http://mag.udn.com/mag/edu/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=11&f_SUB_ID=5212&f_ART_ID=527631
英文快閃教學 第一堂 自己做課本
【聯合報╱記者沈育如／台北報導】2014/08/03
熙來攘往的台北火車站大廳，昨天下午出現一群很特別的年輕人，他們席地而坐，沒有黑板、沒有課本，更沒有回家作業，就只是專心聽老師講解，並開始動手做自己的英語教科書，活潑逗趣的教學內容，也吸引不少路過旅客，主動加入當起旁聽生。
來自台灣的英語老師楊筱薇，昨天選在台北火車站，展開她的第一堂「英文快閃教室」。
教英語這麼多年，楊筱薇卻發現，很多人學英文就只是「Study」，死背教科書的單字、文法，卻不懂得應用，但她認為學英語應該是「Learn」，從了解英文、活用英文，甚至英語教科書都是自己做。
昨天「英文快閃教室」第一堂課，楊筱薇讓這些自己上網報名的學生，把一本自己用的英語教科書「支解」，留下自己感興趣的內容後，重新做出一本完全符合自己興趣與程度的課本。
昨有20多位學生報名，以大學生居多，其中年紀最小的，是才念小五的李沂蓁。李媽媽說，小時候念英文都是填鴨式教育，考試一結束，英文都忘光光，她讓李沂蓁小時候念雙語幼稚園，升小學後也有補習，但還是希望她能在活潑環境中學習，「能聽、敢說，日後也能讀寫，英語才學得扎實。」
My comments: I do believe that English learning should start with listening and speaking. In my class, these two skills were always my focus.
和朋友、女兒一起上課的詹琴，昨天做了一本百貨公司目錄的英語教科書，詹琴說，服裝、鞋子、飾品很生活化，但對應的英語單字卻不熟悉，她希望從生活用品來學英文。
My comments: Our school English textbooks do not contain many useful real-life expressions. A former student who I taught in his high school freshman year said during a visit to me when he came back from Canada that most of the English he learned from the textbooks in Taiwan is not useful in his daily life in Canada.
楊筱薇曾在英國念書，後來到美國教新移民英語，2010年還拿到紐約時報的「年度非英文母語教師獎」，這個獎項是頒給協助紐約新移民的老師；她也從2012年開始「英語外賣」，到英、法、德、俄、大陸旅行，教當地人英語來換取餐宿。
My comments: The news story about Ms. Yang receiving this award:
http://www.cna.com.tw/proj_tl_eng/Detail.aspx?Category=4&TNo=7&ID=201003300007
英文快閃教室在接下來3周的周六下午5點，將持續在台北街頭舉行，楊筱薇將透過團體活動及街景引導，讓民眾自然開口說英文。有興趣者，可上大田出版的臉書粉絲頁(www.facebook.com/titan3publishing)報名。
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Taiwan-born teacher wins NY Times award
Los Angeles, March 4 (CNA) A Taiwan-born English teacher with the non-profit youth education organization The Door has been named as one of the honorees of the New York Times-sponsored annual ESOL Teacher of the Year Award.
Yang Hsiao-wei, who has been teaching English at The Door for non-English-speaking new immigrants to the United States for six years, is the first NY Times award winner of Chinese descent.
Now in its fourth year, the annual award was created to recognize and honor English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers who provide instruction to adult students in the greater New York City area. The NY Times is scheduled to formally announce the winner of the 2010 ESOL Teacher of the Year Award and other honorees later this month.
Yang said she was delighted to learn of her selection as one of the recipients of the coveted award.
"I'm happy that my efforts have received recognition, " Yang said in an interview with the Central News Agency.
Recalling her years at the private Jinou Vocational High School of Commerce in Taipei, Yang said she developed great interest in English and spent almost all her nights at a cram school studying.
Yang said she developed many "magic shortcuts" to memorize vocabulary quickly, such as using diagrams to show relations between words or phrases. Such schematic drawings later become her talisman in her English teaching career.
Further study in England helped her expand her horizons of education, Yang said.
While in England, she became familiar with Waldorf Education, a pedagogy based upon the educational philosophy of the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy.
Yang said the concept and approach of Waldorf Education complies with her learning attitude and teaching style, with emphasis given to the role of immagination. She refined and magnified the Waldorf Education ideals after becoming a faculty member of The Door, where she faces adult students from diverse language and family backgrounds, of different ages and with different reasons for emigrating to the United States.
As many new immigrants take up their first jobs in restaurants, Yang said she uses food ingredients, tableware and kitchenware as her starting teaching materials. By so doing, Yang said her students can learn the vocabulary they most need, and as those words are used in their daily work, they canunderstand and memorize them more easily.
My comments: In a word, when it comes to learning, motivation counts most.
Yang said she also asks students to provide unique recipes from their homelands and then cooks the dishes in the classroom. In the process, she introduces ingredients and cooking methods in English to bring life to the vocabulary.
Unlike students in compulsory or orthodox education, Yang said adult immigrant students bring with them professional skills and knowledge to the United States and have their own visions and perspectives of their futures. Therefore, she said, she needs to emphasize vocabulary and knowledge in certain special fields when arranging her teaching texts and materials.
My comments: ESP.
Words and knowledge needed by tour guides, as well as computer terminology, are also often the basis of her teaching materials.
The rewards, she said, can be exemplified by her delight when seeing one of her students, who worked in a Japanese sushi eatery, issuing instructions in English. "I took great pleasure and comfort when I saw my student direct her apprentices in English, " Yang recalled.
My comments: It's also a joy to me when I know my students can communicate in English.
(By Leaf Jiang and Sofia Wu)ENDITEM/J
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