitude; with the support of the school sponsoring group, a special summer Bible class is opened, and foreign missionaries are invited to the school to carry out all-English activities. Through singing, sharing and other links, it not only conveys values ​​such as love and respect, but also allows students to naturally improve their language application skills in an immersive English environment.

International English Professional Examination to promote teaching and international standards

In order to promote English teaching to be in line with international standards, the school has reached a cooperation with GPEX International Education Institution and has become the only certified Cambridge official English examination center in Tuen Mun District. The school organizes students to take international authoritative English exams such as Cambridge English and TOEFL Junior, which not only allows students to clearly grasp their true language proficiency, but also achieves outstanding results: In the Cambridge English exam in July, 70% of students obtained full shields (15 shields), and 90% of students achieved excellent scores of 13 shields and above; in the TOEFL Junior exam, 40% of students successfully obtained silver medal certification.

In order to further deepen the connotation of international teaching, the school plans to incorporate the core elements of Cambridge English into the junior primary school-based curriculum and organize all English teachers to participate in special training on the Cambridge curriculum to ensure that the teaching quality is synchronized with international standards. In the future, the school will also open up overseas examination channels and arrange for students to go to the UK to take the Cambridge English examination. Qualified students can receive certificates on site, achieving the dual goals of testing their academic achievements and expanding their international horizons.

Create platform activities to develop English skills

The school is committed to creating rich English activities, including English dramas, recitations, English hand puppets, English planting classes, English cupcake making, etc., so that students can use English in a happy experience. In addition, the school has organized three groups of English ambassadors to train speaking skills with foreign teachers. This year, the school also introduced the English newspaper "Posties" as teaching materials to strengthen listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. The English ambassador is responsible for guest tours, booth game hosting, etc. Earlier, the school even led English ambassadors to participate in the Filmit Competition of the Education Bureau and participate in filming, recording, broadcasting and other experiences. Students who participated in the English recital and English Ambassador shared that they gained a lot from the process, which made them feel happy and hoped to participate again.

Immersive overseas English experience connects the world and broadens horizons

International learning cannot be limited to campus; students must go out of Hong Kong and into the world. To this end, the school actively promotes overseas exchange groups and has successfully organized exchange activities in the United States, South Korea, Okinawa and other destinations. Among them, the American study tour group is an example of in-depth exchanges. English teachers led students to New York for 11 days of experiential learning. The students stayed with local host families, used English as the communication language throughout the process, and actively communicated and interacted with local residents.

This kind of immersive communication experience not only allows students to develop daily habits of English conversation and strengthen their self-confidence in language use, but also allows them to broaden their knowledge through language bridges, gain a deeper understanding of the development conditions and cultural features of different countries, gradually establish a broad international perspective, and vividly practice the school's international concept of "facing the world." In the future, the school plans to further expand the exchange territory before Easter and organize students to conduct study tours in the United Kingdom and Singapore, so that students can improve their language skills and global perspective while experiencing local customs and customs.

Make good use of resources to create learning opportunities and expand English development space

The school actively connects with high-quality resources outside the school and creates rich and diverse English practice opportunities for students through multi-party cooperation. The school has reached an official cooperation with the CoComelon channel. After obtaining authorization, it fully uses its cartoons, music and other popular materials to develop school-based teaching materials, integrating interesting content into English classes, effectively improving students' learning interest and participation. At the same time, students also get the valuable opportunity to participate in the filming of the CoComelon theme song. The school drama team even went to the official residence of the Chief Secretary for Environmental Protection to perform English performances in front of many guests and celebrities at the Ocean Park environmental education event, allowing students to confidently demonstrate their English expression skills on a high-standard display platform, and gain a strong sense of accomplishment from it.

In addition, relying on the strong support of the Lutheran Church, the school's sponsoring group, the school has established close cooperative relationships with six affiliated primary schools. Through resource sharing, centralized integration of teaching materials, and rotating English days, the school breaks down inter-school barriers and enriches learning scenarios. This year, the school takes Chinese culture as the core theme and carefully designs interdisciplinary English activities. Taking advantage of the joint school advantages of the school sponsoring group, the school allows students to be exposed to richer English application scenarios in a diverse and collaborative atmosphere.

Pay attention to English reading and promote reading culture

English reading plays an important role in improving language proficiency. The school sets regular reading periods and offers special reading classes every day. The class teacher also plays relaxing music in the morning to allow students to read independently. Thursdays are also designated as "English Reading Day" to ensure that students are regularly and systematically exposed to English reading materials. A comprehensive reading space has been built on campus, with Chinese and English bookcases in classrooms and corridors on each floor. English books cover many interdisciplinary fields such as mathematics, ecology, and space. This not only enriches students’ knowledge reserves, but also lays a solid foundation for them to study other subjects in English when they enter middle school. Under the influence of a strong reading atmosphere, students' language skills have been rapidly improved. For example, first-year students won two third prizes in story speech competitions within just a few months of school, which fully proves the role of reading in promoting the development of English skills.

Optimize teaching methods and make good use of AI to support teaching

In the face of global technological development trends, the school is committed to maintaining the vitality of teaching innovation and actively investing resources to optimize teaching methods. For example, it has cooperated with SCOLAR and the Chinese University of Hong Kong to jointly implement electronic writing and AI-assisted teaching projects. At this stage, the teaching team has carried out a variety of innovative attempts: using generative AI to stimulate students' interest in writing and guiding them to carry out simple English writing exercises; using Edcafe AI's real-time prompts and error correction functions to help students improve their grammatical accuracy in sentence making and writing, and gradually lay a foundation for language. In the future, the school plans to further expand the application scenarios of AI technology, fully cover the full-dimensional teaching of listening, speaking, reading and writing in senior English subjects, and use it for high-level thinking training to promote the development of students' logical thinking and language abilities.

Learn English from children's songs to connect with kindergarten English courses

In response to the adaptation needs of lower-grade students, the school has built a complete connection support system to help students smoothly transition to the primary school English learning stage. In addition to the kindergarten bridging class, the school fully exploits the elements of English children's songs suitable for young children in CoComelon resources and carefully compiles a school-based English listening booklet to allow primary school freshmen to easily access English and develop their language sense through familiar children's song melodies. At the same time, there are no formal tests in the first grade, silent reading scores are not scored, and traditional score sheets are not issued. Instead, class teachers will comprehensively track students' learning progress and development potential through daily classroom observations, interactive communication, etc., and provide personalized guidance to help each student take the first step in learning English in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere.