SBP English Language KLA Sharing Session Date 26

SBP English Language KLA Sharing Session Date: 26 th Jan 2002 Venue: Tack Ching Primary School

Ms Pau Yuk Fong Ms Chau Ka Ki Ms Wong Pui Mei Ms Ho Wai Yee Tai Po Old Market Public School (PM) Summary

Ms Chiu Yuk Kwan Our Lady of China Catholic Primary School (PM) Ms Cheng Wing Sheung Tai Po Methodist Primary School Summary

Ms Tam Wing Kam Ms Chan Wing Yan Ms Ha Yuen Shan Po Kok Branch School Summary

Lillian Shum Holy Carpenter Primary School Summary

Ms Pau Yuk Fong Ms Chau Ka Ki Ms Wong Pui Mei Ms Ho Wai Yee Tai Po Old Market Public School (PM) The teachers learnt from last year’s teaching experience that most students were not able to master the skill of blending. Building on such experience, the teachers improved their practice by revisiting individual sounds at the beginning of each lesson and practising the skill of blending regularly. They practised blending using project work and small readers. Even the method of blending was well thought out. The teachers found that students learnt blending more easily when they started with onsets and rimes than with discrete sounds.

The teachers explained how they made use of authentic learning experience to arouse their students' interest in learning English. In Tai Po Methodist Primary School, the students used the vocabulary (food) and text- type (recipe) they learnt in class to work out the steps for making a sandwich. They then did a demonstration in front of the whole class. Performance-based assessment and peer assessment were used to increase the meta-cognition level of the students. In Our Lady of China Catholic Primary School, students set up stalls in a food court. They created their own menus to attract customers to their stalls. Students carried out simple conversations in the authentic learning situation, and the teacher assessed Summary them as they performed according to set criteria.

Ms Tam Wing Kam Ms Chan Wing Yan Ms Ha Yuen Shan Po Kok Branch School The teachers encouraged their P. 2 students to write more by giving them more chances to do free writing in class. The students could draw simple pictures of their own (e. g. a ball) and produced the target structure or other learnt structure (e. g. I can see a ball. There is a ball. ). Surprisingly the performance of the students (high, average & low) Episode 1 was much better than expected. This gave the teachers much confidence to keep up with the new practice.

Lillian Shum Holy Carpenter Primary School The teacher shared with fellow teachers the experience of curriculum adaptation in her school. She pointed out that curriculum development is an on-going and painstaking process and that there is no single formula to success, every school has its own development. She encouraged the audience to work as a team when they started their own schoolbased curriculum.

Report on the Sharing Session In the sharing sessions, the teachers were able to demonstrate that they could use students’ performance to inform their teaching. They were reflective and innovative. The concept of curriculum development as an on-going process was well illustrated in all sharing. From last year’s experience, teachers of Tai Po Old Market Public School(PM) discovered that most students were not able to master the skill of blending. The teachers improved their practice by recycling individual sounds with students at the beginning of each lesson and practicing the skill of blending regularly. They practised blending the sounds using project work and small readers. Even the method of blending was well thought out. The teachers found that students learnt blending easier when they started with onsets and rimes than with discrete sounds.

The teachers of Po Kok Branch School studied P. 3 students’ performance in the Attainment test and discovered that their students were not able to express simple ideas in their own language. They realized that it would not be possible for their students to reach that standard in one year. So they decided to bring in early intervention through introducing free writing in P. 2. They gave students more practices in class and they included free writing in subsequent tests. They traced the performance of three students from the low, average and high ability group. This provided useful feedback to their teaching and gave them tremendous confidence to attempt more in the second term. The teachers of Our Lady of China Catholic Primary School and Tai Po Methodist Primary School tried to use authentic learning materials to arouse students’ interest in learning English. Students learnt about the assessment criteria before the activity and took an active part in the assessment.

Teacher development is an on-going process, the wisdom teachers gained from last year’s research is used to improve their current practice. The work relationship between teachers and CDOs is a dynamic and interactive one. The follow up work committed by the teachers of Tai Po Old Market Public School (PM) was originated from last year’s collaborative action research on phonics teaching. CDO brought to the attention of the teachers at Po Kok Branch School their students’ learning problems. The teachers reacted positively and were willing to try various means to address the problem. They took the initiative to think about ways to improve the marking scheme so that the students’ performance could be reflected vividly. CDO was just like a conductor, she orchestrated teachers with similar experiences to work together. This kind of informal sharing enabled two teachers from Our Lady of China Catholic Primary School and Tai Po Methodist Primary School to gather together and to reflect on their own teaching. The constructive comments given by them may help illustrate the importance of such kind of professional sharing.

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