2024 Taipei Immersion Trip | Day 4

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天幕国民中学

Today, we woke up really early to prepare to go to a secondary school in Taipei. Before the trip, we prepared some gifts for the people there and were excited to learn more about them.

Many Tian-mu students stood at the foyer and welcomed us enthusiastically, and after taking a group photo and meeting the principal of the school, we went to a conference room where we held many activities with our Taipei buddies.

Getting to know more about their school

Before we started the icebreaker activities, the principals of both schools gave a speech. Afterwards, Guan Heng, my classmate, and a student from Tian-mu Junior High introduced our school’s culture and history. After getting to know more about their school, the school’s band had a performance. We then played some games that helped to brighten the atmosphere and improve our understanding of each other.

Such games include “Crow and Turtle”, where one person is a Crow and the other person from the pair, a Turtle. A story would be read out, and if the word “crow” was said, the crow has to hit the hands of the turtle. If the word “turtle” was said, the turtle has to hit the hands of the crow.

After the icebreaker games, we had a tour around the school and realised how big the school was compared to ours.

Lessons with them

Next, we joined the classes of our buddies and listened to the lessons conducted by their teachers. My buddy had art class, and we learnt more about optical illusion art. I felt that their teachers were very passionate and were able to conduct interesting lessons that captured the attention of the students there. Whenever I had something I didn’t understand, my buddy was also happy to help me, which was a relief as they mainly use Chinese language. It is then break time.

This is another difference between the 2 schools – how the break times were staggered. In their school, they have a 15 minute break after a 40 minute lesson, in addition to recess to allow them to have more time to rest during the long school hours from 7.30am to 4.00pm. For us, we only have breaks during recess time, but end school early at 1.40pm most of the time.

During our break, I went around the school and got to know more students. They were enthusiastic and interested to use English, which shows their interest in learning and applying a foreign language. They were also kind and outgoing, which made the experience better.

After our break, we went back to art class where a hands-on activity was conducted. We learnt more about the 3D optical illusion, and had a dinosaur cutout to work on. By following the instructions and forming the dinosaur, there would be an optical illusion that the dinosaur is looking at us as we turn it.

Here is a YouTube video showing the optical illusion.

I don’t think I managed to create the same effect, as it needed precision in pasting and cutting the fine ends of the dotted lines. However, it was fun learning about such an optical illusion!

Lunchtime

Very soon, the period was over and it is already lunchtime!

Although I was really excited, my buddy told me that the food was really bad and disgusting. Unlike Singapore where we are able to buy and select foods, we had our lunch that is set by the school in the classrooms.

However, after tasting the food, I felt that it was really nice, and perhaps my buddy’s expectations were a little too high. We had curry rice with potatoes and red bean soup, and I felt that it was a really nice and balanced meal.

Other unique classes

After lunch, we learnt more about the unique classes that they have. Apart from the core subjects, they also have health education, scouting and drama classes. We then went into a classroom and learnt more about health education.

Health Education

What is the definition health? That was the first question our teacher asked us. We pondered and asked ourselves what the answer was, and we all had different answers. Some said being healthy is falling sick less frequently, while others said being healthy is being happy. All those answers were correct, and we went further into learning more about how to be healthy.

We did an activity, and of 15 different choices, we were to allocate a price for it, with our budget being $100. Some choices were having a good self esteem, falling sick less easily, or having many friends. These are some of the components that we have that would make us a healthy person. It was then explained that 3 factors allow us to become healthy – physical, mental and social. After this lesson, we learnt that there was more to health.

Drama

After the lesson, we had drama lessons. Our first activity was to walk around the classroom, and perform many high, middle and low actions. For example, squatting is a low action and reaching up with our arms is a high action. We then gathered in groups where we formed 3 letter words using our bodies.

Can you guess what these 3 letter words are?

Our teacher then made things more challenging – every group has to form an electrical appliance, with each member being part of a component of it. One appliance we tried was being a fridge. I was the door of the fridge, while the others became the sides of the fridge and the coolers.

Up next, we went back to the conference room where we had a debrief. Some of us shared more about our experiences that day, and expressed our gratitude towards the people who made that day possible.

After a fun day of activities, it was time to leave the school.

Dinner + 布袋戏表演

We then went to See-Join Puppet Theatre, where we had dinner while watching the puppet show performance.

The performance was interesting and engaging, and it was the first time I saw a live puppet show.

When the performance ended, there was also a segment for us to learn how to use the puppets to perform. Each of us were given a puppet to try, and we learnt many tricks.

Some of us were also given the chance to go on stage to perform with the bigger-sized puppets.

It was then time to go back to the hotel, where we ended the day by finishing our reflections.

Want to read more about my Taipei Immersion Trip Experience? Here are the other posts on it: