Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School

Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School was the last school we visited. Melbourne Rudolf Steiner School (MRSS) is a private school providing education for students from kindergarten to Year 12. The school focuses on raising children’s awareness to the spiritual world, and encouraging students to be curious about other people, about living creatures and about the structure of the physical world around us. The school is not just providing education to students, but also love and care as well. In the primary school, one teacher takes the same group of students for eight years. The teachers hold great responsibility for the students’ main learning, as well as the duty of love and care. It is hoped that through the care from the teachers, students will feel they are loved and taken care of.

The curriculum of MRSS is different from other main stream schools. The pace of teaching and learning is designed to be slower so as to suit the pace of the children and to get them spiritually and physically prepared. For example, when teaching alphabets, teachers will tell a story about a certain letter and ask children to draw a picture about that story, before teaching the actual alphabets. By doing so, children will get the sense of learning the alphabets from pictures and stories, instead of just memorizing some abstract ideas and concepts. Apart from the curriculum, what is different is that students do not have to sit the government exams in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. Students will only have to take government exams from Years 11 onwards.

The school reckons that public examinations are not the best way to know about a student and the ability of students should not be assessed based on those marks. And most of the parents agree with the rationale of the school, and signs the letters that exempt their children from government examinations in early years. Therefore, students’ levels of reading and writing might not be at the state levels, but students can have a happier and less stressful learning atmosphere. The school also provides students with outdoor education, and many camps are organized for them. For example, they can join surfing camp, canoeing camp and other leadership camps. In different camps, students can train their independence, determination, and they will learn how to cooperate with and care for others.

We did not observe any class during the visit, but we went to see a performance of the class 2A students. It was a short play in German about some fairy tales. In the performance, we experienced the spiritual aspect that the school stresses. We could also see that the school was trying to get students live in and practise what they learnt. What I appreciate the most about the school is, they are really putting words into actions, and they really love and care for their students. It would not be quite possible for schools in Hong Kong to do so, because there are too many students in a class and not enough teachers to take good care of each and every student. In addition, schools in Hong Kong cannot really design their own curriculum and allow students to be exempted from exams. Hong Kong is too exam-oriented, and everything in Hong Kong is about examination results. Even the school tries to do so, most of the parents will not agree with it. I would not say the way that MRSS reduce the stress of students is a better way for the future of them, but children will possibly have a happier childhood there.

Fitzroy High School

Fitzroy High School was closed in 1992 and re-opened in 2004. The school aims at providing an innovative education to students from Year 7 to 12. What is special about the school is that a team structure is adopted as the basis of communication between students and teachers. Students and teachers are allocated to different teams, and students are to stay in the same team for years 7 and 8, and moves to another team in year 9. Students in years 10 to 12 will join in some post-compulsory teams as well. The team structure allows a more in-depth mutual understanding between students and teachers.

Another feature of the school is its curriculum. Fitzroy High School (FHS) bases the curriculum in three main core areas, they are Toolbox, Inquiry and Excel. Toolbox refers to essential skills and contents that students have to acquire for their studies in English, Mathematics, Science and Italian. Inquiry refers to questions and explorations that students use to expand their knowledge in topics like ‘community’ and ‘identity’. Lastly, Excel refers to the session that allows students to have opportunities to extend their learning in regard to their own targets and interests.

The class I went to was a Year 11 Business Management Class, and the topic of the lesson was the communication barriers in Business. There were 8 students in the class. All of them were not ESL students, but some of them were from Vietnam, Ireland and Italy. Despite the fact that they are native English speakers, it seems that students’ level of English is not very high. Throughout the lesson, the teacher drew the mind map as a summary of the textbook passage on the board, and students copied it onto their own papers. The teacher asked the students to read out the paragraphs and summarized them in bullet points. In general, there was not much interaction among students, and the lesson was teacher-centred. However, students were willing to answer teacher’s questions, and participate in class activities.

In my opinion, the use of mind-maps is a good and clearer way to summarize passages. However, its functions can be better utilized if the mind maps are created by students on their own because they can understand the passage better. If the task is too difficult for students to accomplish individually, students can work in groups to complete the task. By doing so, students can learn to be more responsible of their own learning and interaction among students can be enhanced.

La Trobe University International College

Our eighth school observation was at La Trobe University International College, where we are studying now. La Trobe University International College (LTUIC) was founded in 1974, it provides English language programs and academic courses to students who are going to enter universities. It offers English langiage courses, teacher training courses, foundation studies and diploma programmes. The majority of students are from Saudi Arabia, and the rest are mainly from Korea, Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Students here are streamed according to their English levels, and they are categorized into 6 levels, with level 1 being the elementary and 6 being the advanced.

The class I observed is a 1B class and students are mainly from Saudi Arabia. The backgrounds of students are quite different, some of them are married and even have children. The theme of the lesson is weekdays and weekends, and the focuses of the two-hour lesson are simple present tense and present continuous tense. The teacher introduced the topic by asking students questions with the help of pictures. After that, students moved on to various listening tasks and speaking tasks with based on the task sheets copied from a textbook provided by the teacher. In terms of pronunciation, the teacher pronounced the words for a few times, and asked students to follow her. She corrected students’ pronunciation by pronouncing the right one. In terms of correction of students, the teacher did not give the correct answer right away, but to asked some guiding questions or gave some hints to students, to guide them to the correct answer. The students in class were quite motivated, and they were answering the questions actively. There are quite a lot of interactions between students and the teacher, and among students. In addition, students are communicating in English, instead of their mother tongues for most of the time.

However, one point to note is that there were two grammar spots in one lesson. Students seemed to be unable to cope with two different grammar focuses at a time. It would be better if the teacher covers just one grammar spot at one time, and allow students to digest and practise it before moving on to another grammar focus.

The Defence International Training Centre

We went to The Defence International Training Centre for our seventh school observation. The Defence International Training Centre (DITC) is an Australian Defence Force Training unit. Students in DITC are from over 20 Asian, Southeast Asian and Southwest Pacific countries. They range in rank from newly enlisted personnel to senior officers.

This centre is so different from the schools we previously visited. Students here are all adults, and they have different military backgrounds from all over the world. The class we observed was a teacher training class, students there are trained to teach English in military forces. Some of the students in the class are from air forces, some are from the navy and the rest are from army. They come from Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Laos. They are all in a programme called Methodology of English Language Teaching (MELT), and it focuses on the teaching of methodology.

In the observation, we joined in different small groups and participated in class activities together. The focus of lesson was to learn how to teach vocabularies at intermediate level. The teacher started by brainstorming students of the different aspects in teaching vocabularies. She then distributed a task sheet and a copy from an intermediate level English textbook for us to complete in groups. We analyzed the word ‘plead’ in terms of its meaning, phonology and form. Through different activities, we were reminded of how thorough we have to be in teaching vocabularies. The teacher walked around when we were having discussions, to monitor the class and check our progress. Students in class were active in engaging in lessons, and they showed their eagerness to learn.

The class reminded me of my pedagogy lessons back in The University of Hong Kong. We learn as students and are trained as teachers. The teacher and the task inspire me of how prepared we have to be as teachers. Even for one simple vocabulary, we have to think in the students’ perspective thoroughly. We have to assess what they may or may not know before class, and get ourselves prepared for their questions, and to show our professionalism as teachers.

Glen Eira English Language Centre

The sixth school we paid visit to is Glen Eira English Language Centre. Glen Eira Language Centre (GELC) is a government funded school, it is one of the schools which participates in the New Arrivals Programme. It provides education for immigrants, refugees and international students, and help them transfer into mainstream secondary schools. It also receives students from mainstream schools to provide remedial English lessons to them. The majority of students in GELC are from Mainland China, and students are streamed according to their English levels and age.

I went to two different classes to observe the lessons. The first class I went to is 4C English class. It is a senior class and students are about 17 years old in Year 10. It was originally a class of 6 students, but 3 of them were sent to mainstream schools last week, so there were just 3 students in the class. The focus of the lesson was writing paragraphs, and the teacher adopted a traditional way of teaching. She used the same textbook throughout the lesson and no other authentic materials were used to assist her teaching. The text the teacher chosen and her instructions seemed to be too difficult for them. Hence, students seemed not to know very clearly what they had to do for most of the time and got bored. However, the teacher did not explain further nor did she encourage student to answer her questions. Instead, she got angry when students failed to provide the correct answer, and kept on discouraging students by stressing how easy the task was. The learning atmosphere seemed to be quite hostile and students were afraid of making mistakes.

The second class I went to was a level 2 Study of Society and Environment (SOSE) class. The age of students in this class ranges from 11 to 17 years old, and the majority of them are Chinese. The focus of lesson was vocabularies related to greenhouse effect. The teacher started the lesson by distributing an article to students, and wrote a list of vocabularies on the board. Students had to look up the meanings of the words on their dictionaries and explained to the teacher afterwards. Students spent almost the whole lesson on checking the meanings of words, and there was not much interaction between students and teacher, and among students. The teacher did not do anything to stop students from communicating in their mother tongue and students spoke Chinese when they were doing their task. In general students were actively participating in class and they were motivated to learn.

Overall the teaching style here is quite similar to Hong Kong’s, they are both traditional styles of teaching and do not really provide room to students to develop their creativity. One suggestion to the second class would be to allow students to come up to the vocabulary list on their own, and let them check the meanings before class at home. By doing so, it is hoped that students can be more independent of their learning, and they will know better about words they do not understand. It is also hoped that the lesson time can be better utilized to do something more constructive, and not to be wasted on tasks that students can accomplish without the presence of the teacher.

Blackburn English Language School

The fifth school observation was placed at Blackburn English Language School (BELS). BELS is a government school providing primary and secondary school education for students who are new arrivals to the country. Students in BELS are all from language backgrounds other than English, so they will have to attend a 20-week intensive English Language programme provided by the school to help them enroll in mainstream school. The school aims to prepare students in terms of their language ability to enter the mainstream schools after 20 weeks, and in terms of their readiness to blend into the Australian society.

BELS is providing education to 180 secondary school students and 160 primary school students from 26 countries at the moment. In primary, students are streamed according to their age, so P1 will the youngest ones and P8 will be the oldest ones. In secondary, the streaming of students will be based on students’ age and ability. The name of a class is made up of a number (1-7) and a letter (A or B). For the number, it suggests the English levels of students, 1 being the weakest one and 7 being the strongest; while for the letter, A stands for junior secondary and B stands for senior secondary.

I was assigned to observe a P1 class and a 4B class. The P1 class was an English class, the topic of the lesson was ordinal numbers. The teacher made use of authentic materials and even students’ own work as teaching materials. She pronounced every word clearly and repeated certain sound when necessary. In order to get the students to practise the target language, she often said ‘I say you say, the car is coming…’, and students followed her to practise. The teacher also used positive reinforcement to encourage children to speak in English. The overall learning atmosphere was good and small children were communicating in English. The other lesson I observed was a 4B Math class. The teacher was absent and a non-Math teacher was assigned to teach the students statistics. The teacher read the instructions directly from the book, and students were confused and bored. They did not understand what they had to do and how to complete the task. Almost every student is Chinese except for one African, they created a big Chinese social circle in the class and all of them were communicating in Chinese. However, the teacher did not use any mean to stop them from speaking Chinese and students in the class did not actually use or practise English.

To a certain extent, the 4B class is quite similar to a normal English class in Hong Kong schools. Students in both schools are speaking English as their second language, and the majority of students are of the same nationality. Thus, they do not really have to speak English in class because they do not have the need to, they can just communicate freely in their mother tongues. A suggestion to the problem of class 4B will be to mix up different nationalities within a class, so as to create a need for students to speak in English to communicate and socialize instead of using their own mother tongues.

Macleod College

This is our fourth school visit and we went to Macleod College today. Macleod College is one of the most famous schools in Victoria, and it is providing education for students from prep year to Year 12. The school has distinguished academic results and strong music programme. In terms of language teaching, the school provides special English learning classes for ESL students which run in parallel to main stream English classes. The ESL classes will be operated in small-class teaching, and teachers in ESL classes are specially trained. It is hoped that the levels of English of students can be enhanced by individualized teaching assistance from teachers.

In year 10, there is a special programme named ‘Central Learning Programme’ provided by the school to cater to individual difference. Teachers are trying to integrate different subjects into one. Based on students’ interests, teachers will try to relate learning to different individuals by making authentic teaching materials to suit the different learning needs of students. There are different layers of knowledge in one concept, and such student-centred learning would allow teachers scaffold these different layers on students’ knowledge base.

We did not have the chance to observe a full language lesson, but we were shown the different types of learning spaces around the campus. There are many different open spaces of learning, and teachers can make use different learning spaces to suit their lessons. Unlike in traditional classrooms, there are no doors or walls to restrict the learning area of students, and the furniture in the classroom are moveable to create a more flexible learning space. Teachers will make use of their physical movements such as maintaining eye contact with students and walking around the classroom to monitor the learning progress of students. However, such innovative style of teaching and learning may pose challenges to some teachers as they have to walk out of their comfort zones and change their teaching styles to suit the changed learning spaces.

Macleod College demonstrates a new teaching and learning style with its flexibility in learning spaces. However, such teaching and learning style remains not very feasible in Hong Kong context because the flexibility in learning spaces requires plenty of space and funding. Schools in Hong Kong may not be big enough to spare a lot of open areas for learning. Besides, the setting in the classrooms cannot possibly be changed due to the small classroom areas and numerous number of desks and chairs. The flexibility of learning spaces in Hong Kong classroom is low, and it could be enhanced only if the class size is reduced.

Sacre Coeur

The third school we had been to is Sacre Coeur. Scre Coeur (SC) is a high achieving catholic girls’ school located in Victoria. It adopts a non-selective entry policy so that they are not providing education just for high achievers. It as well adopts the Individual-Special Needs Learning approach to cater to the needs of the talented and students who need remediation. SC aims at making her students aware of the importance of individuals in community and maximizing each of their talents. Through education, it is hope that students can build sisterhood and structures of support. SC hopes to nurture females of courage and commitment, and make them believe they have the transforming power.

The class I went to is a geography class of Year 7, students were giving presentations on Antarctica. Students were divided into groups before, and they had to come up to a topic related to geography of Antarctica on their own. By doing so, it was hoped that students would have greater motivation do complete their tasks because they had the ownership of the project. It was their first time to give presentations in geography lessons, but that did not affect their performance. They prepared costumes, they made PowerPoint slides, they recorded a video tape…they are all in all quite prepared for their presentations and I was very impressed! And I was quite surprised by how attentive the girls are in listening to classmates’ presentation as well.

Due to the fact that it was not a language lesson, the teacher did not focus on the discussion of grammar but more on the contents of presentations. The teacher would give feedback to each individual after the group presentations, and she would constantly praise the students, acknowledge them of their efforts and highlight the areas that had to be improved. Her positive reinforcement would motivate students to work hard on their tasks and do even better next time.

I could not really compare the approaches of language teaching of SC to that of Hong Kong, but schools in Hong Kong and Australia are so different in terms of the coming up of the presentation topics and teachers’ and students’ responses. Schools in Hong Kong would not usually allow students to choose their own topics, instead, they would assign topics to the groups and this somehow restricts students’ creativity and ability. Besides, teachers in Hong Kong are less likely to be that supportive and encouraging. Perhaps because of the Chinese culture, teachers tend to give negative reinforcement so as avoid students being too boastful. Schools and teachers in Hong Kong might have to adjust a bit foe the betterment of students.