| |
Celebration of the Arts
高一英語會話課成果展
指導老師 Ms. Janice Rossing
When the December holiday season rolls around every year, many of us by default celebrate historical events that we have no real understanding or appreciation of, and which are essentially meaningless to us. Why? Because celebrating is fun.
Knowing that every culture worldwide has cause to celebrate within a year and to honor those cultures, I decided to shift the focus off the historical event behind December’s traditional ritual celebration, and rather to honor and refocus on the joy, beauty, and fun we find in many traditions around the world. “Celebrate the Arts” is the result.
To celebrate the arts, students were asked to share and introduce in English their own skills, abilities, and knowledge with the group, whether music, art, photography, or magic, then to write about the experience. Below we share with you the memories of our experience in celebrating the arts.
高一1 張文嘉 Vaughn
At first we (Tina, another student in my class, and I) just looked around to see if there was a song that was not too difficult but sounded good. We spent a whole weekend to do the selection. Finally, “My World” stood out. I think the significance to me was the practice of singing with Tina. It was fun and I got to know more about her. Also, the song itself is simple and genuine. We don’t have to be shy to express our true feelings. That is just the very thing I needed. |
|
高一1 劉庭羽 Tina
Last week was our art presentation day. We celebrated the arts by performing music, showing paintings or other things. Each person had to prepare a program. I can’t play any instruments except the piano, and it’s too heavy to bring, so I chose the easiest one – singing.
I like singing, but I know I’m not a good singer. I invited Vaughn, another student in my class, to sing with me so I wouldn’t feel very nervous. We spent many hours preparing the program. First, we exchanged CDs to choose the song that we were going to sing and decided on “My World”, a song sung by Avril Levine. We practiced after school. We were very hard-working.
On the arts day, everyone did a great job. I really had a great time. After that, I found from singing with Vaughn that I was in love with singing! I suddenly discovered that I had chosen the correct art for me.
高一1 葉上齊 Jack
I chose to do magic. I like to do magic for others because they always feel surprised, and say “cool”! I think there must be some fun in our life, and then life is more meaningful!
One of the magic tricks I did was from the United States. In fact, if you know how, then magic is really easy. The other trick was done by math, but it’s a secret --or it wouldn’t be a magic. If I have chance, I want to be taught by a magician.
P.S., the most important skill of magic is that you have to feel nothing and be calm and unhurried.
|
 |
高一4 李承雍 Tim
The performance I chose to celebrate the arts was singing – “Somewhere Only We Know” by an English band. The reason why I chose this song was that I think that the writer wanted to tell us the importance of friendship. One day on a trip to my grandparents’ house, I heard this song on the radio. At once I was attracted by its beautiful melody, and I downloaded the song from the Internet. Then, I was so surprised that such a beautiful song was not a love song. After much practice I sang it to the class. |
|
高一1 洪若霓Nina
I presented several carols with Ellie, my classmate. We wanted to bring Christmas air to everyone in this class. Although I didn’t do a great job, I was filled with joy in my heart. It was a great experience for me. When I finished my presentation and let out a sigh of relief, Chiling, another classmate, asked me to sing with her. I forgot to answer, and she thought I would be O.K., so she pushed me onto the stage. I was so nervous, I did not know how to refuse, and the worst thing was that I had never sung the song before. Fortunately, she sang so loudly that my voice was covered. At the end, she thanked me, not for singing the song, but for standing beside her and giving her courage. I’ll never forget that moment. |
|
高一3 黃芝綾 Chiling
I sang a song named擁抱 with Tina and Amy, who played the guitar. Oh! I was so nervous. This song is sung by the band “Mayday” from Taiwan. It’s the band I like the most. The singer is so, so, so… handsome and talented. Their songs are great!! But the most exciting part of the celebration was the magic show. I think it was amazing and strange! I wondered how my classmate, Jack, did it!
We had a good time and I think this activity let us relax and made us happy.
高一3 陳庭歡 Amy
I played the guitar and Nina and Chiling, my classmates, sang a song. The song was named 擁抱 – meaning “Hug”. It was from the band named 五月天 (Mayday). The lyrics tell about a boy who fell in love with a girl, but it doesn’t say how it ends. It is an emotional song.
However, we didn’t practice a lot before the performance. That led to our performance not being successful. Also, I am a beginner at guitar, so it was difficult for me to play a whole tune. Next time, we will take notice of these mistakes. Jack’s performance caught my attention. He did two miraculous magic tricks. I thought they were related to math. However, they still were miraculous for me. Someday, I want to do magic tricks as well as he did.
高一4林祺崴 Charles
I can play the piano, but I can’t bring it to the classroom, so I chose to whistle at our small concert. My parents can also whistle. I was always bored when I was writing homework, so I tried to whistle like them. At first, I couldn’t make any sound, but I kept trying whenever I was doing homework. Several days later, I realized that you couldn’t just blow the air out when trying to whistle. You should think the music you want to play like singing. After a lot of practice, I could whistle the music of a flute or imitate the sound of a bird. I was nervous when I was performing in front of the class. I was lucky that I did not make any mistakes. |
|
高一4 魏伯晅 Joyce
I chose “Thais”, a classical piece for the violin, which I learned about a year ago. The tune is not difficult, but it’s hard to put my emotion into this composition.
n 2006, I left my best friends during junior high. I remember the night, my friends and I played music together. The moonlight spilled over. We were filled with thoughts and feelings, so I formed “Thais”.
It might be the best moment in my life. I miss my friends very much, especially at this time (Christmas) of the year, so I chose this tune to commemorate them. I had a great time in junior high. My classmates and I played classical music together every Tuesday and Thursday. (We knew each other so well that we could communicate without saying a word). Because I’ve never attended a personal contest, I get nervous easily when I play alone. Hope that I can also find my new musical life at NEHS.
|
|
高一3劉仲芸 Christine
Since I was not good at singing and drawing, and I couldn’t bring my piano to school, I decided to share two meaningful songs that I liked. Both songs are sung by a popular singer in America – Britney Spears. The first song was “Lucky”. It’s about a girl named Lucky who is very lucky, but sometimes cries and people don’t know why. Some people may seem lucky, but there must be something that doesn’t happen their way, and that’s life. The other song was “Born to Make You Happy”. Everyone should have someone that they want to make happy, whether they are your parents, friends or pet. When I listen to these songs, I feel like they’re talking about me. The words express what I think and how I feel. That’s why I want to share these songs with my classmates. Hope they enjoyed them. |
|
高一2謝惠羽 Ellie
On December 28, we celebrated the arts. Everyone had to make a performance. You could sing, dance, play instruments or even do magic. I took my album of drawings. In there were my clothing designs and three cute sunflowers that I created myself. They are always smiling and sunny. Everyone should keep smiling just like them. We should know that when life brings bad things, they will pass.
I also shared a song called “Bleeding Wolves”. The writer of this song is Matthew Lien. This song is very touching. People hunt wolves just because they don’t want the wolves to eat deer so that there would be more deer for hunters to hunt, and the government can make money out of it. How cruel humans are!
Because of Christmas, I also sang “Ding Dong” and “Joy to the world” with Nina and Tiffany. Though we couldn’t sing very well, we still got big hands of appreciation from our classmates. That felt wonderful. I thought this celebration was very meaningful and everyone did very well. |
|
高一3梁凱奇 Justin
Two days after the Christmas party, our class had an interesting concert of music. Not only I but also my classmates were excited about the upcoming day! I chose to play the violin as my performance because I used to play it. In fourth grade I started learning violin, but had to give it up in eighth grade because of lack of time. With the education system in Taiwan, I had to face a lot of tests, and thus time is precious for study. As I grow up gradually, I find that music plays a leading role of my life, and I realize that I really should not have given up violin. Thinking back now, Joyce’s violin performance was like a medicine that woke me up. To my surprise, in my heart’s depth, the thing that I had expected long ago broke out through her music. However, I can only hope that I will still have a chance to pursue my musical dream in the future.
Although this experience made me feel a little frustrated, I still appreciated it. After seeing my classmates’ performances, I feel funny but satisfied. Actually, I did enjoy the party. Lastly, I thank our teacher for providing such a nice lesson for us. |
|
▲TOP
|
|
