Develop English learning strategies to enable students to dare to create their future

Man Kwan QualiEd College attaches great importance to students’ language development, actively cultivates students’ reading habits, and enriches their English vocabulary library, so that they feel that English is closely related to daily life, and mastering good language skills will help them have more diverse options in the future. Principal Wong Kin San leads the English subject team to design flexible and effective language teaching policies to help students continue to make progress, improve their English proficiency and grades, and enter the university of their choice.

Curriculum to match learning stage Flexible teaching arrangements

Students have different levels of English proficiency and foundation. The school coordinates the curriculum with different learning stages, adopts a layer-by-layer approach, and adopts a strategy of teaching students in accordance with their aptitude, taking into account students' abilities and taking care of their learning differences. The school will carry out "Not too busy this summer" activities during the summer vacation, including English teaching and visiting activities to help the first-year students make the transition and allow teachers to understand students' learning habits and basics so that they can be divided into classes, adjust curriculum plans, etc. At the high school level, the school will help students move towards their goals and arrange intensive conversation training for Form 6 students to prepare for the HKDSE with their best performance.

In addition, the school has separate "English classes" and "bilingual classes" starting from the secondary level. "English classes" mainly use English as the teaching language, and their teaching materials, assessments and assignments are also mainly in English; "bilingual classes" use Chinese as the teaching language and incorporate English elements into different subjects. For example, English lexicon is added as a teaching part to allow students to learn English terms in different subjects. At the same time, the school adopts a layered curriculum model, adding "challenge questions" to the curriculum design of each class, providing silent reading assistance, etc. to help students improve their English skills and gradually improve their skills and confidence in using English.

Teaching activities create context and interdisciplinary collaboration stimulates learning motivation

Principal Wong Kin San believes that the most important thing in English learning is to let students speak. To this end, we provide diversified extracurricular activities, create an English context, and encourage students to listen more, speak more, and use English more. Through regular "Talk to me" activities, students, as well as teachers and students, can conduct in-depth exchanges on different topics to create an interactive learning atmosphere. The English subject team will also launch different activities in conjunction with traditional festivals such as Halloween and Christmas, and arrange for foreign teachers and students to play booth games to apply English in a relaxed way. In the future, the school also plans to organize different study tour groups to allow students to immerse themselves in learning in a natural context.

Good language skills play an important role in learning different subjects. The school promotes collaborative teaching between the English subject group and other subject groups, such as cooperating with the music subject to introduce English folk songs, and organizes the "Inter-class Folk Song Competition" and the "Hong Kong Primary School English Folk Song Group Singing Competition" to enhance the motivation of the whole school and even the entire primary school sector to learn English. In addition, the school also combines school-based drama courses with English elements to launch the "Dramatic Reading Competition", which allows students to read aloud and surround English scripts to improve their vocabulary and conversation skills, build confidence in English, and develop listening, speaking, reading and writing skills.

Reading enriches vocabulary and inspires deep thinking

The school is well aware of the importance of vocabulary in English learning, and has always attached great importance to students' reading, hoping to enrich students' vocabulary through different books. For example, "KWL reading strategies" are promoted in different subject groups to enable students to learn more; morning reading time is arranged to encourage students to read English books during the most energetic period of the day. In addition, the school has also purchased e-readers to facilitate students to read books anytime and anywhere and expand their knowledge. Teacher Cai Yongzhu, the head of the English subject, said that under the influence of fast food culture, the content read by students is relatively short and lacks the depth of learning. Therefore, the school regularly holds reading activities, and the "Book Sharing Club" is led by foreign teachers. Through introduction, sharing, discussion, etc., students can develop in-depth thinking and enhance their interest in reading.

Apply e-learning tools to improve learning effectiveness

As innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence and virtual reality become more and more popular, the English subject group also makes good use of electronic teaching models, such as electronic textbooks, electronic notes, tablets, "E-assessment", etc., to enhance learning and teaching effectiveness. Principal Wong Kin San pointed out: "Through the above e-learning tools, teachers not only know the scores of students, but also understand their learning weaknesses and difficulties, take care of different learning differences, and then formulate appropriate teaching policies." The school also understands that innovative technology is a "double-sided edge", so Principal Wong Kin San is committed to cultivating students to build information literacy and become digital citizens of the future. The school will make good use of innovative technologies in teaching and teach students to correctly use technologies such as ChatGPT in learning.