Seventy-five Americans are to serve as assistants in junior-high and elementary schools for the new semester in August, under the English Teaching Flagship (ETF) Scholarship Program, the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
The ETF scholarship program was jointly launched by the ministry and the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange (Fulbright Taiwan), with the aim of acquainting students with using English in daily conversations by creating immersive English learning environments at school via after-class clubs, sports events, accompanied reading and learning camps.
Ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) yesterday cited the English service learning camp at Tainan’s Jiaba Elementary School as an example, where ETF assistants facilitated a discussion of Taiwan’s endangered animals, such as Formosan black bears and green sea turtles, to raise students’ awareness of eco-conservation and respect for life.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Education
Another example is from the English learning spring camp at Hsinchu County’s Beipu Elementary School, where the assistants supported students in speaking English while making clay flowers, designing colorful outfits and tasting seasonal fruits in line with the topic of spring, she said.
The program also focuses on rural education and invited students of Nantou County to organize an English learning camp, which revolved around topics about the sun, moon and lake — a reference to Nantou’s famous tourist site Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) — and incorporated the three elements into games played in English, Tsai said.
Assistants also guided students in speaking English while making traditional US camping desserts such as s’mores.
The ETF scholarship program has yielded fruitful outcomes overall, with highly positive feedback from the schools, students and parents, Tsai said.
Through these learning processes at school, students are expected to naturally communicate in English more frequently and extend their use of English to everyday life off-campus, she said.
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