New English teaching model: Applied English in natural context

Chan's Creative School (H.K. Island) With the purpose of "providing high-quality education and taking care of the development of the whole person", we teach students to "have good aspirations, read well, learn well, and do good deeds" to help them achieve balanced development in moral, intellectual, physical, social and aesthetic aspects. In the future, they will make contributions to society and serve the people as their own responsibility. Principal Zheng Huiqi understands that the ultimate goal of learning a language is to communicate with others. To this end, the school has optimized its teaching model and specially hired 4 foreign English teachers to teach in small classes so that students can be in a natural English learning environment and strengthen their cross-cultural communication skills.

Multicultural background, international learning atmosphere

The school has a diverse enrollment. In addition to local students, it also attracts students from different cultural backgrounds, including France, Thailand, the Philippines, Japan and other countries, successfully creating an international learning atmosphere. The school grasps the diverse nationalities of its students and takes advantage of multiculturalism by adopting strategies such as "small class placement" and group teaching to promote the integration of language and culture, broaden students' knowledge, and enhance learning and teaching effectiveness. In the English class, students will be divided into different study groups, and will be taught collaboratively by 2 foreign English teachers and 1 local teacher to cater for the learning needs of different students, thereby improving the interactivity and flexibility of the class and laying a good foundation for their future international exchanges and career development.

The school teaches in small groups and implements a "70/30" classroom ratio. The teaching team can pay attention to students' learning status at any time during the teaching process to provide appropriate learning support and guidance. In order to broaden the depth and breadth of students' knowledge, in addition to teaching English school-based course content, teachers will also provide extended teaching on knowledge points that students are interested in. Principal Zheng added: "Students from different countries make small class teaching more advantageous. For example, when talking about festivals in various countries, they will not only interact and share in real time, but also spontaneously explore more knowledge online and cultivate independent learning. At the same time, interactive classrooms can create a relaxed and enjoyable learning atmosphere, allowing students to actively ask questions and seek knowledge, and promote peer learning."

Reading opens the door to language and consolidates basic English skills

Reading is very important because it can expand knowledge and improve language skills and thinking skills. Therefore, the school not only provides an English room and subscribes to English newspapers for students to read, but also introduces RWI courses and integrates them into the regular curriculum for grades one to three. This course is based on the spelling of 44 original sounds to help students establish a good foundation for English pronunciation. Through the learning and training of mixed spelling and original phonetic spelling, students can decompose each syllable of vocabulary. While mastering the pronunciation of words, they can also improve their reading, writing and conversational skills. In addition, RWI courses are equipped with specially written school-based topics, allowing students to absorb a large amount of English knowledge while listening and telling stories, stimulating their creativity and inspiration.

Offer drama and debate courses to improve language application skills

Activity-based teaching provides a fun, interactive and practical learning environment that can stimulate students' interest in learning English while developing their language skills and learning abilities. Therefore, in the English teaching plan, the school adds elements of drama and debate to the curriculum: drama courses are held for grades one to three, and debate courses are offered for grades four to six. "Drama is not only a performance process, but also provides students with opportunities to use the sentence structures and vocabulary they have mastered in daily study. Excellent students can try to use longer sentences to express themselves and show their creativity; students with less ability can also gradually catch up and accumulate every day. A one-time experience helps build your own knowledge and abilities. " Vice Principal Chen Huiyi said that during rehearsals and performances, students can enhance their self-confidence, overcome the fear of facing the audience, learn to appreciate, encourage and support each other, and continue to accumulate valuable experience in using English.

As students grow up, they will begin to develop their personal thinking and ideas in upper primary school. Debate training helps students convert their thinking into words, not only to express their own opinions, but also to improve their language skills in the process of organizing arguments and arguments. Debates need to consider both pros and cons and can cultivate students' ability to think from multiple perspectives. Principal Zheng pointed out: "In a debate competition, whether you are pro or con, you need to consider the opponent's arguments. This is an important process of using multi-perspective thinking. Therefore, we hope that when students learn to debate, they can not only learn to think from multiple perspectives, but also transform multi-perspective thinking patterns into positive thinking, thereby achieving the ultimate goal of 'positive development'."

Make good use of innovative technology in teaching, immersive English learning experience

The school has always kept pace with the times, grasped world development trends, and applied different innovative technologies to teaching to enhance the effectiveness of learning and teaching. For example, in the visual arts class, teachers use virtual reality (VR) devices to lead students to "tour" museums around the world, allowing students to learn English in a culturally rich atmosphere, thereby realizing that English is closely related to daily life, and improving students' learning motivation. This innovative teaching method not only enriches the classroom content, but also allows students to experience different cultures immersively and broaden their horizons.

In addition, the school advocates creating an immersive English learning environment to enhance students' sense of investment in learning English. To this end, the school cooperates with different disciplines, starting from the curriculum, teaching materials, activities, etc., to bring the English context into different classrooms. The teaching team incorporates a large number of English elements into the IT and programming classes, and specially selects programming teaching materials suitable for primary one and primary two learning levels to help students learn programming through puzzles, learn more English vocabulary, new words, etc., and deepen their language and subject learning. In music classes, when students learn Ukulele (Hawaiian guitar), teachers will also use appropriate English songs as material. Students can learn English subtly during the playing process, and actively search for the meaning of these lyrics to deepen their English knowledge.

Pay attention to the connection between freshmen's studies and maintain a good home-school cooperative relationship

The adaptation process of primary school freshmen has a profound impact on children's learning and development. Adapting to the new learning environment will help establish positive study habits and improve academic performance. The school specially hired three foreign English teachers to take charge of the primary school freshmen's adaptation and study life in the first three months. Before the daily morning meeting, the school will arrange for foreign teachers to communicate and interact with students to establish a closer teacher-student relationship and create a comfortable and open atmosphere so that they can use English more confidently. Therefore, even if some primary school students encounter problems at school, they will be happy to consult foreign teachers for their opinions.

Principal Zheng added: "Different from the general adaptation classes that allow students entering primary school to get to know school life early, our adaptation classes invite parents to participate. We hope that when students share what they have learned after returning home, parents can also participate and give feedback, and understand their children's new life in primary school. In addition, before students enter school, we A set of teaching materials will also be provided to students’ parents, including English, music and other comprehensive subjects, so that they can understand the course content before enrolling, reduce the worries of students and parents, ensure students’ smooth transition to primary school life, and provide better support for their learning journey.” At the same time, the school will provide better support as early as the summer. A series of activities have been held since August, and in late September after the start of the school year, parent classes will be observed so that parents can better understand their children's campus life and deepen their understanding of school teaching.

Develop language talent and grasp the trend of globalization

In order to further develop students' language talents, the school organizes diversified language courses. The school started offering weekly Spanish classes as early as 2021. The school also plans to gradually expand to all levels of the school to effectively broaden students' learning areas and prepare them for learning a fourth language. In addition to the existing English and Spanish courses, the school is planning to add German courses and offer Korean and Japanese courses taught by parents. The primary school stage is an important period for students to consolidate their language foundation. The school promotes the development of students' language, social and expressive abilities and enriches their learning experience by launching a series of language teaching measures. By learning different languages, students can get closer to others and prepare themselves for globalization.