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The meaningful international high school collaboration project has lasted for years, involving students of many international high schools. In addition to NEHS, the schools participated in this project are:
Blair High School, Pasadena, California, USA
Murasakino High School, Kyoto, Japan
Beijing 161 Middle School, Xicheng Beijing
Krems Engineering HS, Krems, Austria
Jarvenpaa Upper Secondary School, Finland
Under the coordination of Mr. Richard Miyagawa, the leader teacher at Blair High School, we had the following activities in the school year of 2002. First, we exchanged the sub-group email and jpeg photos which were uploaded to the Blair HS website. Next, we brainstormed and agreed that “Globalization” would be the project title for this year. After that, five sub-topics were also decided inclusive of “History of globalization,” “Examples of globalization in our country,” “Benefits of globalization,”“Hazards of globalization,” and “Globalization in future.” Then, each sub-group began research on their assigned sub-topic. Finally, on May 22, we had a video teleconference and shared our research with Blair High School students LIVE.
As the leader teacher of NEHS, I feel so honored to participate in the significant international project. Although the preparing process, to tell the truth, was a lot of work, the radiant presentation of students in both schools proved it worthwhile. Being so intelligent and hardworking, they did show great humor and creativity in the teleconference. I believe that they certainly deserve our heavy applause. Besides, we could never complete the project without the great assistance offered by Principal Tai, Ms. Jane Hsu, Ms. Melon Juang and Mr. Tamansky Tang. My students and I would like to express our hearty appreciation for their help. At last, I hope that in the future NEHS will continue such a meaningful international cooperation project and even further develop it, so that we may offer students more opportunities to communicate with others in English and to contact the world as well. What follow are some feedback from some of my students who worked on the project.
Students' Feedback
The teleconference is so cool! It's really a special experience to me. The girls from China have beautiful voice and they're so willing to show themselves; the Mexican girl who plays soccer and the girl from Indonesia are so cute. All of them impress me a lot! I would like to know them more and keep in touch with them. It’s quite a pity that we had only an hour. Maybe we can invite them to come over to Taiwan some other time, or maybe we can go visit them in the summer or winter vacation. I think the topic “Globalization” is a little too serious for us (that really made me nervous!) Talking about various customs, food, dressing, sport, or fashion of different cultures would be more interesting and relaxing. And the last, I think we should have sat together in front of the camera when we were having the Q&A time. They would see us more clearly if we did that, and everybody wouldn't be afraid of asking or answering questions anymore.
∼ Amy Liou
The presentation was nice, but the equipment we used wasn't effective enough. Next time, we should use a communicative tool that can make the image clearer and let the voice be heard more clearly. If we can’t improve the quality of our equipment, the next group, which works on this project, should be told that they might encounter such problem. Also, next time the group should be asked to think of the questions before the teleconference; otherwise, we may not know what to ask and make the conference inefficient and depart from the initial questions we discuss of. Also, I think we should concentrate on their talking when they are expressing their points of view, which I think is the basic etiquette when we are going on a meeting.
∼Alan Luo
It's hard for us to listen to them clearly, so we couldn't understand completely what they said. After all, our equipment isn't good enough. But we still had a good experience of talking to students from different countries. I think we have done a good job. Although we didn't discuss globalization a lot in Q&A, this activity is really fun. The topic “Globalization” is too serious and not interesting at all. Maybe we should choose an easier one. If we make sure that we can understand most of the words, then we can ask more questions and have more opinions. I hope we can keep connecting with them.
∼Billy Su
I think this activity is great. At first, I can't hear them clearly. It's a little boring. But at the Q&A, we sang songs, chatted, and had some talent shows. We had lots of fun by that time. The activity is worthy of doing. And I suggest that we can exchange e-mail and make friends with them even after the teleconference.
∼ Jenny Lee
I think Blair High students are friendly and fun. Their performances like singing are really great. I like it very much. However, I have some suggestions. First, maybe next time we can have a subject which is not so serious, such as introducing our schools, talking about our lives or showing each person's talent. Second, if each student could have a microphone, everyone can say what he/she wants to say immediately. I like the teleconference. I hope we can have another one soon.
∼Sally Shen
I think it was a great activity. Although we got a little disconnection during the meeting, it was still interesting. And I think we didn't have to be so serious even with the topic,“Globalization”.Maybe the discussion will be even hotter with an easier topic though. Now when I look back, I feel that it's worthwhile doing such preparation.
∼ Kevin Cheng
Although we are a little nervous, I think this meeting is interesting. Because of the limitation of the equipment, we can't show our research too dynamically. And our narrations are long, while they were just talking about their opinions. I think it is worthwhile joining some activities like this.
∼ Clare Huang
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