Patricia Koefoed
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Report on Taiwan project for improving English
reading comprehension
The plan:
The proposal for this grant was “to work with students to test various techniques to
improve the reading comprehension of both advanced and slower students.”
The students:
I worked with Maria Chen of Hsing Wu College in LinKou, Taipei County, to arrange for
classes during their summer school session. The classes assigned to me were as follows:
Morning class 9:00 – 12:00. Students about 19 years of age. This was a summer
make-up course for students having trouble with English. I taught them for 3
hours a day. Level of English: low. Number of students: approximately 30.
There was a Taiwanese teacher present to help.
Afternoon class 1:30-4:20. Students about 20 years of age. This was also a
summer make-up course for students having trouble with English. I taught them
for just under 3 hours a day. Level of English: low. Number of students:
approximately 16. There was a Taiwanese teacher present to help.
Evening class 7:00-9:00. Adult students of all ages. This was a group who
formed a class specifically for my study project. Level of English: varied, but
most were able to understand when I spoke and could answer questions. Number
of students: approximately 16. There was no Taiwanese student to help with this
class.
Preparation:
Mrs. Chen was unable to give me specific information about the level of English
proficiency of the students before I came. In order to have some benchmark, I based my
preparation on similar-aged students that I taught in Mainland China three years before. I
prepared a variety of readings including the following:
Children’s poem “The house that Jack built” to instill the rhythm of the language
and improve reading comprehension through oral proficiency.
Lyrics from the song “My favorite things” from The Sound of Music. This was
intended to improve comprehension through music, and also through association
with pictures to enhance vocabulary comprehension.
Two one-page transcripts from the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
movie. The piece was almost entirely dialog. I planned to make use of most
students’ familiarity with the movie in Chinese to help with comprehension. We
would also use the video to increase comprehension, and might even act it out if
the students were not too afraid.
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A page from the book Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, including
description and dialog more difficult than the movie transcripts. I planned to use
the audio from Books-on-Tape to help with comprehension.
Reading on Education from Barak Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope. I
planned to introduce this topic by eliciting student opinions of the educational
system in Taiwan, and comparing it to that of the United States.
“The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe to increase reading comprehension through
repetition of ideas, and to give practice with negative constructions in English.
(This was was not used, because I decided the archaic language was too difficult
for the classes.)
Various short newspaper articles. Comprehension would be enhanced by
discussion of the issues reported. We would also tackle specific subjective
vocabulary typical of Newspaper writing. We would review photo clues,
guessing, and sampling as ways to prepare oneself before reading an article.
I also prepared two assessment documents: (1) an autobiographical questionnaire which
the students were instructed to answer in complete sentences as they were able, and (2) a
multiple-choice test of basic knowledge of English grammar.
Using MOODLE, an international teaching program on the web, and NINEHUB, a
Moodle hosting site located in New Zealand, I placed all the above items on-line for use
of the students. Students would be able to complete assignments for me and submit them
at this site on-line. MOODLE would be the center of my data collection strategy for the
study.
I gathered together a group of colorful and sometimes comical pictures on Powerpoint
and Word files for use in eliciting responses from the students.
I also collected a series of manipulatives to be used in the lower classes to stimulate
interest and facilitate learning. I packed clay, pipe cleaners, balloons, paper, pens and
colored pencils, glue, and American pennies.
Modifications and reasons
Upon arrival in Taiwan, I met with the classes for the first time and discovered that the
English proficiency level of the two daytime classes was well below my expectations. It
was necessary to come up with much simpler readings, and to address speaking and
listening more strongly. Without this reinforcement, comprehension of written materials
was minimal. I added a comic entitled “Philandering Phil” and a reading about sports
and activities. I created (and pulled from my on-line archives of teaching materials)
various files to teach vocabulary and simple sentence structure. Students wrote and
spoke sentences, and listened to modeled American English, to augment their
comprehension of written English. We used a kinesthetic approach to vocabulary when
possible, such as blowing up balloons and drawing continents and countries on them, to
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complete a geography unit; using clay to create people doing sports and talking about
their activities; and using pennies to reinforce positional prepositions. The students,
unfamiliar with this method of teaching, became lively and interested, and student
response improved.
One week into the program, the MOODLE site was struck by lightening and went offline, taking our course with it…..
I have learned from years of use of technology in the classroom, that you always need to
have a PLAN B. I had copies of all materials on my laptop, and made use of paper
copies, a classroom computer projector and screen, and individual memory sticks which I
had brought with me as a precaution. Student learning continued seamlessly, but
important preliminary testing materials were lost.
The Results
The teachers in Taiwan had expressed their concern that three weeks was not long
enough to provide measurable improvement in student achievement. We had lost our
initial data with the MOODLE crash, so it was not possible anyway.
The alternative method of assessment was to judge student improvement by the following
means:
The verbal assessment of the Taiwanese teachers
The students’ written commentary of how the assignments helped them
My own sense of what worked and how students responded.
Upon reflection, I believe this was a more accurate and useful gauge of how the students
were helped than numbers and statistics would have been after such a brief period of
instruction.
I prepared an exit document for the students to fill out. It questioned them about specific
lessons and asked how they felt about them. (Students were asked to answer in complete
sentences, so I could see how their English ability was improving.) This document is the
source of the student opinion component of the assessment.
Specific curriculum results
1. Autobiographical questionnaire. Students completed forms on computer, in
sentences if possible. Daytime students left many blank because they could not
understand simple questions in English. It became apparent that students needed
help with question words, and with vocabulary-building activities.
2. Newspaper articles. The adult class asked me to concentrate on newspaper
articles, so we had a new one each day. I took them from a local newspaper that
had a daily English article, and from the internet. I used these readings to review
pre-reading strategies, such as guessing, sampling, looking at pictures, etc. to get
an idea of the topic of the article. Students got the idea easily and responded to
my questions.
Silent reading of the article did not give sufficient comprehension. My reading
aloud and questioning their knowledge of vocabulary helped. I also assigned the
looking up certain words as a homework assignment on two occasions. My acting
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out and explaining, together with vocabulary help, seemed to work best in helping
with newspaper reading. Many students wrote that they found this the most
rewarding part of the teaching.
The house that Jack built. I forced oral repetition, building them up to speed, on
this children’s poem. Some students liked it, some did not. All felt that it
benefitted their ability to pronounce English.
“My favorite things” from The Sound of Music. This was very popular with most
students. Upon first reading there was very little comprehension. However, they
liked viewing the segment from the movie, and felt it helped them understand.
They also commented that using Powerpoint pictures to illustrate the vocabulary
of the song made it very clear to them. A number stated that now they could
understand it. Oral repetition of the song, followed by singing with the video,
improved their familiarity with the words. A number of students suggested that
learning more songs would be a great way to improve their English.
Powerpoint pictures. It had become apparent that the greatest need was for
speaking and listening. The teachers told me this, and so did the students. I used
interesting and comical Powerpoint slide shows to spark oral and written
responses from the students. It kept up their interest, which tended to wane if I
tried to give three uninterrupted hours of reading assignments…
Pennies/positional prepositions. As a kinesthetic activity, I used American
pennies to have the students understand and follow directions about relative
placement of the pennies. We placed one penny under, over, to the left of, to the
right of, etc. the other penny. This activity was very popular, both because the
pennies were interesting in themselves, and because the students were not used to
kinesthetic activities in class. No students found this activity too hard to
understand.
Obama excerpt on education from The Audacity of Hope. This was for the adult
class only. I introduced this topic with a discussion of education in Taiwan,
eliciting their personal opinions in writing. I later learned that the ensuing class
discussion was frustrating for some students because they felt they could not
express themselves well enough to make their points clearly. However, there was
a lot of enthusiasm in class.
We then moved on to the reading. First silent reading was very difficult, so I
assigned certain words to be looked up for homework. The next day I read it to
them aloud, discussing the difficult parts, and most students commented that they
understood it. Some later said this was their favorite lesson of the class.
Philanderint Phil on vacation. This was a simple reading I obtained from an
English teacher in Taiwan. It went together with reading #9, to teach sports and
leisure vocabulary. “Philandering Phil” was in the form of a comic strip. Silent
reading was again difficult. I helped with vocabulary by using powerpoint
pictures to illustrate each vocabulary word. I also had the students act it out in
class. This was difficult for some, so only the boldest participated, although all
enjoyed it. I believe everybody understood it when we were done.
What do you do in your spare time? This reading was more difficult than
“Philandering Phil,” but with the previous work on leisure-time vocabulary
students readily understood it. Again, silent reading did not seem to achieve
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much understanding. My oral reading, acting out the activities, brought greater
response. (This is contrary to current pedigogy that says that silent reading is
more useful. At least at this level of English competency, I found the opposite to
be true.)
10.Clay. This was another kinesthetic tool to review vocabulary. Students used clay
to create people doing different sports. I think when kids are having fun, they
remember more… Many students mentioned this as a favorite part of the course.
11.Mr. X and Mrs.Y. Another reading given to me by an English teacher in Taiwan, I
gave this to both the beginner and adult classes, using big pictures to give them
pre-reading clues. For the first time I felt that silent reading yielded some
comprehension. I followed this up by reading it aloud, and then asking oral
questions about it. Although some students said later that it was too difficult for
them, the majority said they understood it and found it funny.
12.Balloons. We broke up the reading activities with a geography lesson. I issued
balloons and special pens to write on them. We made globes and drew and
labeled continents, oceans, and special places on them. Students had to listen and
follow directions in English.
13.Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets transcripts. Of all the things we did,
most students said this was the best part. I had two transcripts, one from the
movie and another from the Book-on-Tape. In each case we read the transcript
first, discussing the hard parts, and then watched or listened to it several times.
The students felt that they now understood them very well. Movies definitely
generate a lot of interest and receptivity to learning. I found this both with The
Sound of Music and with Harry Potter. Some students asked for more movies or
TV shows as part of the curriculum in the future.
14.Math game. This was another activity to break up the reading. We divided the
class into 2 teams, and students came up to the front of the room to “slap the
desk” if they knew the answer to a simple math problem in English. It was very
popular, and increased the attention level of the students.
15.Exit evaluations. These included two readings, photos of Taipei to describe, and
questions about the various lessons. Students told me what they liked, or didn’t
like, about the lessons. It was very helpful to me in preparing this paper, and also
showed improved comprehension of questions from the initial evaluation. Some
of the daytime students did not answer many questions, but others were now
willing to make the effort to understand and respond. It might be more a change
of attitude than increased knowledge of English after only 3 weeks, but I did see
improvement. Some students actually thanked me for making English class
interesting and funny.
Some final thoughts
1. Many Taiwanese female students speak softly, or not at all. This is apparently a
cultural thing. It makes it very difficult to ascertain their level of comprehension.
Certain strategies, notably the kinesthetic activities, got them so interested that they
responded well and forgot to hold back.
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2. One male student said he did not understand the lessons, but pretended he did, so
nobody would know. This is less common in American students, who do not feel so
compelled to save face.
3. A number of the daytime students, whose English was very limited, wished their
foreign teacher could speak some Chinese. Their own Chinese teachers were in class to
translate, but they wanted to be able to communicate better with me. I regretted this too.
Several other students thought the very best part of the whole experience was talking to
me one-on-one during the breaks. They used their limited English and gained confidence
as I understood them.
4. In the evening class we got into a discussion one night about education and the history
of the government of Taiwan. I was surprised that some of the students indicated that
they did not like the discussion part of class, either because they didn’t like what they
called “politics,” or because they felt they could not express themselves well enough to
explain their ideas to me.
5. One Taiwanese teacher told me that in their regular English classes they emphasize
reading and writing, and therefore the students lack experience in speaking. He felt that
my insistence upon speaking and listening was very valuable to the students. A number
of student comments emphasized this fact too. They asked for more foreign teachers to
help them speak English. Some said that they would no longer be afraid to speak to
foreigners in English, because I had stressed that grammar was not the important thing,
but rather communication.
6. The teachers and administration were interested in the on-line element of the class. I
promised to leave all materials on Moodle for their use, as soon as it was repaired. Some
expressed interest in exploring on-line resources to enhance teaching.
7. The computer classrooms were well equipped for multi-media teaching. Apart from
trouble deciphering the Chinese labels on-screen, I felt right at home with the equipment.
8. The Taiwanese teachers were extremely helpful. This is in contrast to the Mainland
Chinese teachers who seemed afraid of an American teacher, and did not step up to help.
9. Use of different teaching styles: manipulatives, colorful visuals, TPR techniques and
computer activities, kept students’ attention and were of particular interest to teachers and
administrators. It was also noted that I continually modified the teaching to
accommodate the ongoing response of the students. I was able to discuss current
American pedagogical views about these things with my Taiwanese colleagues.
Invitation to return
I left Taiwan with hugs and other expressions of affection from my students, and an
invitation to return to the college. It felt good.
Students’ wish list for future classes includes the following: more opportunity to listen
and speak in English, more songs, and possible use of Amercian TV shows, and more
readings, discussion and pictures about the United States.