English Festival redux!

This past week, all of us ETAs were running around for 72 hours straight (more or less) for the ELC’s Spring 2010 English Festival. For an idea of the jam-packed schedule, click the link above.

As in the fall, the festival’s purpose is to promote English learning as meaningful for students’ futures, and possibly even fun at times. The meaningful part was provided by a series of presentations ranging from “Traveling in English” and “Using English in the Workplace” (bringing in speakers from international corporations such as Disney and Boeing), while we ETAs provided most of the fun through activities such as Jeopardy!, a UM Amazing Race, Games Corner, and UM Idol Talent Show.

Opening ceremony ribbon-cutting

Traveling in English panel (thanks to GAs Tom/Karen and Tom's roommate Willem!)

Mock debate on "Women need men like fish need bicycles."

Joseph presenting on his experience as an exchange student at SIU Carbondale

Austin and Rex (one of the other ELC teachers) with students at Games Corner

Teams fighting to ring the bell first in Jeopardy!

UM Amazing Race was one of the new things we tried, partially inspired by our own Amazing Race during orientation week. We were mostly nice: the students didn’t have to go around Taipa and Macau, just around campus, but they had to complete various tasks at each stop, and some of these were harder than others. For example, unscrambling some words isn’t so difficult, but carrying a team member piggy-back…uphill…

Task: Identify flags of 7 countries at the World Expo and take a photo with Haibao =P

Task: Carry a team member up the hill from the sports center

Aiyaaa...falling down!

Secret task at the end: Say the English alphabet backwards!

UM Idol was also expanded slightly to encourage more participation – students could do things other than singing English karaoke songs (although many of them chose that anyway). However, some groups got more creative, e.g. a dramatic reading of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and an English dub of a Chinese drama (with soundtrack!)

The Boy Who Cried Wolf (with super-cute folders!)

Annie and Adam dubbing "The Flirtatious Scholar"

PSP (Peer Support Program) - these guys can always be counted on to give a good show

Overall, it was fun but exhausting, so I’m glad it’s done. One event left…UM Prom in two weeks!

English Language Festival

我 知 道 我 很 久 沒 有 練 習 寫 中 文 了， 可 是 我 現 在 很 忙：這 星 期 我 們 要 凖 備 英 語 節 的 活 動， 也 要 幫 助 我 們 的 學 生凖 備 考 期 中 試。

Translation: I know I haven’t practiced writing Chinese in a while, but I’ve been very busy: this week we had to prepare all the English Festival activities, and we also had to help our students prepare for the midterm exam.

The main part of our job this week was not teaching classes as usual (although we did have to prepare our students for the midterm); instead, it was running the events at the English Festival, starting with an opening ceremony on Tuesday night and ending with the closing ceremony around 6 PM this evening. It was a pretty jam-packed few days of activities for students and teachers alike, ranging from lectures to board games to karaoke (in English, of course). We ETAs were in charge of organizing/running all the activities for students, sort of a practice run for next semester when we're supposed to organize the whole thing ourselves!

First up was the opening ceremony Tuesday night, with remarks by Glenn Shive (director of the HKAC) and a 'scholarly lecture' by Peter Skehan, an English professor from CUHK. He spoke about his/his students' research on task-based learning, e.g. if repetition helps fluency or accuracy, which was semi-interesting for us as teachers, but I couldn't help feeling bad for the many students in the room who probably had no idea what he was saying. Still, being proper Chinese students, they all clapped politely at the end, and then we went off for dinner at IFT, the Institute for Tourism Studies.

The IFT Educational Restaurant

The IFT is an interesting school because it specifically trains people to work in the hospitality industry: chefs, waiters, concierges, etc. The food at the educational restaurant was good (curry shrimp and rice for a main course, with this delicious rhubarb crumble for dessert), but the decor was also quite interesting, like this blue-lit wine storage room. Is the blue light supposed to help preserve the flavor or something?

Days 2 and 3 were super-busy for us, running all the student events. Austin screened a film he had made with friends in India (A Box With a View), plus we had Jeopardy and a UM Idol karaoke competition. Participation was overwhelmingly enthusiastic - we had 17 teams in Jeopardy and over 20 acts for karaoke!

The audience was also huge...

Our karaoke winner, who rapped Eminem's "8 Mile"

Overall, the English Festival could be counted a clear success, despite a few logistical glitches like trying to handle the hundreds of students with their "E+ cards" trying to get stamps for participation points. Next semester will be interesting because we have to plan the whole thing, but I think we've had a good practice run already!