Uncle Sam American School - Teacher Adam and Teacher Sam

As mentioned previously on this blog, we have added two new foreign teachers to our growing Uncle Sam family.  They are both American, and both of them have prior teaching experience in Japan.  Teacher Adam teachers our K4 Raccoons class, a class that has been around since T level.  Teacher Sam teaches our K4 Dolphins class, a class that has significantly newer students.  Speaking to them, they both describe working at Uncle Sam American School as “fun”.  Teacher Sam went on to describe Taiwan as a “Wild West of Asia”.  While I (Teacher Jonathan) didn’t ask him to elaborate on that, I can say from my personal experience that life in Taiwan, while challenging at times, can also be fun and eventful.  I sincerely hope they both have a happy and prosperous time here in Taiwan.  It seems they’re already off to a great start!

A New Semester – Here We Grow Again

Earlier in this blog I (teacher Jonathan) wrote that 2011 was a year of growth for Uncle Sam American School. Well this trend appears to be continuing in 2012, as we have made some renovations including a brand new classroom at our Sanxia location for our brand new class, the T2 Hippos! I’ve already had the pleasure of teaching these youngsters (some of whom are still in diapers) and I see tremendous potential in the group.

We’ve also done some minor renovations around the school, including making space in most of the classrooms for televisions that are planned to come in later, as well as new tables and chairs for the K1 classes, repainting the walls of the school, and a new photocopier for the teachers’ office.

We also have two new teachers starting this semester, Teacher Sam and Teacher Adam! Both of these gentlemen have extensive teaching experience in Japan, and have already demonstrated a strong commitment to their respective classes. I am happy to welcome both of them here.

Student-Made Travel Brochures

Often when you hear about Uncle Sam American School, you hear about our highly reputable kindergarten program. However it's important to remember that we also have a great program for elementary-level (called G-class) students as well, for kids up to age 13.

Our senior class here at the school in Sanxia is the G6 Lemur class. Although they are not my regular class, I (Teacher Jonathan) have taught them several times and really enjoy it. Their English is at a high level, so it's easy to have a conversation with them. They enjoy hearing about my life experiences here in Taiwan and they even laugh at my jokes! (OK not every time, but sometimes)

Recently their homeroom teacher, Teacher David, passed on to me a couple of samples from a recent classroom project of theirs. They had to create a travel brochure for visitors to their country. The brochures are beautiful, and make me want to discover Taiwan all over again. Great job, Lemurs!

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!

Christmas in Taiwan

It’s now December 26^th (known as “Boxing Day” in Canada), and another Christmas has passed. For some of us expatriates living in Taiwan, Christmas can be a bit of a lonely time – a time when we miss our friends and family back in our home country. On the upside, however, we still have each other, and I (teacher Jonathan) spent my Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning at Wai Ao Beach with a bunch of Canadian, American and Taiwanese friends.

To get to Wai Ao, I had to take the TRA (Taiwan Railways Administration) train from Taipei Main Station. It took a while to get there (about 1 ½ hours from Taipei Main Station), but the train was very comfortable and very reasonably priced (about 10 US dollars return trip).

They had a campfire going on the beach, so we hung out there for a while, and then went inside my friend’s neighbor’s apartment. The party lasted until past 5am, at which point I took the train back to Taipei, and spent most of Christmas Day sleeping.

Taipei is 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so I called my family this morning (during their Christmas dinner) to wish them all a Merry Christmas.

I’m at work today, as I was on Friday, because Christmas is not an official holiday in Taiwan. But in late January I’ll get time off for Chinese New Year, so I’m looking forward to it!