Two-way development of Chinese language science enables students to spread their wings and fly

Buddhist Chan Wing Kan Memorial School is committed to cultivating students’ all-round development in moral, intellectual, physical, social and aesthetic education, providing important experiences of lifelong learning, and teaching students to establish independent learning abilities. The school attaches great importance to students' biliteracy and trilingual development. To this end, it has specially updated teaching equipment and teaching materials, and hired additional foreign English teachers to create a strong English learning environment. Principal Chen Manlin leads the teaching team to optimize the school-based curriculum and design diversified learning activities to establish all-round development for students, cultivate common abilities, and become outstanding talents who can comprehensively apply knowledge from various subjects.

High-quality English courses to inspire language talents

In terms of English teaching, the school seizes the "golden period" of language learning, designs student-centered courses, and inspires the development of creative thinking. It also introduces the "Space Town Program" designed by the Education Bureau and uses "Lesson Plans" and "Student Booklets" for unit teaching. The school also uses "Home Reading Books" and "Letter Books" to deepen students' pinyin foundation and extend after-school reading, thereby establishing self-study habits. For the upper elementary courses, the English subject team focuses on training students' reading and writing skills. It uses "Guided Reading" teaching in the fourth and fifth grades, and strengthens the interactive communication between teachers and students through group teaching mode, so as to understand students' difficulties and needs in learning English, help them express themselves more confidently in English, and inspire language talents.

Recruit more foreign teachers to build an international English campus

In addition to optimizing the English curriculum framework, the school also focuses on students' practice in life to build their confidence in using English. Therefore, the school makes good use of resources and hires a number of additional foreign English teachers from different countries to create an international English context. Foreign teachers use flexible teaching strategies, such as singing, games, drama, etc., to enhance students' interest and confidence in English. At the same time, they will also provide reading guidance in fourth to fifth grade classes to further consolidate students' reading levels, gain pleasure and a sense of accomplishment from English books, and gradually improve their English reading abilities. Principal Chen added: "Foreign teachers are not only responsible for the junior primary school curriculum, but also responsible for the 'Guided Reading' program for upper primary schools. They will also strengthen conversation training for sixth grade students, teach English interview etiquette and skills, and fully prepare for interviews in high school."

English and STEM combined, multi-language learning experience

The school has always kept pace with the times, promoted interdisciplinary collaboration, and created diverse and interesting language learning experiences for students. The school grasps the trend of innovation and technology education, organically combines English and STEM education, and infiltrates STEM elements into the third-grade English curriculum. It teaches students to use the "Scratch Junior" program to create English stories, enhances learning interest, and strengthens students' ability to apply new technologies. Through the program, students can design and produce their own stories, animations and games, unleash their creative potential, and give students a stage to express their language, art, and even programming. Principal Chen said, "In a globalized society, students will need to have close connections with the world in the future. Therefore, in addition to subject knowledge such as mathematics and physics, they must also pay attention to the importance of English as an international language. The school hopes that through a new learning model, it will not only stimulate students' interest in knowledge, but also strengthen their language application abilities."

The teaching team firmly believes that language teaching should be flexible and interesting to enhance students' learning motivation. In order to create a diversified English learning environment, in addition to the classroom, the school also promotes a series of all-round learning activities. Combined with the rich teaching resources of the English room, English learning activities are held every Friday during the "all-round learning period" to allow students to communicate in English in a pleasant environment. For example, in the "English Wonderland" campus TV station led by foreign teachers, students will host radio programs in English to improve their oral expression skills. At the same time, the English subject team also launched activities such as "English Debate Team", "Drama Club" and "Cooking is fun" with the goal of "listening more, speaking more and participating more" to encourage students to communicate more in English. The school's excellent and diverse English teaching strategies have successfully created a strong English atmosphere, allowing students to build confidence in English and achieve excellent results in the international certification exam TOEFL Junior. Relevant organizations even visited the school to interview the principal and classmates about their feelings and experiences.

Set up cross-disciplinary special studies to apply what you have learned

Principal Chen pointed out that project study can organically combine subject knowledge with real life, allowing students to become leaders in learning, explore topics of interest, and thereby establish independent learning habits. Therefore, the school arranges interdisciplinary study on different themes in each grade to provide students with opportunities to apply what they have learned. Taking the first-grade study topic as an example, students will, under the leadership of their teachers, visit every corner of the campus to find their favorite campus facilities, and use the "Eight Creative Styles" to suggest improvement projects for the school, and finally use their creativity to design an ideal campus environment. During the process, students need to discuss around the topic and learn to collect information, organize, analyze, reflect, etc., which will help expand the depth and breadth of their knowledge.