Saturday, March 13, 2021

We put students in 18 breakout rooms to chat with their Japanese counterparts for 20 minutes and then repeated it three times so that they got to speak with as many students of Tokyo Metropolitan Mushashi High School.  

It was my pleasure to work with two very dedicated teachers, Toshi and Shusaku, on this Zoom exchange project. Through loads of back and forth communication on Zoom and Line, we finally made it happen, with a total of 80 students from both schools participating. Without a doubt, it all paid off because students from both schools enjoyed it a lot.

Breakout Rooms

Never before have I tried the breakout room feature. Students would be using their own devices at home to log in to Zoom. The thought of possible dead silence worried me so much because I couldn't spice things up and increase interaction as I would usually do in the class. However, as I hopped between different rooms to observe during the sessions, I soon realized all the effort and hard work paid off.

The interaction between the students was amazing. They were exchanging hobbies and school life, asking interesting follow-up questions, and showing off their talents, too. For example, they showed each other the school uniform, and some were playing the piano and singing. Compared with one laptop session, where students working in groups doing their presentations, they had so much more time to get to know each other.

We encouraged the students to think of the first round as practice. As they moved to the second and third round of breakout room sessions, they were just getting better and better and felt less shy about expressing themselves in English.

Main Sessions    

It'd take Shusaku about ten minutes to regroup the students and put them in different breakout rooms. Of course, we didn't want them to just hang in there and stare at each other. Thanks to Toshi, he proposed the idea of teacher presentation and student talent show during the main sessions.

With the 10-minute window, Toshi and I presented interesting topics, like bubble milk tea, anime, and some fun facts about Taiwan and Japan. On top of that, we got some students to give a speech about life under COVID and why we need to learn English. I was especially impressed when a Japanese girl introduced natto and ate it with soybean and rice. Maybe next time, I'll get one of my students to eat stinky tofu, too.

Future Plans

We three couldn't help talking up all the good things in this Zoom exchange. My students were asking about the Edmodo because they'd like to keep in touch with their Japanese friends. It took me a couple of hours to edit the video, but I was smiling and laughing again and again, too.

With the success of this very first Zoom exchange project, I had much more confidence to invite other wonderful English teachers outside of Taiwan for this kind of international video conferencing session.