Teaching Observation

My supervisor, Ann Pierce, landed in Taiwan Tuesday night (4/18)! She observed two of us teachers on Wednesday and the other two on Thursday. I got observed Thursday morning during my sixth and second grade classes! I was a bit nervous, mostly just curious about how my students would perform with someone different in the room watching them. It turned out to go very very well. My lessons, management of the class, instructional strategies, and time management was all carried out perfectly; which is normally next to impossible. I was pleased with the feedback and conversation during my meeting with Ann that followed my lessons. It was fun sharing and discussing my experiences here and how to adapt to coming back home. It is crazy that week seven has come to a close and we only have one more left. Here are some pictures and videos below of short parts of my observed lessons!

 Playing a 'fix the sentence structure' game with my sixth graders during my observation.

Introducing U and V with new vocabulary terms to my second graders.

 Phonics chants with my second graders, such a fun way for them to remember the content!

Post observation lunch with Ann, Ky, Joyce, and Peter (not pictured).

Our visit to the love sing to celebrate and conclude our observations! We may be dysfunctional, and Ky might hate that we make him take girly pictures and bully him occasionally, but we sure do love each other unconditionally!

Kenting National Park weekend

On Saturday morning (4/15) we got on our bus that took us to Kenting National Park. It was about a two and a half hour drive. We arrived around 10 am, and took our bags to the airbnb and then headed to the beach because we had to wait until 3 pm to check in.

Full disclosure, this trip had potential to be one of the best of our time in Taiwan, but personally it was just not my weekend. I was not feeling the greatest on Friday and thought I just needed some sleep. Waking up on Saturday just thought if I took care of myself I would get better, that was not the case. Then Ashley started feeling ill and it was evident that we had eaten something bad or drank some dirty water. We ended up sleeping more of the time and spending a lot of time in the airbnb. The time that we were able to get out of the room, we made the most out of, exploring. On top of this, some events unfolded with my at home life that was one of the most difficult things that I have ever encountered and had to deal with, all while being alone and on the other side of the world.

Although this weekend I was ill and had heartbreaking aspects of my life to overcome... it made me a stronger person, gave me insight, and made me even closer to the friends that I am here with; which I did not think was even possible. This weekend leaves a few bitter-sweet memories in my mind when I reminiscence on our time here, but I still do not think I would have traded it for anything.

  

The view from our airbnb place in Kenting

and us hanging out on the beach Saturday afternoon - lovin' life!

We are ninety percent sure we illegally rented scooters because we have no international licenses, but it's fine, the owners did not seems to care! This was probably one thing that we were the most proud of and had the most fun doing! Ten out of ten, would recommend. 

On the scooters, we were able to tour around the National Park and visit various places with neat views! It was very convenient to have the scooters to get there quickly and be able to see more places.

We were able to visit the very, very tip of Taiwan while staying in Kenting. It is cool to say that we had been around the entire island.

 I love these people; shout out to them for being awesome and becoming a huge part of my life!

Tainan visit to Anping District

Anping District is one of the top 10 small tourist locations in Tainan, Taiwan. We spent the afternoon (4/9) there visiting the salt museum, the tree house, day markets, and eating a lot of food. Here is a few pictures from our day!

Boat tours through a river that has almost been completely covered by tree foliage. 

Visiting the Anping Tree House

Doing our trademarked picture in the Anping Tree House

 The Salt museum. Each person identifies to a specific color of sand based on their date of birth. It then signifies a prominent characteristic of that person.

Homemade pottery stand we ran across in the day markets.


Famous ice cream in Tainan, we love finding new ice cream places.

Teaching Update!

Teaching here is awesome and I love it! As I am finishing up week seven, and only have two more weeks to go, I continue to find more and more things that I enjoy about it.
Although the language barrier creates for a few difficult moments here and there, I have found ways to overcome them and it has only made me stronger and more experienced.
I have found myself connecting more with each grade and each class with the more time I spend teaching them; granted I am not near as close to them as I would be in a traditional setting, but I only see them all once a week. Most of the students have become even more familiar and comfortable with me teaching their classes.
I have been teaching entire full days recently, and it has been going well. I was a bit nervous when I first started, but it turned out to be very rewarding. I have really felt myself take on the task of being able to plan content within the last week. I have become familiar with the pace and expectations of content coverage within each grade, I find myself being able to plan ahead and brainstorm more effectively this way.
I find the most struggle when teaching first grade because they do not understand much outside of their routine vocabulary; so when I stray from what they know, they definitely do not understand me as well.. but it doesn't stop me from trying mew things with them, I just have to use an intense amount of modeling!
I enjoy my time in second grade a little bit more, they have a similar energy level of the first graders but can understand a little bit more outside their routine vocabulary. Over the past weeks I have been able to try various games with the second grade that I did not think was possible, and it has turned out to be very rewarding. We participate in a lot of singing and dancing which I enjoy probably as much as they do, its also a great way for them to remember the content.
When I teach the sixth graders, I can feel myself pushing them to their farthest extent as I try to speak more fluidly and normal. I know which students are struggling and which ones excel in both speaking and understanding when listening, this skill allows me to alter the way I deliver content depending on what class/student I am working with. My sixth graders definitely have more attitude than the first and second graders, and that is an aspect I am not a fan of if I were at home, but since I really do not understand their side comments and before/after class debates, it makes it a whole lot easier to deal with; after I learned to ignore it of course!
Students get very competitive, in all the grades, so whenever we play any kind of game, the participation level is through the roof!! It is awesome, I totally love it and will be something that I miss. this surprises me with the sixth graders, as I am used to the "it is uncool to be excited in school". That attitude still exists, but seems to disappear when a game is involved. Teacher Sunny has introduced me to many new games to play with each of the grades, I have had the opportunity to practice them and revise them, and I'm excited to bring some of them home to my own future classroom!
I had an interesting experience on Monday (4/10), Teach Sunny was gone from school! I was already teaching the full day so nothing was really impacted, but she was not going to be in the school, so the school counselor came to observe the classes that day. I had mostly first and second grade classes this day, however they acted completely different! I'm not sure if they thought that they were being evaluated by the counselor or what, but they were completely shy and hard to involve. I wondered if it would be similar when my supervisor visits to evaluate me, but at least I have at practice with it happening and it will not catch me off guard if they do respond this way!
This week I also got to teach a twenty-minute mini lesson about earth day to a group of teachers. I was super nervous about it at first, but was really to give it a go. I soon became more comfortable once I realized they were more nervous about being there than I was! It is so interesting to me that so many people here know more English than they lead on, and we do not know it because they are so nervous to use it when communicating to native speakers, thinking they are no good. Many people here, including the teachers I was teaching, spoke and understood very good English!

Looking forward:
Next week (week 7) is observation week! Now in my first placement I was used to getting observed weekly and having my supervisor watch me grow and make progress. I am a little bit nervous that we are only getting observed once throughout the whole placement here just because I think it will be harder for our supervisor to see our real progression. However, with weekly journal and communicating, they will still have an idea of what has been going on. It is quite funny though, how much of an emphasis is put on observation week from our teachers and coordinators here. I am not sure if evaluations are made a bigger deal of here in Taiwan for their student teachers or if they are nervous to make a good impression of their schools/community for the ISU staff. Either way, there is a lot of hype towards observation week, and making sure we are prepared. We herd that sometimes, Taiwanese student teachers will practice their lesson that is getting observed with the same class before hand. We are so used to getting observed on the very firs time, that the fact that we even get to teach the same lesson earlier in the week to a different class, makes us feel spoiled.
During my last week, week 8, my first and second graders have midterm exams (which are one-on-one oral assessments of reading stories/songs from the past three units). Since we will be implementing exams all week in those classes, I have the freedom to come up with creative lessons outside of the scheduled content for the sixth grade classes!
I have an upcoming project that I am planning for my sixth grade classes for that last week, and it has become my baby! Sneak peak preview... I have been in contact with my secret agent helpers back home that are helping me! my object for the week is helping them understand what a sixth grader's, or any other student's average day might look like in the US. I am so excited because I know just how excited my students will get about what we are planning! :) That is all about that for now, I will be sure to keep you posted on how it all turns out!

Here are some photos from my second and third week of teaching here. I will get some more current ones hopefully soon, especially since my teaching style has changed a lot since the first few weeks!

Sixth Grade: Introducing unit 2 vocabulary terms, clothing, by playing a matching game!

First Grade: Practicing identifying vocabulary with some table team competitions!

 Second Grade: Working on letter identification/writing and phonics connections!

4 day vacation - Day 3 Hualien/Taroko & Day 4 in Ruisui

We left Taipei Sunday evening at about 4 pm and took a train to Hualien. As we finally made our way to the train station, which is in the same big building as the under ground subway and bus station, we found ourselves sitting on the floor and waiting upwards to 45 minutes, but none of us were upset about it, it was nice to rest. As we waited, of course everyone is staring at us, not only because we're Americans, but because we Americans sitting on the ground in the train station! haha Our train finally arrived and get this, we got assigned a Hello Kitty train. Now, Hello Kitty is more of a Japanese craze, but Taiwan affiliates strongly with the culture, so you see Hello Kitty around a lot here; but never would have guessed on a train. The entire outside was painted, the seats inside were bright pink with hello kitties all over them, the walls inside were decked out, I mean everything!! It was fun, every time we went through a station people outside were snapping tons of pictures of our train, or maybe they were taking pictures of us, we'll never know.

After about two and a half or three hours we had arrived in Hualien, from the train station we took a taxi to our next Hostel because it was quite a hefty walking distance, and we really didn't have the energy to get lost and make it an even longer walk. Our hostel here was called Monkey Surfing and it was super cute; you walked into front gated patio area which lead inside to the dinning and kitchen area and had a staircase that lead to all of the rooms. We found our room, put our stuff down and went to go find dinner. Similar to home, we just walked down the street until something looked good. We hit a jackpot and found super amazing dumplings and soup. On our walk home from dinner, we found a book store that had second hand books for sale, of course we went in, were teachers! We spent at least an hour here, and easily could have spent more. Most of the books were in Chinese, but a good number of them were in English, we even found a pile of old children's books. Let's just say its  a good thing we all have to be mindful of how much stuff we are bringing home. Once we made it back home we set off to bed to get some sleep for the next day.

Monday morning, we woke up and walked to the bus station where we were going to take us bus to Taroko National Park. We planned to be gone all day, so we packed waters, lunches, snacks, sunscreen, the whole nine yards and headed out the door. The bus was about an hour to hour and a half until to got to the furthest point of Taroko. Our plan was to hike a few trails, which seems like a do-able plan, but it was schedules to take us all day; and it did. We hiked three or four different trails, and I think we were done by about 5 pm. The views were again, incredible. Nothing I have ever seen compares to them. And as I have said many times before, I almost don't want to post pictures of this day because they really do not represent anything close to what it was like to be there in real life. I was telling the others after we finished hiking, that this was going to be the first day that I was not excited to see what kind of pictures we got because they would not compare to what we had just finished seeing. By the time we got done, we were so physically exhausted once we stopped moving around, we pretty much went home, got dinner, and went straight to bed... again!

Ashley and I got a little closer on this day as we would hold hands through all of the dark caves we had to walk through in which you could not see a single thing! Eeeeek!



















Tuesday, our last day before we returned home. This day was an interesting day, we had plans to go white water rafting, and no one really knew what to expect from the day. We had pre-determined plans that one of our coordinators set-up for us, which was super awesome because booking transportation and tickets is next to impossible without speaking some Chinese. So, that being said, we were super thankful to have it all sorted out for us, but for that same reason we were a little uncertain on what was supposed to happen and where we were supposed to be at certain times. We originally thought we were taking a train to Ruisui in the morning and getting picked up by the rafting company to be taken to the river. We found out that was not the case Monday night, and started scrambling to figure out what the actual plan was but it was a little difficult because the rafting place was closed so we could not ask them. Joyce, one of our coordinators, came in to save the day again and called them to figure it out. In the morning, the rafting company's transportation crew picked us up right outside the hostel which was awesome because we did not have to worry about getting anywhere in the morning. We checkout out from the hostel and brought all of our stuff with us when we got picked up. The van brought us to the bus station where we got on a bus and rote that for about two hours to Ruisui where the rafting company was located. Here is where the adventure started. We were the only Americans there, which is not a huge shock, but no one here that worked at the rafting company spoke any English, at all. So when we showed up we had no idea what to do or where to go beyond paying for the rafting at the front desk because we knew how much it was from the planning. After we paid, we were literally just standing around probably looking like lost puppies while everyone around us ran around. We started aimlessly walking around trying to follow what other people were doing when one of the people who worked there came up to us and started speaking in Chinese like it looked like we could understand him just fine! HA when he finally figured out we had no clue what he was saying, he just started leading us around and modeling what we had to do. So first we went to get rafting shoes, leading us to a room in the back of the shop which is always scary at first. Once we found our shoes we then got taken to put our backpacks in a giant zip duffel bag which he proceeded to to then zip up and then zip tie the zippers together...there went access to all of our belongings, phones and all! It was all good, we just had to get through it, this was a good experience for us all to feel what some of our students might feel like when thrown into a completely different environment and language. Anyway, the workers started collecting everyone for a safety briefing, which was alllllll in Chinese and no modeling or examples at all. Keep in mind that I have never been white water rafting, so at this point I really thought I was going to die when we got out there because I was going to have no idea what to do. The guy talked for a good solid 15 minutes, all that we had no idea what he said and then they were distributing life vests and helmets (I was thankful we got them, at one point in time, I was unsure that we were going to). Then we took a walk down to the river where our rafts awaited us, we were grouped with five other Taiwanese guys that looked to be about our age but couldn't know for sure. We got on the raft, which you straddled the outer edge, I was unaware that this was not normal until the others expressed so. Once we got into the water we quickly found out that the people we had been paired with had no idea to paddle. The water we got put in at was very slow moving so we could get an idea of our barrings and how to maneuver the boat. I almost wish we just went right into the rapids because we seriously had to teach the other five how to hold the paddle, which way to move it in the water in order to move forward, how to turn by only having one side paddle... fewph! It was a long start to the day. THEN, out of nowhere as another boat was passing by our side, the five guys just yelled "ATTACK!!!" at the top of their lungs and started throwing loads of water at the other boat with their paddles, we were cracking up in complete. We were glad they knew how to use their paddles for something! lol Okay so longer story short... other things that happened... Zoey lost a paddle and a shoe which was fun, Ky's shoes were about six sizes too small because big feet really do not exist here, we had no tour/boat guide and I guess that is not normal, the guides were in their own motor powered boat, they would drive as fast as they could at our rafts and ramp their boats into our in order to redirect us if got off track.. yeah its was probably the most dangerous part of the experience! The first time white water rafting was an interesting one, and the 'rapids' were pretty low-key, but I guess it was better than being too intense. I will probably have to try it again in the US sometime! About three hours later, we finally make it to our destination, got out of our raft (found a random sandal on the shoreline that we made Zoey wear so she could climb up the rocks - yanno, since she lost one of her rafting shoes) then we got to change and eat lunch, which was good for everyone's insanity! Oh, and we got our belongings back so that was a nice surprise haha

It was time to head out of there and get to our train home! We were under the impression that we would take the bus and get dropped off at the bus station, but again, no one we were with could speak English... so when an older guy approached us motioning of us to get into his van we all had different thoughts racing through our minds. Eventually, three guys that were also going to the train station and could also speak a tiny amount of English reassured us that this was where we were supposed to be. It was in a similar looking van as the one we took this morning so it seemed legit. About 10 minutes into the drive, all three of us girls were fast asleep, the day must have been too much to handle. Good ole' Ky, who has acted as dad for us many other times on this trip, stayed awake to make sure that were going to the right place and what not (and to take funny pictures of us sleeping). We made it to the train station, and had about an hour to spare but we had no energy to walk around and explore especially with all of our luggage with us, we we found some benches and waited... well we fell asleep and Ky waited again, to make sure that we did not miss our train! We would still be sleeping there if it wasn't for him. We made it onto the train, and had a bout a four hour ride home. I never thought I would be so glad to be back at my apartment in Kaohsiung, but man it felt good to be back. Now we just had to scrape up the energy to get through three days of school ahead of us.
Our last day of vacation might have been a chaotic one, but I still don't think I would have traded the experience for anything else, we had fun and make some unforgettable memories together! Plus, now we have been the first Taiwan student teaching group that has traveled the entire island! woot woot

We love Taiwan!!
We are officially over half way done here, we are all having some mixed emotions about that fact! Definitely excited and ready to go home to see family, but will probably miss Taiwan more than we are ready for 💗

4 day vacation - Day 1 and 2 in Taipei

April 1st through the 4th is a national holiday for Taiwan known for tomb sweeping, they take the time to visit, and care for family and friends that has passed away. During this time, schools are out of session on Monday and Tuesday.

Through our stay we have been planning ahead for this weekend, making plans for traveling around the rest of the island. Since it is a holiday, people travel and lot and tourist locations are filled quickly. We have been looking forward to this long weekend with a little bit of time off! However, we did not get much "time off". I will leave out the majority of details to save you from reading a book that you did not anticipate on picking up hen opening this. haha

On Friday night, at about 11 pm, we left Kaohsiung on a bus to travel to Taipei overnight. We arrived in around 4:30 in the morning. Thank goodness the hostel we planned to stay at on Saturday night let us check in early and drop our bags off, we were hoping they had beds for available for us so we could go back to bed. It was raining and cold, we had no idea what we were going to do if they did not. Lucky for us, they did; so we got settled into our beds at the hostel and went back to sleep.

On Saturday morning we woke up and had plans with a fellow Iowa State student, Kevin, and his cousin, Joy, to show us around Taipei. They were so generous to bring us around the city and take us to the top places to see. Without them we only would have made it to half of the places while spending most of our time trying to navigate around. With them we got to climb up War Ship Mountain to a secret spot of Kevin's that over looks the city. I must add that Taipei is always cloudy and raining, completely opposite of Kaohsiung, and the week leading up to our trip rain was in the forecast and it was supposed to be very cold. We lucked out again, and it was the most beautiful day we could have asked for; clear, sunny, and breezy.

After climbing back down from the mountain we made our way into the city to get lunch. Lunch was amazing, we love being in the company of people who speak Chinese here because we usually get to eat better food because we do not have to rely on the pictures to order. We went to one of the famous restaurants in Taipei that had quite a wait to get in, but it was worth it! Something we noticed when walking around the city by this point in time, was that we say many more foreigners in one day that we have seen the entire time in Kaohsiung. The bigger city and more tourist attractions, brought more people traveling through. Over the course of our entire visit, we met people from Colorado, Utah, Missouri, and South Dakota; it was very small world feeling when we got to talking with these people.

We made our way to a national memorial museum for Taiwan's first president. the structure is currently being renovated, but we could still enter and learn more about the history of Taiwan. Every hour, on the hour, the guards switch shifts for guarding the statue being doing a marching routine. The statue resembled a lot with the Lincoln memorial we are used to seeing. Not only did we learn so much here, the outside memorial and view was incredible.

Next on the list was Taipei 101. The 10th tallest building in the world. The one with the fastest moving elevator. The only one in which you can see the "Damper", which is a ball in the center of the building to help keep its center of gravity. It keeps the building standing during in-climate weather, like typhoons. Ky and I decided to go up, and are glad we did! The view was incredible and it was such a great day to do it because we were able to see so far. We could identify places that we had visited throughout the day and be amazed by the view.

It was time to wind down from our adventures, so we decide to head to the downtown area to get some dinner and drinks. Kevin and Joy took us to an area referred to as A7. It was a small area that had a lot of food vendors and music. It was similar to a mix between a summer fest and farmers market. After we got dinner we walked around the streets a little bit to which to our surprise was intentional, because there were a ton of street performers. It was so cool to see some of the talents that people here have. After this, Joy took us to the hotel that she used to bartender at. Along the way we had no idea what we were about to see because she played it down to being no big deal, but this was one of the most famous hotels in Taiwan, and it showed; it was absolutely beautiful. I had never been in such a fancy looking hotel. If I remember right, I think she said it costs about 4 to 5,000 USD per night to stay here. We got to go up to the eleventh floor I think, to where the outdoor pool was on outside and overlooked the city it was incredible view to see the city light up at night; I can only imagine what staying here would be like.

After such an eventful day, we made our way back to our hostel and crashed!
The next day we spent mostly on our own, exploring down town and doing a little shopping. It was nice to have the tour the day before because it made getting around a lot easier for us today. We left Taipei around 4 in the afternoon and boarded a train that was taking us to Hualien City, next stop on the  vacation adventures!