Diversified English learning to achieve "confidence in learning" learners

@TERM0@@, located in Yuen Long District, has always kept pace with the times, providing high-quality whole-person education, committed to cultivating students' all-round development, and implementing the school motto of "diligence, thrift, loyalty, and trustworthiness". The school attaches great importance to students' English development. In addition to designing diversified school-based courses and providing a wealth of English learning opportunities, the school has also hired a number of additional foreign English teachers to build a professional English teaching team to create an immersive language learning experience. Principal Lu Zhenhe combines innovative educational concepts to create a "high participation", "high interaction" and "high interest" learning environment, so that students can become "happy and confident" learners and lay a solid foundation for the future.

School-based English courses English integrated into life

The school has an excellent teaching staff and has invested resources to hire three additional foreign English teachers to create an international English learning environment. In addition to being responsible for the regular curriculum in the school and organizing different English activities, foreign teachers will also serve as class teachers at the primary level to improve students' enthusiasm, so that students can use English flexibly in daily life and master the bilingual learning model. At the same time, in line with the development trend of education, the school combines English learning and STEAM education, and organizes top-notch courses such as "Special Inquiry", "Programming Education", and "Science Exploration" to encourage students to learn and use English. Learn how to apply innovative technologies through "hands-on" activities to prepare for future social development.

In addition, the school creates a large number of opportunities to apply English in daily life to improve students' enthusiasm for learning English. For example: setting up interest groups such as "English Drama", "Recitation Training", and "Student English Ambassadors". Teachers also actively encourage students to participate in off-campus competitions and performances to enhance their self-confidence and broaden their knowledge and horizons by stepping on different stages. The school has always been committed to improving students' English proficiency and international perspective, and cultivating students' language expression and cross-cultural communication skills through a comprehensive English context. Last year, the school's fifth and sixth grade students went to Canada to learn English while learning more about environmental education and Indian culture. This year, the school will take students on a study tour to Australia. In addition to learning English, they will also experience Australia's unique animals and ecological environment. This valuable experience will surely become an unforgettable lesson for students in their growth.

Special inquiry courses to enhance learning ownership

For students who have just entered Primary One, the transition from kindergarten to primary school plays an important role. In order to reduce the pressure on students and ensure a balanced curriculum, the school has canceled the Primary One examination. At the same time, the school uses multiple assessment strategies to create space between teachers and students. In the junior primary school, the school continues the concept of inquiry-based learning. Students find answers independently by asking questions, collecting information, analyzing and thinking. This learning method can stimulate students' curiosity and allow them to come to class with "expectations" and "questions."

Principal Lu added: "Learning is not about rote memorization, but about seeking truth. Therefore, the school waives traditional examinations in junior and primary grades, allowing teachers and students to have more space and time to conduct diversified inquiry learning, and deepen the curriculum content through inspections, off-campus visits, lectures and activity-based learning, so that teaching complements each other." Through different learning experiences, students' learning vitality is stimulated, and the teaching interaction in the classroom is enhanced. Moreover, when students have more autonomy, they can enhance their sense of ownership of learning and become the motivation for independent learning, which helps students learn English easily and improves learning effectiveness.

Diversified classroom activities to implement the "Three Highs" strategy

The school attaches great importance to curriculum development. In order to improve teaching quality and balance teaching content, the school works hand in hand with the "Primary School-based Curriculum Development Team" of the Education Bureau. By listening to professional opinions, the school has optimized the English school-based curriculum for senior primary schools. The optimized English courses are based on professional theories and combined with the "Three Highs" teaching strategy to create a "high participation, high interaction and high interest" learning environment and encourage students to actively participate in class. Through interesting interactive activities, such as role-playing, pair sharing, group discussions and various online learning platforms, students can cooperate and support each other, construct and share knowledge, and enhance learning effectiveness.

At the same time, in order to help students learn and apply the knowledge they have learned, and achieve better learning results in a pleasant learning process. The school promotes multi-sensory learning, allowing students to learn with their eyes, hands and heart through activities such as singing, reciting and role-playing. The multi-sensory learning method allows students to learn English more deeply through sensory experience. Compared with simply sitting in the classroom and passively receiving knowledge, students can apply what they have learned more actively in daily life and be more deeply impressed by the knowledge.

Participate in international assessment examinations and continuously create outstanding results

In order to strengthen the test-taking training of high school students, improve their self-confidence, and enter their preferred middle school with the best performance and grades. The school actively encourages students to participate in external public assessments and obtain internationally recognized assessment certificates, such as: "Cambridge Primary School English Test in the United Kingdom", "TOEFL Primary School English Test in the United States", and "International Joint School Subject Assessment of the University of New South Wales, Australia", allowing students to learn from them and review their learning progress through different external assessments. Teachers can then provide appropriate learning support and guidance, optimize and adapt teaching strategies. With comprehensive teaching policies and high-quality school-based curriculum, the school’s upper primary school students are not only well prepared to enter secondary school early, but also aim to enter Group 1 secondary schools and then to university. Principal Lu added: "In recent years, the school's secondary school placement allocation results have improved significantly. In 2022-2023, 95.3% of students were assigned their top three choices. Among them, 91.5% of students were assigned their first choice during self-allocation or centralized allocation stage, and nearly 40% (39%) of students were admitted to English-taught secondary schools, achieving great results!"

Make good use of electronic interactive whiteboards to improve classroom rhythm and fluency

The school has grasped the trend of electronic teaching, invested resources to optimize teaching equipment, replaced all classrooms in the school with electronic whiteboards, and used multimedia teaching materials to improve learning and teaching effectiveness. As an essential device for interactive teaching, the greatest advantage of the electronic whiteboard lies in its interactive function. Teachers only need simple operations to project images and materials on their mobile phones or tablets onto the screen. They can operate directly on the electronic whiteboard, and switch to students' computers at any time to enhance interactive sharing in the classroom. At the same time, by uploading class content to the online platform and producing it as a QR Code, students can review the key points of knowledge at any time and extend their after-class learning.

Practice the concept of flipped classroom and cultivate independent learning habits

The epidemic has brought innovative opportunities to the education sector, especially the popularization of electronic teaching. In recent years, the school has focused on making students familiar with the application of various e-learning platforms, such as "Edmodo World" and "Raz-kids". At the same time, the school also makes good use of different learning software to design teaching activities and create a more attractive and highly interactive learning environment, including "Padlet", "Edpuzzle", "Kahoot", "Nearpod", "Quizizz" and other software to increase the interactive elements of the classroom and provide students with a wider range of learning opportunities and resources.

In addition, in order to enhance students' independent learning ability, the school makes good use of information technology, especially adding "Audio Ting Pen" to English school-based courses and reading classes to enhance learning effectiveness. Principal Lu pointed out: "The reading pen is easy to operate and use. It has the function of making a sound and explaining. When paired with corresponding teaching materials, it can effectively help students learn and understand difficult knowledge content, and promote students' independent learning ability."