Uncle Sam American School - Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year!

We have now entered the year of the dragon! Last week was a week of holidays for us. For Taiwanese, Chinese New Year is usually a time for family. For us ex-patriots, it’s a chance for us to relax and recharge our batteries. Of course, for expats and Taiwanese alike, many take the chance to do some traveling. Two of our teachers went to Australia for their holidays, and one went to Indonesia. A couple of others did some traveling inside Taiwan. As for me (Teacher Jonathan), I recently moved into a new apartment in downtown Taipei City, so the holidays were a great chance for me to set up and organize everything how I want it. Of course, I was also able to participate in some local festivities here, including a friend's party that had numerous entertainers, some of whom did the traditional 'dragon dance' which was a sight to behold!

On the weekend before Chinese New Year, we had our year-end party for both the Sanxia and Banqiao schools. This year our party was at LazerTreks, a laser-tag facility in downtown Taipei. After a buffet-style dinner, we were ready to have the different teams square off! I was lucky, because one of the Chinese teachers couldn’t play, as she had to take care of her daughter. So I took her spot and got to play twice as often! In each game, your team is assigned one color and you have to shoot (with a toy laser gun) the people on the opposing team. Each team also has a ‘sentry point’ and a ‘home base’ they need to guard. At the risk of sounding boastful, I can say that I quickly learned how to aim and time my shots for maximum impact, and every time I played my team was the winner.

There were also many prizes awarded throughout the night, and I was lucky! I won a Mr. Brown coffee mug, as well as a Coach handbag. The bag is too feminine for me to use, but I have a female friend who I believe will really enjoy it.

The year of the dragon is considered the luckiest year in the Chinese Zodiac. Many Taiwanese will attempt to give birth during this year, so we can expect a baby boom on the way. Let’s hope that in a few years, when they are old enough, many of these kids will find their way to Uncle Sam American School :)

Competitions

From time to time at Uncle Sam, we need to prepare students for a competition. Why do we have competitions? Well sometimes, as in the case of our Christmas event, it’s to help prepare students for their performance at the event. Other times, it’s to sharpen their academic abilities.

For our Christmas event, we had a Christmas song competition. Each of the foreign teachers had to choose a Christmas-theme song for their class, and then teach the class how to sing it. They also need to come up with some actions that go with the song and teach that to the students as well.

I (Teacher Jonathan) can say that for my K1 Lions (K stands for ‘kindergarten’) students, the competition is an uphill battle. Unlike the other K1 classes, the Penguins and Kangaroos, who studied here in our T-level classes (T stands for ‘toddler’), the K1 Lions were all brand new this semester, and therefore had considerably less study time under their belts. Keeping this in mind, I chose a song very quickly and began practicing with them as soon as I could. The song I picked was “Hazy Shade of Winter” by The Bangles, which is a lively rock number that I hoped would get the kids excited.

In the beginning practices were difficult. Only a couple of the kids would dance, and no one was singing. Most of the students are only three years old, and don’t really understand that they’re in a competition and that they need to practice. Eventually I was able to get my point across by heaping lots of praise onto the kids that were doing well. It took a lot of patience, but eventually I could see steady improvement with nearly every practice.

Not content with merely singing and dancing, I decided to jazz things up a bit by creating some custom props for the event. I cut some snowflake-winter style designs out of white paper glued them onto blue cards for the kids to wear. I also got some tinsel ‘scarves’ for them to wear around their necks, and even dug up a couple video game toy guitars for a couple of the kids to wear on stage.

Unfortunately however, on the day of the competition, the Lions weren’t able to perform their best. It was their first time to perform in front of a crowd of their peers. They were nervous and therefore either sang very quietly or didn’t sing at all. So in the end, the K1 award went to the K1 Kangaroos instead. I was still proud of my students because I saw all the progress they had made while rehearsing in the classroom.

On the day of our Christmas event however, which was a few days later, the Lions were able to redeem themselves however, as most of them were able to sing and dance very well in front of a crowd full of parents.

Now we are rehearsing for our next competition, Sounds and Letters! More on that in a future blog.

Happy New Year!

It is with pleasure that I (Teacher Jonathan) write our first blog entry for 2012. Over the last year, we’ve seen numerous changes here at Uncle Sam American School. If I had to summarize those changes into one word, I’d call it “growth”. We’ve seen enrollment at our Sanxia school climb to over 270 students, the most we’ve ever had. We’ve also seen our family of foreign teachers grow from nine to ten.

Looking ahead to 2012, we have even more growth ahead of us, starting with the opening of our brand new school in Yingge, which we’re very excited about. It is my belief that over there, we can create the same sense of teamwork and cooperation that has made our other schools a success.

I wish everyone a happy and healthy new year!