Curriculum Integration

School-based International Education Curriculum Development Plan

The goals of the English study and instruction are to strengthen students’ speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills so that they can use English productively, and become global citizens who have strong critical thinking skills, cross-cultural understanding, and a lifelong commitment to learning. The Additional English Programs and Courses as follows (1.,2. and 3.): (Editor: Tr. Moira Knott)

1. Junior High School: English Reading & English Communication Classes; Food & Culture Elective

2. Senior High School: S1 English Debate Elective Course, S2: International Affairs Elective Course

3. Independent Study (Self-Directed Study):

   • Junior High School: In order to improve listening and reading skills, students work with supplementary English magazines and articles at their own pace. Weekly listening tests held across grade levels help students build English reading and listening competency.

   • Senior High School: In addition to core course materials, extensive reading, grammar and vocabulary packages and magazines strengthen student proficiency in all language areas.

English Conversation Class (Editor: Tr. Jeff Travis)

J1 Basic Class:

This is taught through various fun activities such as music worksheets, group assignments, cultural events such as Christmas and Halloween and visual activities.

Basic Class is also taught with a highly effective textbook that enables students to further enhance their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Our main focus is to prepare our students to ready for the English world weather that be going abroad, enrolling in an English school or speaking to someone from an English speaking country.

J1 Advanced Class:

Advanced conversation class is to provide students the opportunity to practice and acquire greater proficiency in English, and to develop self-confidence in the ability to communicate and present ideas clearly and effectively. Teachers in the Junior 1 program value cooperative learning in the classroom as an excellent way for students to improve and learn together from each other’s strengths and experiences. We strive to motivate students to be self-directed and engaged learners who can develop their language and critical thinking skills in a vibrant and creative classroom environment.

J2 Basic Class:

The program mainly help students to explore English language culture and improve at English conversation through a wide variety of activities, games, and small group projects. We use a text book that provides daily conversational activities on many different topics. The goal of the class is to spark students’ interest in learning about foreign cultures and give them plenty of practices to use English in a variety of contexts and topics. To do this, students work with partners, small groups, and the whole class to engage with English in a fun and challenging class environment.

J2 Advanced Class: (Editor: Tr. Diane Ward)

Objectives – Language Competence (1) Students at the end of the Junior 2 course will be able to:

1. Listening

   • Understand instructions and public announcements

   • Catch the main points of the teacher’s lectures and understand questions/requirements asked by the teacher if the subject is based on texts in the course book (B2.2)

   • Understand straightforward factual information about routine topics, identifying general and specific details, provided that speaker’s language is clearly and not- too- complicatedly expressed.

   • Understand text-related dialogues and narratives.

   • Understand the essential information in short recorded passages dealing with emotions and feelings which are spoken clearly and slowly (A2.5)

2. Speaking

   • Can follow and give a simple talk on familiar topics, provided that they are given enough preparation time.

   • Can describe themselves, feelings and simple situations which are familiar to them. (A2.22)

   • Can express opinions on abstract or cultural matters (customs/ travel/ traditions) in a limited way.

   • Engage in simple oral communication. (B1.14)

   • Give simple accounts of every-day events.(A2.22-27)

   • Use classroom English (memorized phrases and single expressions) and apply it to real life situations.

3. Reading

   • Understand routine information and articles, and some general meanings of non-routine information within a familiar area.

   • Learn commonly-used phrases and idioms.

   • Understand the plot of a short story/play/a comic skit and grasp its main idea (B1.13)

   • Read independently essays or materials at the equivalent level of those in the course book with the help of the dictionary or other aids.

4. Writing

   • Learn to write simple formal essays, correctly using punctuation marks and lower/upper – cased letters.

   • Produce creative and coherent writing pieces (essays or short stories or plays), using phrases and idioms learned in class.

   • Make correct sentences with appropriate words or sentence patterns.

   • Translate simple Chinese sentences into English.

   • Write simple notes, letters, e-mails; offer reflections and express personal views and feelings (A2.32, 37, B1.34, 36)

J3 Basic Class: (Editor: Tr. Jeff Travis & Tr. Chris Harmon)

In J3 basic conversation class, the students’ knowledge of English is put to use exploring the cultures of America and England. We look at idioms, vocabulary, English songs, and American holiday. We also discuss current affairs going on in the world. This year, the American presidential election was the biggest story in the current news. In J3 basic level, we learned about the candidates, researched the important international issues, and wrote an essay about the reasons for Trump’s surprise victory.

We also have dived into the world of high fashion through reading a biography of Coco Chanel. Later students will, with a partner do a research project and presentation on a subject of their choice. Whether its music, holidays, current news, or the glitz and glamour of the fashion world, these J3s are busy using their foreign language to learn and interact with English culture.

J3 Advanced Class: (Tr. Jasmine Chang)

Goal(s)/ Objective(s):

Student investing fully in this course will be able to:

1. Understand oral communication in a variety of contexts.

2. Develop research and critical thinking skills.

3. Engage in casual and extended conversations with increasing fluency and control of grammatical patterns.

4. Able to produce a brief compositions or reports with relevant ideas with clearly organized ideas and control of complex grammatical patter.

Activities done in class:

• Personality Type and Quality

  1. Built vocabulary about personality and quality of friends, parents, partners, and roommates.

  2. Generated ideas and opinions about personal annoyance.

  3. Produced script and elaborated details, using vocabulary from the text to support the opinion.

  4. Articulated personal opinion through various form of presentation (drama, song & dance, rap composition, duet...etc.).

  5. Provided additional reading practice based on the theme of the unit.

• Career Planning and Development

  1. Discussed the advantages and disadvantages of various jobs and careers.

  2. Talked about opinions of jobs, using gerund phrases as subject and objects.

  3. Identified requirements and responsibilities for their ideal job, including required training and certification.

  4. Planned short and long term goal in order to succeed in the desired industry

  5. Listened critically and restate a partner’s response using paraphrasing expression.

Feature of the Class

• Conduct activities that encourage confidence, perception, vocabulary building, pronunciation practice and grammar

• Create an environment suitable to the maturity, interest, and ability of students.

• Promote free, more personalized writing practice to enforce the vocabulary and grammar in the unit.

• Make English unforgettable, enabling students to speak, write, present, English accurately, confidently and fluently.

S1 Basic Class: (Editor: Tr. Jasmine Chang)

Goal(s)/ Objective(s)

Student investing fully in this course will be able to:

1. Understand oral communication in a variety of contexts.

2. Speak on a variety of topics in social and culture contexts.

3. Develop research and critical thinking skills.

4. Able to produce a brief compositions or reports with relevant ideas with clearly organized ideas and control of basic grammatical patter.

Activities Done in Class

• New Perspectives

  1. Described people’s personality with positive and negative adjectives and implicated conversation strategies through model conversations.

  2. Produced short essays about personal perspective (both optimistic and pessimistic) on life.

  3. Listened and summarized some speakers’ life-changing experiences. Shared what they have learned from them.

  4. Shared personal life-changing experience.

• A Creative Peron

  1. Generated ideas and opinions about qualities and attributes of a creative person.

  2. Read a short biography of Ludwig van Beethoven, discussed what effects Beethoven’s personality had on his life.

  3. Researched a creative person you know or admired.

  4. Produced scripts and elaborate details, using vocabulary from the text to support the opinion.

  5. Presented a creative person’s biography and gave one or two specific examples illustrating each personality traits.

Feature of the Class

• Conduct activities that encourage confidence, perception, vocabulary building, pronunciation practice and grammar.

• Create an environment suitable to the maturity, interest, and ability of students.

• Promote free, more personalized writing practice to enforce the vocabulary and grammar in the unit.

• Ensure that student can learn in a fun and relaxing way!

S1 Advanced Class: (Editor: Tr. Diane Ward & Tr. Moira Knott)

At this level, we can expect to cultivate students’ overall abilities and skills to help them:

1. Read short texts, stories, etc. out loud correctly and fluently

2. Have a good command of the words and sentence patterns that are learned, and apply them in the communication in the classroom and daily life.

3. Follow everyday conversations, simple story or broadcast, and briefly talk or write about the main points

4. Write convincing and persuasive arguments / points of view and present them orally to others in class using Power point and Word software programs.

Students will be asked to write a short skit with the theme based on the Ted Talk article/essay selected above for them. A group of 3 will be working together to complete this task and then they will present their skits orally and dramatically in class as part of their final evaluation for the first semester. On the second semester, students will be paired up as partners for their social/environmental/ethical/moral/ political/global/international issue presentations. Students are free to choose relevant topics/issues. They will search all points of view from different angles and then present them with their own unique analysis and take on their issues. During this semester, students will be given enough time to surf the net for information and to discuss all aspects of concerns and views. Students are also encouraged to utilize power point for their presentations.

Junior English Reading Class (Editor: Tr. Chi-Huan Hsieh &Yu-Chen Wu)

Since the implement of Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students, the ability of reading long paragraphs has been getting more and more important. In the vanguard of English teaching, our school has made some adjustments to catch up with the trend.

In the reading course, two periods every week, students are divided into two groups, and both intensive and extensive reading are encouraged. During the four semesters (Junior 1-2), students are guided to build their reading skills, like scanning and finding the topic sentence, through the use of popular reading textbooks from abroad according to students’ levels in each group.

For example, in group (A), junior 1, Reading Explorer is used. With the textbook, students can not only broaden their background knowledge but also expand their vocabulary size. On the other hand, for extensive reading, students are allowed to choose readers they are interested in. There are more than one hundred readers which are informative, intriguing, and story-based in each classroom.

Students are asked to read at least five readers each semester. After reading a reader, they have to pass a comprehension and vocabulary quiz. While they are reading, the teacher, as a facilitator, will assist the students with difficult sentences.

Furthermore, as reading and writing are inter-related, our reading course also features writing. A series of writing textbooks, Write Right, is adopted. Students are taught to write from sentences to paragraphs and from paragraphs to a complete article. By incorporating writing teaching into our reading course, it is hoped that students can use the words they learn from readers while writing.

Immersed in the environment for two years, students make huge progress in English. Thanks to the efforts of all English teachers in our school, students not only find it easy to study English in senior high school but also become an active language learner, making reading English their everyday habit.

Introduction of Grade 7 Elective Course (Editor: Tr. Diane Ward &Tr. Moira Knott)

It is to introduce western food culture to students and usher them into a world of exotic foods where they can freely explore these foods with delight and joy. The program objective is to let students experience cultural food differences to further understand food language using English.

Introduction of Grade 10 Elective Course (Editor: Tr. Lena Lung & Tr. Connie Chen)

The essence of debate lies not in the result of winning but in the process of getting nearer the truth. In this English debate course, students are guided to have awareness of controversial social issues, analyze the issues from different angles, and plan potential solutions to the problems in the status quo. To reach these course objectives, multifarious student-centered activities and games are designed, with teachers’ lectures as scaffolding, to equip students with theoretical knowledge and practical skills to make arguments, to refute, to scrutinize fallacies, to identify stock issues, to establish affirmative/negative cases, and ultimately to carry out policy debate competitions.

Introduction of Grade 11 Elective Course (Editor: Tr. Lisa Chang)

The course is designed to understand and explore in English certain important issues such as cultural diversity, human rights, gender equality and environmental protection.

The course is divided into four parts to deal with these issues respectively. Different types of materials like readings, films, videos, speeches, etc. are used to raise awareness and generate discussions on the issues.

The class is mostly conducted with group discussions and presentations. Students are encouraged to approach the issues from different perspectives and to express their opinions in English. After completion of the course, students are expected to develop insightful and critical thinking of the issues, as well as enhance their English language skills.