My Corner for Education

Superman (It's Not Easy)

John Ondrasik (Five for Fighting) is a great musician in my view. A few of his songs should be quite familiar to listeners in Taiwan. I admire him because he is one of those musicians who have made it to the top but still care about the world around. If you like his songs, please buy his CDs and visit his web sites to help the world.

The song "Superman" has very simple lyrics and could be of high interest to many male ESL learners because of the TV show Samllville and the new Superman movie. 


His official web site:  http://www.fiveforfighting.com/ 

TO All Readers: 

Due to report card crunch time and moving (back to my brand new classroom, Yehhhhhh!) at school, I will refrain myself from writing for personal enjoyment for a week. However, I will still read your lovely comments everyday. Thanks for coming by. 

Julia 

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To CFPing: 

Welcome to my blog. Thank you for your visit. I love to read people’s comments and learn about their experiences. I also like to know what readers think of my writing. 

Congratulations to Eric, Christina and Irene! 
I am very proud of these students from my first class in Canada. Eric Lee has been accepted by the University of Toronto for their graduate study (Occupational Therapy). He is in Taiwan right now attending his sister Amy's wedding. Irene Ha has been accepted by at least three medical schools (possibly five) and has decided to attend University of Ottawa for their medical program. Christina Han will be attending the grad school at Queen's University as well. I only taught them for three years at the Chinese School, but it is every teacher's dream to see the students grow up, be successful and eventually surpass the teacher one day. They really made me proud! I told my husband that although I did not teach them for long, at least my letters of reference worked, for helping two of them, Eric and Irene. Hahahaa. It is every teacher's proud moment, simply an honour by the slightest association. I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO HAPPY for them. I know that I will hear more from the other students soon.

I met Jenny when she first sent her son Eric to my Chinese class 14 years ago. Our relationship as parent and teacher has grown into solid friendship over the years. She is just like my family here in Canada. She knows that my family is all in Taiwan. Whenever I am coming down with illness, she would be the first one to check on me, which is something that only a family member would do. 

I taught Jenny's youngest son Eric at our local Chinese School for 3 years. I ended up quitting that position because I was too busy with my day school job and needed a break on the weekend. Jenny's daughter, Amy, who was a student at University of Toronto then, took over half of my Chinese class. Time flies. I can't believe that the young high school girl I met 14 years ago is now ready to step into another stage of her life. Her husband-to-be, Sean, is a caring young man who has a good plan for his career and his family. My husband and I would like to wish them luck for their future plan. 

The Lees are all in Taiwan right now for the big day on June 16. Unfortunately, someone (moi) has to stay here to work till the end of June and will not be able to attend their wedding. Let's share their joy on the blog with all my readers. Congratulations to Sean and Amy!

*For their big day, I've attached a popular wedding music here to play on my blog, Canon in D Major, by Johann Pachelbel.

 

The satellite campus of the university I went to was not too far from where I used to live. It took me only an hour and ahalf to get to school in the morning. To tell the truth, it was not much of a campus either. The university basically rented a section of apublic school as their satellite campus. There were about 120 students at the satellite campus. I still remember, on the orientation day there were only four or five visible minority students; one black fellow, two East Indians, and myself. Later on, I found out there was another Iranian lady.

We were put in three or four different counseling groups. It was quite nerve-racking to be the only ethnic student in my counseling group. My classmates were civil to me, but I could sense that they seemed to be quite distant. I was quiet in my group because I always observed first in a new environment ever since I came to this country. I was definitely not shy at all; however, I could sense that people were hesitant to talk to me. If I initiated aconversation, I usually got very polite and brief responses from others. I worked hard trying to fit in the group, but I knew that it would not be easy to make any close friends. This was the university that tried to deter me to go to U of T instead because someone thought that I would fit into the ethnic category at another school. No matter what, I was planning to stay put. Later on, I was surprised to find out some terrible things that happened to the other ethnic students. The following is the story.

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I met one of the East Indian students on the bus when we were onthe way to our orientation. I initiated a conversation and was veryhappy to find out that we were heading to the same place. (Who else would take a long bus ride to the very end of town?) We were both new immigrants in a new land, pretty much like being in the same boat. She was very easy to talk to, and obviously we were both excited about the year ahead. We were placed in different counseling groups, so I did not have opportunities to see her often. After September, I saw her once a while in the hallway, but then she just disappeared. I didn’t find out where she went until later on.

One day during the study on Racism and Multiculturalism in Educational Psychology, the professor told us about his experience as a young Polish immigrant in Canada. He dropped out of high school because of the abuse and bullied experiences that he had received from his classmates and teachers at his old high school in Windsor Ontario about 40 years ago. His abusive father was very upset with him, so he then left home to learn a trade at a flourmill and bakery shop. For a poor immigrant family, if you did nothave an education, you might as well go into the hard labor force to learn a skill.

I arrived in Canada close to the end of October in 1990. By the time we started the immigration application process and went through the wedding plan, Christmas was then quickly approaching. I did not have any time at all to prepare for either job or school application. The deadline for university application is usually at the end of December in Ontario. I missed the deadline so that I could not attend any university until a year later in September. I finally applied for universities a year later and spent another half a year for the application process. Most of the time was spent on waiting and waiting for admission notice to arrive. By the time I was ready to go to the Faculty of Education, two years had passed.

After my first visit to a university admission officer, I did not feel optimistic at all about getting into teaching in Ontario. Maybe the officer was right, I thought. Toronto was the hub for all the Chinese immigrants who tried to get out Hong Kong before 1997. Most of the immigrants landed in Toronto. I thought maybe the University of Toronto would be accepting more ethnic students because of the increasing Chinese population. Anyway, a year later, I applied for three universities after I visited a few and figured out how the university application process worked.

Meanwhile, I took a TOEFL test and started taking evening credit courses at a university in the neighboring city. Unfortunately, this particular one did not offer any degree in Education. Instead, I took psychology, which is also an area of interest to me. I also went to adult high school learning centre during the daytime to take high school credits for some social studies courses to familiarize myself better with the political and social systems here. I was trying to keep myself busy throughout the days because I had too much idle time sitting at home and doing nothing. Joblessness drove me nuts!

Finally the university notice arrived in spring 1992, and I was on the waiting list for U of T. (Sigh!) I was not accepted by another university in Toronto which took me three hours to get there for an interview. (Thank God!) Surprisingly, I was accepted by the university that I had a terrible encounter with the admission officer. I didn’t really want to go to that university, but I guess life always has a twisted turn. I ended up going there because I didn’t have time to wait for U of T to go through the list. I could only count the eggs in my basket. I, however, considered myself lucky to be able to get accepted at all. My in-laws told me that I should accept the offer and go to the university just to prove that officer wrong. So, I did!

The university I chose was a great one for me in terms of location and transportation. This university had a satellite campus in the same town where I was taking university credits for psychology. I was quite familiar with the busing system by then. Even though it was farther away from me, but I didn’t mind getting up early and spending an hour and a half waiting for buses. I was lucky enough to get in a Faculty of Education, which is like winning a lottery in my view!

Living in North America without a car is like walking without a leg. Unless you are living in one of those big cities where trains, buses and subways are all well connected, you would be quite limited to how fast you could get around town. I thought I could live here like my other life in Taiwan, hopping on the bus or flagging down a taxi and it would take me everywhere I wanted to go. Ha, not here! It is not easy to live in a small town in Canada, the second largest country in the world! It is almost impossible to walk to places nearby, especially in the winter time. I was mostly home bound and very dependent on my husband who would take me places to do simple things after he got home from work. (I guess that’s why we have established the habit of doing things together on the weekend ever since we got married.)

The bus system in my city has not changed much for the last 20 years. This is how the local bus system works. A bus usually takes passengers from one end of the city to the centre hub, most likely the train stations or the bus terminal. Unlike Taiwan, these buses only run every half hour or every hour. The passengers then have to transfer to another bus to reach their final destinations as long as their first bus arrives on time or ahead of time, or the passengers would have to hang around longer at the hub for quite a while to connect to another bus. From one end of the town to the other could mean that the passengers probably have to transfer a few times on the bus.

Normally the trip to a local mall or a grocery store might only take us 20 minutes of car ride, but it would take me more than an hour to get there by bus. If I wanted to go to a nearby town or city, I would have to take a train, or take those buses that run only twice or three times a day. So, the trip to the next town for me used to be a full day event, which was very inefficient way to get things done. 

I had the first hand painful experiences with the busing system when I got here. I had to take buses frequently to travel to the immigration office in a neighbouring town. We did not hire a lawyer or an immigration consultant to handle our immigration application. I had to be in charge of doing everything myself from immigration to my education or job application. My husband had to work and I simply could not ask him to take too many days off just to accompany me to visit places. The on-line application or cell phones were unheard of at the time, so I had to visit those government offices in person.

 
At first, it was a novelty to take buses because there were so many things to see and places to visit. I really enjoyed the bus ride and scenery. As the time went by, the novelty wore thin and it became a pain in the neck to wait for the buses! Sometimes, it took me forever to finally reach a government office, but the office then informed me that I missed this paper or that paper and I had to go back again. I hate that! Did they know that I couldn’t travel within the same day on a bus? No! I had to go back again just to finalize a simple thing. Another day meant another bus trip across town for me.

It is almost reaching that graduation time. I bet many of you arethinking about songs with lyrics that would bring inspiration tomotivate students. Here are two of those songs that I reallyenjoy.

If you do like these songs, I suggest that you should go and buy theseCDs. It is always handy to have "tools" when you need them. Thesevideos are only used to give teachers some ideas about teaching English through media literacy. That is the beauty of using media to teach English because you can findall kinds of materials around you, such as a brochure, a poster, a recipe or a song, to teach the language. In fact,you can get even deeper and more advanced to view the making of YOU RAISE ME UP asanother lesson for older students. (I used to teach adults inTaiwan. Sometimes, you have to make your teaching fun!)

I just taught a group of primary students to read the instructions for the game, Monopoly, this afternoon. Those students all claimed that they knew how to play the game. So, with their prior knowledge, it should be very easy to get into reading and understanding the instructions. At the end, they were amazed that they did not know all the rules. Some adults never like to read instructions either. It always amazes me that people can not follow simple instructions to put together a piece of furniture they bought. (Hahaha. I have the first hand experience! I used to work at a furniture store as a store manager.) We just have to teach them when they are young, I guess.


Sung by R. KELLY

"I Believe I Can Fly"

My Favourite Group- Il Divo
My husband and I went to their concert a year ago on Valentine's Day. I love their voice. I have been a fan since day one. This song is great for Mother's Day. Words are simple enough for some older ESL students.

Mama, thank you for who I am 
Thank you for all the things I'm not 
Forgive me for the words unsaid 
For the times I forgot 
Mama remember all my life 
You showed me love, you sacrificed 
Think of those young and early days 

Years ago when I first came to Canada, it was very difficult for foreign-trained teachers to get into teaching. The timing was not right for me either because the whole country was just slipping into recession. Traditionally, teaching profession has been perceived as a more secured profession; therefore, many people were trying to get into teaching during the tough time then. It was almost impossible to get into any Faculty of Education to become a teacher. At the time, the Ontario government did not allow foreign universities to set up camps in Canada either. So, the admission to any Faculty of Education was just like winning a lottery. It was even more difficult for me, a new immigrant who got a degree in English Language from a foreign university in Taiwan. My English was no better than any other students who just finished their university education.

I got my degree from Fu Jen Catholic University. I was an ESL teacher at Fu Jen Adult Continuing Education for a few years. I also taught children English for many years as well. During the daytime, I had a full time job working for a manufacturer/exporter. For a few years before I came to Canada, I was involved in designing and broadcasting on a children’s radio program, Po Po and Co Co Time, teaching English on the air in Taiwan. (My voice was the character, Co Co.) Basically, I was an experienced English teacher in Taiwan without the paper of an Education degree. The irony is that English langue may be a hot commodity in Asia, but in the western world, everyone speaks English here. My language ability made my transition to the life here a bit easier. I was able to communicate without much difficulty, but it certainly did not equip me with an employable “Canadian profession” in a new country.

My husband told me that if I had difficulty finding a job, I could just stay home and be a regular housewife, and he would support me. I, of course, dismissed this idea right away because I simply could not see myself as a stay-at-home housewife for the rest of my life. (Now I sometimes regret my quick decision then and wish that I could just stay home. My husband said it is too late to change my mind now. I dug a hole seventeen years ago, and now I am in it too deep. Hahahaa. That’s too bad!) Life was a drastic change for me then, from being a professional who used to work seven days a week in Taiwan and love every minute of it to being a housewife who sat at home all day long in Canada.

We discussed about the idea of my becoming an elementary school teacher in Canada before I even landed in Canada. So, after we got married, we had no doubt that I should follow the direction and just prepare myself to pursue a teaching career. Immediately, I looked into the possibility of getting into a Faculty of Education, or so called a teachers’ college. A teacher in Ontario requires dual degrees, including a degree in Education. To apply for the Faculty of Education, the applicant needs to have at least a post secondary university degree. With completion of the Bachelor of Education, the candidate then will be qualified to apply for a teaching certificate, a license to teach in Ontario. Each province has their own accreditation process.

I landed in Ontario in late October. The deadline for the university application was in December. It was impossible for me to get all the paperwork ready and take the TOEFL test in time before the deadline. No university would take in a student who did not even have the paper of landed immigrant status. It was quite expensive to study as an international student. So, while waiting for my application in the coming year, I decided to go back to school for free to kill time, high school that is!