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Jen , Sabrina (任紀蘋)
In a classroom, there are two kinds of silence: a good and a bad. Good being when students are silently working on the given assignment with great concentration, the later being when the students are completely clueless regarding what the teacher is instructing.
On my first day of teaching during the AID Summer 2014 program, I was extremely proud of myself when I thought that I was witnessing my students in the state of good silence as their heads were bent over, scribbling on pieces of paper on their desks to create a personalized name card. But as I began walking around the room and looking over the shoulders of these 11 and 12 year olds, I realized that my thoughts were drastically contrary to reality. My students had no idea what the instructions which my partner and I had briefly described earlier meant. Instead of writing down their favorite sports, animals, food, and cities on their name cards, our students were drawing pictures and decorating their pieces of paper. Although thoroughly impressed with their artistic creativity, my partner and I were flustered and admittedly confused about how these middle school aged students could not follow those simple instructions given in simple English.
Rather than being determined to change this, I was knocked down by the challenge and had to resort to having the teacher aid translate most things from English to Mandarin for our students to understand. At the end of the first day, our students did not even wave goodbye enthusiastically as expected. Instead, they shyly nodded and ran off, discussing in Mandarin about how they didn't understand us American teachers at all.
Fortunately, our students opened up to us greatly the next day when they realized that we like playgrounds by asking us questions in broken English. Enthusiastic and happy that we were actually just humans like they were, our students grabbed our hands as the entire class ran towards the school playground. From this point on, our relationship with our students gradually improved.
By the Wednesday of the second week, most of the students shared the misery of not being able to attend school due to the typhoon. My Facebook exploded with messages from our students sent sad face emojis about how they were so disappointed that there was no school. Never would I have thought on the first day that I myself would be disappointed about school being cancelled.
I was able to teach our students to not be afraid of English and to work their away around in order to avoid having any contact with the language. I found their interests during the teaching process and along with my partner learned how to apply their likes with English so that they could enjoy each and every class period rather than look forward to the time when school was out. I am proud to say that there were much more moments of the good type of silence than the bad type. Not only was the experience rewarding for me as a teacher, I was able to learn even more for my students than what I thought them. I learned from the fact that although many of my students were children living in a rural area and lacked an English education, they were still enthusiastic about the learning process and were willing to do so in order to improve their lives. The respectful way they acted around me while being playful at the same time due to the fact that I was their teacher made me realize how little respect I display for my teachers at home.
Overall, this trip allowed me to open to new people in a whole new way which I have never experienced before. It opened my eyes to different situations and allowed me to meet some of the best people in my life who I will keep in touch with for a long time in the future.
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Chang, Jason (張皓維)
During my time teaching in Changhua, I've had to experience things and say several things I never thought I would ever have to do and say. Teaching first grade children has been both a fun experience and a challenge at the same time. It was fun to play games and activities with them, but they constantly keep losing focus and always start talking, so it was mostly a matter of patience with them to wait for them all to quiet down. That or I could make a really loud sound then take away points. That method works even faster. I also had to deal with the internal friction of the class, like who hates who, who keeps distracting who, etc. So I had to constantly separate people so they don’t constantly fight each other or talk to each other. At one point in my class, I had to actually change the people on several teams. Out of the four teams, only one was good while everyone else was dysfunctional to some degree. One group was pretty much the crybaby group, another group didn’t care about getting points, and another group only had one or two people actually participate in the games and activities. So I ended up letting them choose their own teams and had to scrap the idea to make them learn to get along with their team members, because from what I saw in their interactions with each other, they would never start to like each other any time soon. Also, I felt like I didn’t really teach them anything except for spelling. Almost everything I wanted to teach them, they already knew to a certain extent. Like One day I wanted to teach them the heads, shoulders, knees, and toes song. I told them to repeat heads and shoulders, and they all started to do the rest of the song on their own, which ruined my plan for most of that day, but I was still able to teach them to properly sing the eyes, ears, mouth, and nose part. And not just the song, I really meant it when I said they knew everything. They knew the alphabet, some of the kids could count up to twenty in English, they already knew a few fruits in English like apple, and so on. And when I did start to teach them something, I had to repeat it several times. Sometimes, they would seem to get bored, which told me to move onto the next activity, but they get bored so easily that I had no choice but to keep doing the same activity for a while. Also, when I tried to review things with them, it became more apparent that they would have no way to retain everything I taught, so I decided to just keep teaching new things without really reviewing or planning on them remembering all of it, so I really had to improvise the second week and scrap whatever plan I made. So overall, it was a pretty good experience. I learned how to keep the kids entertained and how to teach them effectively. Also, near the end, I think I found the perfect ratio of lecturing to games. I also learned to be innovative by adding my own personal twists to certain games we were taught at the camp.
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Chang, Marnie (張心如)
I applied to aid summer teaching program because my cousin did it two years ago. When you ask him about his experience teaching English, he goes on about how much fun he had and all the friends that he made. My mom then encouraged me to apply because she knew that it would be a great experience for me and a great opportunity to help others. She also knew that once I start college next year I won't have time to visit Taiwan over the summer. I applied to this program feeling nervous about the idea of living in Taiwan by myself especially because my Chinese isn't great. I was also nervous that my English wouldn't be good enough because my initial goal was to teach the students perfect English in the two weeks. Once I got accepted I was delighted that I had the opportunity to teach English to those less fortunate, but I also started worrying about how I would teach them.
It was only after a few classes at Chientan was I relieved and super excited about the adventures to come in the next few weeks. It was at Chientan did I realize that the goal for the two weeks wasn't that students would be able to speak perfect English but to spark their interest and love for learning English. I left Chientan excited to meet the students, to inspire the students, to learn more about life of a Taiwanese student, and to learn more about the culture.
The play that our teacher wanted us to perform at the end of the two weeks was the called The Little Prince. We decided beforehand that each of us would be in charge of a planet which the little prince would visit during the play. So we chose our planets based on what we are good at. I chose arts and craft because I like making things. My lesson plan became about arts and craft and the vocab associated with making things. Due to the fact that each volunteer had a different topic to teach to the students and that we wanted all the students to learn all the topics, we decided that we were going to switch the classes of 20 students each every two days.
The first day of teaching was exhausting, but I also learned a lot about my students and their English level. It was hard getting the class excited and pumped up for the activities my partner and I had planned. I quickly realized that it was because they couldn't really understand what we were saying. So we ended up saying the instructions and then repeating it slower and tried to used simpler synonyms. If we still saw blank faces staring back at us, we would have our TAs translate it to them. However, it was sometimes even hard to explain the instructions to the TAs because they haven't played all the same games that we are familiar with. For example, they had never played capture the flag so that took awhile to explain it to the TAs in our broken Chinese. The TAs definitely helped with the language barrier and I gained confidence knowing that I could still be an efficient teacher despite my poor Chinese. On the first day I was also pleasantly surprised by how eager the students were to learn English. I noticed their eagerness when I saw them writing down the action words that they were learning even though they weren't told to. They were taking notes and it was clear that they wanted to absorb and learn as much as possible from us. At that point knowing that the students wanted to learn made me want to work harder to create a lesson plan that would teach them a lot while still being fun. Luckily, the second day of teaching went a lot smoother because we knew the kids better and learned from the first day how to get their attention. The kids got more energetic and talked more in class on the second day. One thing that was helpful in dealing with the change in the classroom atmosphere was to create a chant. The chant was a way of telling the students to be quiet and to look at the teacher right away. Once we established the chant the class was still lively but it gave us a way to get their attention quickly and still have control of the classroom.
Knowing that I had to teach the same lesson two more times to different classes, I revised my lesson plan everyday. I found it helpful having my lesson plan printed out and jotting down any notes regarding what I would do better or any changes I made on the spot while I was teaching. By keeping track of the changes I made throughout the lesson, I was able to improve my lesson plan and tailor it to the students. Even though saying goodbye to the students that I finally got to know better on the second day was hard, I liked that we changed the group of students. The ability to start with a clean slate with a new group of students was a great way to learn and to improve what I learned from the previous class.
Through trial and error I learned a lot about how to teach effectively. Most of the time power points with vocabulary and pictures are boring and the students tune out. The best way to get the students excited about learning and increase the chance of them remembering what you just taught them is to teach through interactive activities. One activity that my students really liked was when I asked them to come up and draw the animal next to the vocab. The drawings ended up becoming really funny looking because not everyone is an artist. I believe the funniness of the drawings helped the students remember the words because they associate the word with the picture in their minds. And who can forget a funny picture that quickly?
One activity or moment I won't forget is the creativity activity. After teaching the students color, shapes, and animals, I decided to do a final review on the second day and final day before rotating groups of kids. Instead of giving the students specific guidelines to follow I wanted them to be creative and to think outside the box. I wanted them to be inspired by everyday objects and to create something interesting. I gave them each a few colored pencil shavings and wanted the pencil shavings to inspire them to create an animal or an object. Every time I did this activity I was always amazed by the creative things the students came up with by only using pencil shavings, pen, colored pencils, and shapes.
Despite my initial fears and nervousness, I am super glad I had the opportunity to go to Shenkeng junior high school to teach the students there English. I have learned a lot about myself and met a lot of great people. If I had the chance, I would repeat the last two weeks over again in a heart beat. I started off as a foreigner teaching English with strangers and now I am about to end this trip with many memorable memories and a new palace I can call home. This experience honestly made me understand the phrase that it is the people of Taiwan that make Taiwan beautiful. I will never forget about this trip because of the amazing people that I have met this past month.
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Cheng, Shu Yun (鄭舒云)
AID Reflection
When I first saw that I was admitted to AID, I was ecstatic about returning to Taiwan. The only thing I thought about was how much fun I would have in Taiwan (I was returning for 2 months). It did not even cross my mind that my summer would be filled with plenty of new experiences and this summer would be a life altering event.
When I first got to Jian Tan, I already knew that my five days would be filled with grueling hours of lecture and plenty of penalties, rules, and restrictions. My first night at Jian Tan was alright. I met my other two roommates who I was to spend the next month with and we all seemed to get along pretty well. My third roommate entered into our room in the middle of the night at 1 AM and I didn’t even notice. As training week passed by, I got to meet my fellow group of 8 (four boys and four girls) and I found out that I got along with them pretty well. I was a little bit intimidated when I found out I was placed to teach fifth and sixth graders, all of whom were taller than me. During training week, there was almost no room to get to know every member of my group of 8 but I became pretty close to my roommates. Training week was informative but it was very restricting. Even though we sat for hours and hours, I learned a lot from training week. In fact, my classroom management skills and teaching plans all stem from training week. My favorite part of training week was going to Shi Lin night market. I had such a great time and the trip to the night market made up for the hard and grueling week.
When we parted for our schools, I was so happy and relieved. In my naïve mind, I thought to myself, what could be so hard about teaching children? I was about to find out. The first couple of days at You Mu Elementary, I went river trekking during the weekends. The staff, teachers, and military officer at You Mu Elementary were very relaxed and welcoming. They were all in their early twenties so it was easy to get along with them; we found many topics to talk about and we became close friends. The first day of teaching really scarred many of my group members. One of my group members had to yell at his students repeatedly at the top of his lungs, another one of my group members had to pry kids off his back, and many of my group members cried because of the disrespect she received from the kids. My teaching partner and I did not experience any of this at the first couple days of teaching. My students were angels compared to the rest of the kids at the school until the third day. On the third day, my students suddenly shifted into noisy, rowdy, and extremely disrespectful students. I struggled to control them and teach them. I struggled so hard to have them see me as a teacher and not a little sister. Part of my struggles was due to my short stature and baby face. None of them saw me as a teacher and tended to respect my teaching partner even more. So, I laid down the rules. I stopped being so lenient and stuck by my rules. I established a set of rules and laid out the consequences for my students. Almost immediately, they changed the way they treated me. They began to respect me as a teacher and did not treat me as a babysitter any longer. I learned that being a teacher and being a big brother/sister are two different things; the two cannot coexist at one time. Initially, I disliked my students as they were the most rebellious (they were 5th and 6th graders) and they were the most rowdy. However, as I taught and discovered different teaching strategies, I discovered that I loved these kids. I wanted to see them grow and develop. Seeing as they came from very difficult upbringings and very complex backgrounds, I did not want to punish them for no reason. I wanted to help them, to help them in a way that their families are unable to reach them. I felt attached to these children and they eventually warmed up to me despite me being the “bad cop” in the classroom. I really loved these children and it really broke my heart to see them leave on the bus. Every single one of my students gave me tight hugs and some even gave me second, and third hugs. I, along with seven other AID volunteers, stood near the bus as they left the bus. When I saw them off, it didn’t occur to me that I would never see them again. As the bus left and I saw their faces and hands plastered to the window, waves of tears would not stop coming. These students who I have witnessed grow in two weeks were about to leave and I would not be there to witness their growth in the future. I cried for several hours nonstop. This was the first time I cried in a long time.
I, along with three girls and four boys were grouped together into A1-2. In the beginning, we were extremely quiet and shy around each other; I felt extremely awkward with this group. As I lived with my three other girls in my group for the first week, I became a lot closer to them naturally and I really got along well with them despite our different personalities. As a group, we were still very awkward and quiet. However, as training week ended and we went to 有木Elementary, we began to joke around with each other. The first week at 有木 passed by so fast. Every afternoon we would get together in the library, all 8 of us as well as my fabulous teacher, and three other assistants to discuss our teaching. Later, we would eat dinner together in a circle and joke around. At night, we would work on our teaching plans and play so many different kind of games as a whole group until very late. It felt like a big, warm family. I felt so close to everyone. The weekends were amazing. I haven’t had so much fun in a very long time. I got so much closer to my group members. The second week passed by so fast and I cried again when I saw my teacher and the military officers/teaching assistants leave. I was never this emotional before AID. The tour week was fun, but not nearly as fun as my two weeks at 有木. The two weeks of teaching were phenomenal, life altering, and amazing.
Thank you AID for giving me this wonderful experience. Through the two weeks, I discovered that I love teaching and now know the reason why. In one month, I learned so many things. I found confidence that I didn’t realize I had. I made so many close friends who I will miss dearly. I learned so many new teaching strategies and classroom management skills through trial and error.
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Chien, Melissa (簡珮如)
This trip has taught me about how hard it is to teach, especially for so many hours at a time. Honestly, I was a bit over-confident in the beginning, since I have tutored people before, but it is a lot more difficult to keep them entertained for so many hours, and get past the language barrier. The first few days were the longest and most difficult, as the lesson plan was not as organized as it should have been. I am a very step-by-step person, so we realized from the first few awkward days that we needed to transition much better by ordering the games/lessons in a way that made the most sense. It was also difficult to get the kids to open up more, and they started off very shy. They were shy even with each other, and the first few icebreaker games sort of failed in getting them to be more excitable. We soon realized that they liked games such as musical chairs though, and tried making them more comfortable by speaking with them one-by-one in more casual, during break conversations. Another challenge was the knowledge gap, which was more prominent in our class than the other three ones. Again, some one-on-one time helped a little by making the lower-performing more willing to participate in class. We succeeded partly, as Jerry became more enthusiastic, but Wei-ren still remained rather silent and reserved. I really appreciated the natural class leaders as they made the class a lot more fun and lively, and added to discussions. The ending period of outside activities was also integral to making them more comfortable with interacting with each other and the teachers. We spent lots of time just thinking of the best activities that would achieve this goal. It’s really cliché, but this experience really was as much as, if not more, a lesson to me as it was to the kids we were teaching. I learned what worked and what did not – often times we had an activity that we considered interesting, but the kids did not. The constant struggle to find activities fun yet informative kept us on our toes (PowerPoints, though an easy way to spread information, was often the source of boredom). Though we didn’t really have trouble kids, I learned a lot about how to manage classrooms and keep them motivated (Coke and drinks work especially well, though they are not viable for everyday rewards). I’m really grateful for all the people that have helped us so much, especially the teacher Joy, who helped us revise the lesson plans and kept us going. I complained and groaned plenty about the work to do, but knew that Joy was looking out for the best and a successful next day. The principal provided so many amazing accommodations for us, and the T.A.s were really helpful in the group discussions held every day. I met so many amazing people, especially in my students, and this trip is definitely a memory I will cherish for a long time.
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Wu, Robert (吴信賢)
When I was first admitted into AID, I had incredibly low expectations of the entire program. Most of my motivation to attend was derived from my family, which had sent my older brother to AID for the past two years. However, my expectations of the AID program didn’t exactly improve as the weeks inched closer to my teaching debut. From the constant technical hiccups that AID experienced when posting school assignments, to the bewildering conversations I had with some of my fellow teachers (who claimed that they had no desire to teach (and wouldn’t teach much to their students if at all)), and the nearly inedible food at ChienTan (meat with ice-cream sprinkles, anyone?); the opening week of AID was one to forget. My only glimmer of hope came when my teaching partner and I clicked in our teaching plans, and developed an inseparable bond through our ability to teach, motivate others, and improvise when needed. In all honesty, however, my ability to synchronize with my teaching partner did little to relieve the overall stress brought on by the program. By the end of a week filled of unhelpful classes, I was ready to give up and leave the program.
Things didn’t get much better during the opening days at CingShuei Elementary School, located in the isolated She-tou Township of Changhua, Taiwan. On the first day of class, the “advanced” group of children that I voluntarily agreed to teach, acted like a group of clowns, with some attempting to name their table group after a Taiwanese swear word. To add to my stress, the teaching partner that I had bonded so well with at ChienTan split with me, leading to a handful of nights where I designed a day’s worth of curriculum while my partner caught up on the makeup of the class. My caffeine intake through the first nights was insane – going through massive cups of coffee and tea to finish grading papers and prepping PowerPoints by 4 AM (and get two hours of sleep). If there was anything that AID taught me over the first few days at She-tou, it was simple: the teaching profession, at least at the elementary school level, was a career path to completely avoid.
Thankfully, though, things got easier as time rolled along. My amazing teaching partner adapted quickly and elegantly to the different challenges that my class provided, and proved to be a savior in relieving my workload and stress levels. My students began to demonstrate the high level of English that they had as my trust in them grew, and began to show enthusiasm for each and every one of the PowerPoints that my partner and I spent hours creating, but burned out every forty minutes. Puzzles, such as crosswords, word searches, and Pictionary; helped create a more interactive learning environment. Slowly, but surely, the kids began to learn – and had an incredible desire to do so. They began taking notes without any requirement to do so, and were eager to complete advanced worksheets that I had designed to test their minds. They happily participated in class exercises, turning each game of “Bob Draws” or “Jeopardy” into a symphony of ten-year old voices screaming their lungs out when providing the answer. Most importantly to me, my students became more confident and expressive in their use of the English language – and developed a thirst for learning even more about the language, even after my teaching partner and I left. When I first arrived in She-tou, my class refused to say more than a few words of English to me, resorting to Mandarin to express their feelings, answers, and complaints. By the end of the two short weeks, my students bloomed into thoughtful, careful speakers; still equally snarky in their comments and complaints, but able to communicate in English.
Of course, none of this would have even happened if not for the amazing work of AID across all levels. Starting with ChienTan: a special shout-out to all the 小灰灰’s (gray-shirted counselors), for volunteering weeks of their time to manage a group of four-hundred screaming, hyper teenagers, while also spending their free time and risking their lives for ensuring that we had an amazing experience during both ChienTan Training Week (Shilin Nightmarket) and on the tour. On the local level, I’d like to personally thank Cindy (our amazing head teacher), for spending an endless amount of time especially for dealing with my relentlessly insulting deluge of alcoholic and romantic jokes; Wen and Jimmy (族人和教练), our directors, for making sure that I was well fed, rested, and entertained (and for providing lots of advice regarding life); 校長(Principal), for providing us the opportunity to come over to Cingshuei and teach (and for making our life at the school incredibly relaxing and comfortable); all of the 台灣小志工 (all of the Teacher Assistants), especially those who worked with my Class B, to keep the rowdy kids in check, grade and pass back assignments, and translate anything and everything needed; the Xiao Family (Nelson, Eva, 阿姨，叔叔，爺爺，和阿媽) for opening their house – and their arms -to a group of four strangers, and treating us like family (complete with dinners, shaved ice runs, paper grading, food making, coconut hacking, hand washing our clothes, and tolerating my constant dawn sleepwalking); and all other adults and others associated with my peaceful living (there are so many that I can’t write all of their names here); to my Class B Students, for eagerly working every day, no matter what temperament or sleep-deprivation-mode I was in; and, last, my A3-1 Team (Jennifer, Kelly, Eileen, Jason, Arthur, and Matthew), for accepting (okay, maybe just barely tolerating) my rage-powered foul mouth, huge appetite, and incredibly enclosed demeanor. Last, but certainly not least, I owe pretty much everything I own to my amazing, talented, and helpful teaching partner, Minda, for working so well with me, despite a multitude of lingering factors, including, but not limited to: dealing with a completely new class curriculum, prepping PowerPoints and worksheets in the evening despite being in completely different households, working around my varying attitude issues, and gracefully handling some awkward feelings toward the end of the program. There’s one quote that sums up this program for me – okay, maybe two. The first comes from 阿姨, who said on the first night that I was in She-tou: “We just want you to enjoy your stay here. We want to make sure that while you are here in She-tou, you feel just as relaxed as you normally are in your regular homes. After all, you are family.” Quite honestly, I was treated a lot better here in Cingshuei than I normally ever was at home in San Francisco. The second comes from on of the training videos that was shown to us during ChienTan Training Week. It was incredibly simple: “Look, in two weeks, you’re not going to be able to turn these kids into Shakespeare-reading English masters, but you can change their interests so that they love the language more.” Admittedly, I never really heeded this advice until I met my students, but I’m so glad that it was provided to me – because otherwise, I truly would have scared the students away from learning English ever again. It’s incredibly sad that this program has to end soon (all good things must come to an end), but the memories and lessons brought aboard by the many students, teachers, peers, and adults I met, will remain seared in my heart and memory forever. Thank you, AID, for providing a truly amazing experience.
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Cheng, Dexter (鄭銘)
When I first applied to AID Summer 2014, it was purely under the demand of my dad. I didn’t have anything planned for summer. College applications were coming out during the summer and all I wanted to do was relax. But I still took my application seriously and put some time and effort into writing the personal statement and filling out the forms. I remember putting on the finishing touches and doubting that I’d be outstanding enough to be accepted. I beat the deadline by a couple days, but still my self-esteem was pretty low and the doubts continued grow inside me. The month of March passed by without incident but with the server malfunction in April, I consistently checked the AID website hourly. Eventually, my fears were confirmed when I was put on the waitlist. I didn’t know that over a thousand people actually applied to this program at the time. So I just sort of sunk into myself during school, wondering about what to do with my summer. At school, I was pretty quiet and reserved. I didn’t really speak unless I had to. Growing up in that environment was rough for me. My classmates had known me since elementary school so it’d be strange to just change my personality overnight. I felt like I couldn’t be myself. So my confidence dropped the further the school year went by. The spring semester went by slowly and everyone was getting tired of the same routine. Break was so close yet so far. The seniors wanted to graduate and I just wanted to be done with all my projects and do my own thing during the break. I didn’t expect to hear from AID Summer again during that time. But I decided to check the website one last time during June. Nothing. I gave up and just went back to working on my chemistry projects. The following day, I checked my email in class and started sweating when I saw the acceptance letter. I opened it immediately and clicked confirm on the website page. That was the beginning of a fresh start.
I hadn’t been back to Taiwan in over eight years since the last time I visited my family here in Taipei. Getting on the plane and flying alone to Taoyuan was a little scary at first. But I discovered that could my own in the language department. Communication with the airline employees went smoothly and I eventually got picked up by my uncle. I arrived in Taiwan a week before the program started. It was a chance to reconnect with my family after 8 years of minimal contact. I swear, I’ve never had to speak this much Mandarin with any English added in, ever. But it was manageable since I speak both fluently at home anyway. The adjustment to the climate however, was much rougher. Northern California is much dryer than Taiwan and its weather patterns are much more predictable. Thunderstorms are rare let alone rain. I had never experienced a typhoon before this trip either. I had to let go of many superficial worries as well because they didn’t really serve a function. Concerns of appearance, sweating excessively, bug bites, and personal insecurities started to die out as the days went by. By the time I got to Chientan I felt like a clean slate. I met my roommates after check-in and we didn’t really hit it off that great. It was awkward the first few days. But considering that I was a stranger to everyone, I could just be myself without having to worry about judgment. It was my opportunity to break free.
In my group, A2-1, we first met at the dinner table and the introductions there were also pretty iffy. The first impressions weren’t really that great and there was also an awful awkward silence hanging over the table. I really wanted to leave. But I endured it and just tried to get to know everyone. Over the next couple days, we had a heated conflict over partner selections that resulted in a lot of consultation from our teacher and pent up stress. I even got sick from it. I had to skip Shilin Night Market night because my roommate disappeared the night before to go pout about the whole conflict. The result was a bad cough and a severe headache. But aside from that, my time at Chientan taught me something. It feels much better to care for someone else and to help people, than to be solely concerned with your own needs and wants. My priority was to always make sure my friends were okay. This also involved letting petty things go and offering to listen to their grievances when it was necessary. The level of stress here was pretty high but it died down on the final day. We finally started getting along after talking things out. We made inside jokes, laughed together, and by the time we got on that bus, we were a team.
The bus ride to Miaoli County was around two to two and a half hours long. I expected Shihu Elementary to be really rundown and sketchy, but the campus was actually really nice. The director said the place was renovated a bit before we got there. All of us grabbed our luggage and set them down for a break. We got introduced to the landscape and spent a couple hours trying to absorb the beauty of the surrounding nature. Butterflies fluttered about the campus and we took pictures of the wilderness and fields on the way to the house we were to stay at. We got acquainted with the people living at the house and they welcomed us with open arms, so to speak. Us boys got settled in while the girls were busy unpacking. I was somewhat weary of the house since it was right at the foot of a mountain. Sure enough, we experienced cockroaches, lizards, grasshoppers, giant spiders, praying mantises, wasps, crickets, frogs, ants, snails, and mosquitoes. No one else wanted to deal with these pests. So armed with a racket zapper, I had to come to the rescue nearly every night. Again, I had to put my own fears aside for the benefit of others. While we set up the classrooms and taught during the day, at night we shared bits and pieces of who we were to each other. Stories of all different types spewed forth that weekend and I had to listen to every word of it. It opened up a new perspective and also provided confirmation of something I had believed in before. One, stereotypes are wrong wherever you go and two, people are just people, nothing more and nothing less. What does that mean? It means that no matter where you go and who you interact with, there are basic parts of human personality that are the same for nearly all kinds of people. They feel emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, jealousy, etc. They think about what other people think of them. Whatever the case, you can establish a connection with pretty much anyone as long as you make the effort. That’s what I did in the two weeks that followed. I connected to strangers from a different background, culture, and environment. In two short weeks, we had a bond going with the school, enough to make us, staff, and students burst out in tears at our departure. It was an amazing lesson my students helped to teach me. Bonds are easily formed, but not easily broken no matter what you do.
This final week my relationship with my teammates/friends has only deepened. I haven’t laughed this genuinely and this much in a long time. The lesson of forging bonds has continued to be reinforced as I quickly made friends with new roommates for other groups. It didn’t matter to me where they were from, what mattered most was who they are now and bond itself. This wasn’t just limited to us students, but also teachers and counselors. Mina, my former counselor during my time at Chientan, is now someone I can talk to or seek help from in case I need something or just feel like having a conversation. I feel like the counselors and teachers also deserve a bit of a break and some time to relax and have fun instead of just being bound constantly to responsibilities. My suggestion for next year’s AID Summer program is to offer such relief and leisure for all the volunteers. I mean the volunteers students, counselors, and the teachers for the different schools. I understand the issue of safety and bug bites. However, I’ve heard many complaints about the strictness of the rules and how it’s like the program is “running a prison” with the rules. I’ve seen a dramatic increase in interest and enthusiasm for learning from the kids just by limiting the rules to a few basic requirements and giving some more freedom. Perhaps the same could be done for the volunteers. After all, shouldn’t we nurture the bonds we’ve made even further without the worry of restrictions? Regardless, I feel like this experience was something I’ll treasure forever. It’s opened a lot of doors for me and I have friends to fall back on even after I return to the states. I remember seeing the song “Count On Me” by Bruno Mars in the handbook on the first day. I thought it was silly at first, but not it’s really materialized as this whole program’s experience. My friends count on me and I count on my friends. Everyone benefits. Best of all, through caring about, caring for, and helping others, I got my confidence back. This is a new beginning for me. I just have to pick the doors to enter and forge more friendships on the way.
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Tong, Theresa (唐淑贤)
AID SUMMER 2014 REFLECTION
When I first joined this program, I had no idea what I had signed up for. Not completely understanding what AID 2014 was, I halfheartedly signed the forms and hoped for the best. Although I had such an indifferent attitude in the beginning, when it was time to check if I had been accepted or declined, my heart was racing and my fingers were twitching. Scared to sign into my account, I waited an extra day to check, only to find that there was a problem with the site. After uploading all the forms again, I anxiously waited for the results. With my hands over my eyes, I slowly let them fall as I read my acceptance confirmation. I was so overjoyed, I couldn't even focus on school. All my mind would think about was that I got accepted and that I'd experience the opportunity of a lifetime in less than a month. As July 6th gradually approached, I patiently ticked off the days from my calendar one by one, hoping time would fly faster. As the date finally arrived, I was nervous from head to toe. At the airport saying goodbye to my parents for the last time, I took a deep breath and walked through the doors into the security check alone. With strangers all around me, I felt a little uneasy but in the end, I grew stronger and more mature with my first experience of riding the airplane alone. When I got off the plane at Taipei Taoyuan Airport, I was completely terrified and confused. Not knowing where to go or who to ask, I felt like a deer in the headlights. Still needing to switch currency I had never felt so lost in my life. Luckily I met someone who also was part of AID and together we made it out of the airport to find our counselors with signs waiting for us. I couldn't help but smile when I saw this sight.
The first week was difficult but rewarding. I knew no one here but as I walked through the door into my room at Chientan, I met someone who would be one of my closest friends in less than a week. She was nice and quirky but we got along well and together we helped our group and roommates get along well. After just a couple of days, the ice between the eight of us was broken and we all became the best of friends. As the days flew by and the teaching eventually came to a close, I was sad at the thought that we would all be separating soon.
Teaching was an experience I will never forget. Strolling through the dark brown, wooden door and seeing the empty desks for the first time, I felt a sense of awe and excitement. Walking through it again on the last day, an emotion unexplainable spread through my heart. The pain, the sadness, and the pride overwhelmed me-the pain and sadness of the departure and the pride that my students have improved in their English skills. The short time we spent together didn't prove to be an obstacle in the growing love and close proximity between my students and I. Their smiles and energetic faces will always remain and I sincerely hope we can meet again.
AID gave me an experience I can never forget. As every single day passes by, I wish there was a rewind button that I can continue pressing to return back to the first day. The friends I made, the lessons I learned, and the memories I gained will forever and always be stamped in my heart. The people in A1-1 are absolutely amazing and I feel so blessed to know them. The lessons I earned from the first week and teaching made me mature into a responsible adult, now capable of being more confident and standing by my decisions. The memories I made with my group and the people I've met are priceless. All the inside jokes we've made and all the laughs and tears we shared together are just a few of the things that we've enjoyed together as a whole. I would like to sincerely thank AID SUMMER 2014 for this wonderful opportunity to make a difference in the lives of many people and receive rewarding gifts in return-the adorable students, my precious friends, and the dear memories we have together will stay imprinted in my mind.
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Chen, Anita (陳柔恩)
Taiwan – my beautiful, mystical, second home. Until this summer, I believed that I understood the dynamics of Taiwan – her mountains, her rivers, her people. I was mistaken. Though in my seventeen years of living I have been to Taiwan countless times, I never strayed from the large cities of Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Hsinzhu. AID Summer opened my eyes to the beauty and eagerness of rural Taiwan. Inevitably, I had reckoned what my summer in rural Taiwan might be and therefore made what I trusted to be the necessary preparations. However, when I reached Lishan Elementary, reality – encased in both challenges and victories – hit me.
Honestly, my expectations of AID Summer were both misconstrued and skewed. In the two months before I flew to Taiwan, I created a comprehensive teaching plan as though I was the sole teacher. In addition, I packed one thin jacket, no waterproof shoes, and three bags of American candy. Because I have the pleasure of having three younger siblings, I knew that candy would be quite useful. This time, however, would be my first experience in teaching students who learned English as a second language. Although I was nervous, my excitement ultimately overwhelmed my fear. Little did I know, my expectations of AID Summer were soon to be shattered.
After landing in Taiwan, I quickly realized there were three major differences between my expectations and the reality of the situation. Firstly, the ability of the students. While speaking with the on-site counselor, she explained to me the actuality of the student’s English level. Mistakenly, I had assumed that the students at Lishan would possess roughly the same knowledge as students in Taipei. Secondly, the content of my teaching. As a direct result of the student’s ability in Lishan, I was forced to drastically change my teaching plans. Although I am satisfied with the final teaching plan, I regret needing to abolish ninety percent of my original teaching plan. Lastly, the amount of new skills I would gain as a result of this experience. Because of my five years of experience working with children, I thought AID Summer could not teach me much more than I already knew. What I experienced was the polar opposite. In Chientan Youth Center, the training I received was beyond invaluable. Each of the speakers were well-versed in teaching English to the children of Taiwan and taught me skills and techniques I will use for the rest of my career. Despite AID Summer not matching my expectations, I thoroughly enjoyed this experience and am even grateful that my expectations were not met.
In conclusion, I have learned more than I ever expected, laughed more than I ever expected, and loved more than I ever expected. I have been beyond thankful and honored to teach the children of Lishan Elementary. AID Summer, Lishan Elementary, and my students have genuinely shaped my outlook and perspective on love and life. Truly, I believe that they have taught me more than I have taught them. In this sense, the old Chinese saying rings true – from the blue, green emerges – the master has become the student and the student the master.
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Huynh, Jennifer (黃秋月)
I believe that the AID program really tried to make an amazing experience for all the volunteers. Though, starting from the first week at Chientan, the lectures were quite boring and I did not find myself using much of the information that I learned from the lectures in my own teaching. I think that as you teach, you adapt to the learning styles of the children and change your teaching accordingly.
The two weeks of teaching were really fun, but also very tasking. 竹田國小 was very small and isolated, but the students were just as friendly and had just as much enthusiasm and energy. The volunteers at the school lived in a church that was a little dirty, but it was very convenient and comfortable, in my opinion. A 7-eleven and FamilyMart were each a minute walk away. The director helped us with all he could manage, and made it a great experience. We visited Dream Mall on the weekend.
I was on the Central tour. The tour week was great, though the some of the living accommodations were a little cramped (six people to a small room). The visit to the Aboriginal Village/amusement park was the highlight of the trip. Visits to many other places were very informative and I learned a lot.
The AID summer program was a very different experience, and I got to see a little of the people in rural areas, and people from Hakka and Aboriginal descent. Teaching children is certainly a very difficult task, but it was enjoyable. I miss the students that I taught dearly and can still hear them say, “老師，帶我去美國玩!”
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Cheng, Chao-I (鄭喬尹)
Having gone to many summer camps in the past, I thought that AID Summer would be just like any other and that we would arrive, make some friends, have some fun, and that was it. I was wrong. In the program’s few weeks, I became so close with so many new friends and together, we’ve had an extraordinarily huge amount of fun and developed countless elaborate inside jokes. Looking back, I find it incredible that everyone got along so well. It must be that all of the volunteers and all of the teachers had many goals in common. Among them were certainly to enrich the lives of others, and to have fun. Through the silly introduction games and all the free time we were able to have together, all of us volunteer teachers have definitely had an incredible amount of fun. The first week allowed the teachers to get to know each other, and prepare for the two weeks of teaching.
Before getting the chance to enrich the lives of others, we had a training week at Chientan Youth Activity Center, with all of the teachers, counselors and volunteer teachers. Brilliant mentors with years of experience taught us skills that we would need for the two teaching weeks. Lectures involved topics such as how to manage a classroom, how to create exciting games, and how to create an instructive and appropriate curriculum for the kids. Though the days were filled with lectures, they were also filled with fun. Activities were strategically put between lectures so we wouldn’t constantly feel bored. After the training week ended, all of us felt more confident in our teaching abilities, and eager to start the two teaching weeks.
To get to our school, we needed to drive up a long but scenic route, and watched as the view became of trees and nature, rather than smog and buildings. Teaching began, and although the days passed excruciatingly slowly, the two weeks as a whole definitely passed by too quickly. I remember the first day clearly. We were nervous walking into our classroom for the first time, even though we had our lesson plans, teaching materials and skills that we had acquired from our training week. However, the first day was actually a disaster. Students could sense our lack of authority and took advantage. At the end of the day, we were completely stressed out and dearly hoped that the end would come more quickly. It did, but only because we began to trust our training, and started walking into class with more confidence.
Class began to become more fun, and we began to see improvement in our students. By playing fun games such as telephone, BINGO, and offering prizes, we were able to ensure that our students had fun and learned. Once every day for about forty minutes, every class in our school had an outdoor activity together, such as soccer or dodge ball. During those times, kids and teachers played together, and smiles were painted on everyone’s faces. The days kept passing, and eventually we were terribly sad to leave our students on the last day. As we left our mentors, our assistants and our students, drops of tears could be seen from the eyes of everyone. All of the memories that we’ve shared flashed before us and we were happy for all the photos that we have taken and posted on Facebook, because we know that whatever happens in life, we will never want to forget this summer and this incredible program.
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Yang, Erik (楊亞力)
Taiwan AID Summer is definitely a program I would recommend to other people. There are obviously many different summer programs out there that provide high school students and young adults to explore different academic pursuits and interests. However, I feel that Taiwan AID Summer provides a more well-rounded learning and self-growing experience as a person. Albeit it might not be Wharton's or Stanford's summer program, it is nevertheless prestigious and very much worth the time. I taught this year at 六腳國小 in 嘉義 County. I don't regret a thing.
The first week is comprised of various lectures, going over the basics of how to teach, in Chientan Youth Center. We were held in there with quite strict rules. Many people complained that it was a "prison". However, I feel these rules helped make the training more productive. Throughout the course of the week, I learned many activities and management techniques that I found useful when teaching the next two weeks.
The second and third week are when you teach at school. It was definitely a shock for me the first day because we overestimated our children's ability. We completely revamped our teaching plan in order to fit to the kids' level. Afterwards, we set a good rhythm. The two weeks of teaching is very enjoyable, since although I was teaching, I was still a very close friend to each student. This type of mentor-ship relationship is rarely experienced by school teachers. I often found students pouring over me to get a piggy-back ride. The food is also a lot better at the school, because there's a lot more freedom.
I learned so much from this program. I didn't learn more physics equations or how to make a business plan, but I learned a lot more about how to make friends, how to be a supporter, a leader, and ensure productivity. These skills range over a more broader scale then small skill sets. I'm sure I will utilize the skills I learned here in the near future, when I attend college.
I would like to thank the coordinators of AID Summer for making my summer an unforgettable experience. I couldn't ask for much better.
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Wong, Summer (王崇琳)
AID summer was one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had. I came into the program with hardly any expectations and to be honest, I was not completely psyched to teach little kids in the burning hot weather with no air conditioning. However, during the week of teaching, I grew extremely attached to the children, so attached that we were all sobbing together during the closing ceremony. Throughout the weeks, the scorching heat in Tainan, the mosquitos, and the other bugs didn’t matter at all.
The children honestly changed my life; their enthusiastic attitude despite the many hardships they faced at home helped me realize what the world was like outside the little community I lived in at home. I will never forget the times we played baseball and dodge ball, hit each other with water balloons, sang songs and played games together, and hung out after school playing tennis. The kids always came to school excited and ready to learn. Although I had a tough time connecting with a couple of the shy students, over time, the kids really started to open up with me and my teaching partner. To our surprise, a lot of the kids clung onto our arms every time we walked past, and they always waited outside our rooms in the morning to wait for us to come out. I found myself working especially hard in the everyday lesson planning, buying huge amounts of candies and prizes to contribute to my teaching because I really wanted the kids to learn to love the English language. I was willing to do anything for the kids at Houbi Elementary, and so it hurt a lot to have to say goodbye. I seriously wished I could steal them and pack them in my luggage to take home with me.
In addition, the faculty at the elementary school were so generous, caring, and kind. They treated us to amazing food, helped us out with our laundry, and took us to explore the beauties of Taiwan. They took really good care of us and would go out of their ways to help us out. Cloudia, our supervisor and teacher during the first three weeks, treated us as if we were her own children, always putting our needs in front of hers. Our appreciation for her efforts, hard work, and time, cannot be explained in words. I really couldn’t have asked for a better person to accompany B1-5 to Tainan! Most of all, I really enjoyed meeting new people and getting to know them. I've never been exposed to students who lived in different states and even different countries. The diversity and the different stories each one of us had to share was definitely interesting to hear. In the beginning of the program, I was very shy and awkward when meeting my roommates. I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to connect with them, but it turned out that all eight of us got along in an instant. Even though it is a bit heartbreaking to say goodbye on the very last day, meeting these AID teachers definitely was a memorable experience.
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Lin, Kevin (林凱文)
Hello! Good afternoon, everyone! How are you all? These past two weeks have been so much fun. After today, you'll go home and mom and dad might ask you, 'What did you think about camp?' What will you say? Where can we even start?
I mean, I've been launching bottle rockets, dodging dodgeballs, getting hit by dodgeballs, splashed by water balloons, danced to Shakira, sung so many songs, squished myself under the teacher's cabinet, and laughed together with you as you all tried to find me. But what I remember the most, the memories that I want to hold onto most are not in any way as special as these. The memories I want to keep the most are those mundane moments, like when you would play EXO and SNSD during lunch breaks. I'd always put on my unhappiest face, but I want you to know that deep down inside I actually really loved it. I love EXO. I love SNSD. Really. (Really.) And I love you guys. You guys always find ways to make me happy. I'll always remember how you made me feel.
I think if there's one thing I can leave you with today, it is to always keep on telling stories, not only these ones, but every story you write for yourself in the future. Because through listening to stories, we can all try to understand each other a little better. We can all become that little bit better, that little bit wiser. So I urge you all to write stories that you can be proud of even if you think no one is there to listen. Every moment counts!
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Huang, Emily (黄珮瑜)
Before I came to Taiwan to attend this program, I didn't really think much of it. I just thought of it as another vacation. But the day before I was supposed to report to Chientan Center, I began to feel extremely nervous and anxious. And the morning of the day that I was supposed to report was worse. I felt nauseous. I knew I was going to be separated from my family for four weeks, and I didn't feel like I was ready. I spent the whole morning alone with my thoughts, trying to make myself calm down.
When I reported to Chientan Center, I felt so homesick after my family left that I felt like crying. But I told myself that some people had flown to Taiwan all by themselves, and that at least my mother had flown over with me and was nearby. I tried to make myself at home during the first week.
It was not that hard. My roommates were very friendly, and I began to talk and connect with them. I still felt really uncomfortable, but after a few days, I didn't feel as homesick or nervous as I did on the first day. I was still a little scared about the prospect of teaching kids, though. I'm a pretty reserved person, and I just couldn't see myself teaching a class of kids. I had nightmares or visions of kids crying and out of control, kids laughing at me, or kids refusing to pay attention to me.
The first week of classes ended just as quickly as it began. In a whirl, I was driven over with seven other volunteers to Taichung to our new apartment. It felt like a blur. As soon as that, the first Monday of teaching came. That day was also my birthday.
I was supposed to administer the pre-test on the first day, and I tried to sound as clear and authoritative as possible. I used my best voice and tried to project to the class. Some of them stared at me with frowns on their faces, probably unable to understand what I had said. By the time I had finished dictating the listening portion of the test, I was shaking. I asked myself, "Did I want to keep doing this?" And I told myself that I had already come so far. I had to keep going.
As the first week went on, I got to see more of the kids' personalities. They reminded me of some of my younger cousins: energetic, naughty, and playful. Some of them made me laugh. Some of them made me feel powerful. Regardless, I saw that they were all special: a few were good at drawing, a few were good at dancing, so much more. Most of them, though, were all very eager to learn and participate in the teaching activities I planned out for them. I began to look forward to going to classes and bringing in my props and plans for them. I began to enjoy myself during lessons, too. On the first day, I had to use a microphone because my voice was so soft. But over the next few days, I put it on the side. I didn't feel like I needed it anymore. I just projected my voice naturally and acted like myself. They were just kids, and I was just a teenager. And I was here to help them.
The next day is the last day I will ever see them again. I will miss them dearly. Many, no, probably all of them, I will never see again. But I know that in the two weeks that I was with them, I made a difference in their lives. That sounds very cliche, but I know it is true. And within one and a half weeks, I will say farewell to all the volunteer friends I made in the program, and everything will be over. It is sad but that's just the way it is.
But like they say, a good story has both conflicts and resolutions. That's how you know it's a good story.
And that's how I know this program is a good story. A good story that should be remembered.
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Buchsteiner, Juergen (岳瑋瑋)
My participation in AID did not start off like it did for most other kids. I left my home in California 3 days after I graduated, on May 27th, which meant that I have been gone for over a month by the time the program started. I had a severe case of homesickness and it felt like I was forced into joining the program (which was not the case from the beginning). Therefore, I approached the first two days with a “downer” attitude, which was then extinguished when I started meeting a bunch of new people, making new friends along the way.
Along with the distracting 9-hour work day, my homesickness dwindled to almost nothing because I just focused on the long lessons. I had never really learned how to teach; I only had experience with coaching basketball to little kids at around the ages of 8-10. Although the classes were interesting, they were in retrospect too long, which made all of us super tired and inattentive for the whole four days we were there. In the end though, the method through which I gained proper teaching values was through first-hand experience and receiving critique from experienced teachers. I understand however, that teaching how to teach remains a challenge when each of the AID volunteers will be teaching in different regions, locations on top of different age groups. Above all though, what I enjoyed most about Chientan was meeting different people from all over the world.
After 5 long days, my group finally traveled to our school, Baiji Elementary in Taoyuan county. The counselor warned us beforehand that there is not much around the school: a statement we underestimated. The nearest 7/11 was about a 25 minute walk away with nothing much around, meaning that we were stuck in the school pretty much 24/7. However, this allowed my group and I to bond extremely well and the oncoming teaching experience just fortified that bond. The first day aroused a lot of excitement and confusion as us inexperienced teachers attempted to communicate in English to our students, which was quite difficult even though my partner and I were teaching the older, more advanced kids. Each school day felt like an eternity and the lack of air conditioning in the classrooms certainly did not help. To be frank, I forgot why I was there for a while thinking that I was not going to enjoy the next two weeks at all. After a couple days though, I started bonding with the kids, knowing not only the names and birthdays of each child, but also their likes, dislikes and the different ways of reaching out to them individually. From then on, my outlook about the whole experience took a U-turn, which became evident on the last day when a couple of my students wrote touching letters and made a couple rubber band wristbands for me. At the beginning, I would have chosen to gone home as soon as possible if I had the opportunity because of my aching homesickness. However, as I am writing this post-reflection, I realize in retrospect that I would choose this experience over going home every time. I truly missed the school when I left, and there lingered a startling thought in my head that I would never return to Baiji and see my students.
Naaaahhhhh, I will return, I’m sure of it. And then there is always Facebook.
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Jiang, Katrina (姜芷秋)
I completely miss every single thing about this summer. I miss first applying for this program and being completely confused about the application process. I miss attempting to navigate the disorganized site. I miss the check-in day at Chientan which was packed with ABC's and luggage. The college student counselor people in gray were speckled throughout the building and they were all super helpful and reassuring. After I was done collecting my name tag, blue polos, duffel bag, and other stuff, I had no idea what I was doing and who I was supposed to go with. But dinner came around, and all was well; met my amazing group at the dinner table, did some ice breaking activities, and went back to our dorms to turn in for the night. Well, where on earth was my roommate? Crystal Tsang? Well, she showed up at 2 a.m. and CRYSTAL, ALBERT LOVES YOU. The week at Chientan was pretty awesome. A 3-3 destroyed all three competitions; we could've went to Shilin for the second day as well, but we had to be nice and let other groups have a chance. We're just the best group ever since like 2002. Shoutout to Eva, our A 3-3 group counselor! Burgess, the teacher from Jianxin Elementary that was staying with us during the week of training instantly became our best friend and father figure. The meals at Chientan were interesting. From sprinkles on meat to chicken nuggets to pig ear, the food was mostly "dece". Many hours were spent during that week, learning Hoedown Throwdown and Gee from Rachel, our awesome choreographer, for the press conference at Changhua. The week at training went past pretty fast, and before I knew it, we were on the bus with little pink cardboard boxes filled with bread, heading towards the school where I would stay at for the next two weeks. The faculty at the school were so nice. Principal Coco and Thomas zhuren and Wilson zhuren wanted us out of the heat, so they took us to a billiards and bowling place with AC blasting on high. Also they took our awesome 8-people group out to papaya milk (THE BEST I HAVE EVER DRANK OMG THE CREAMINESS AND SWEETNESS), to a hotel buffet for lunch (that had DIY shaved ice!), and to an amusement/water park (G-5!). The teaching was sometimes a bit of a struggle, because the kids sometimes were rude and outspoken and didn't listen, but with Teacher John and Teacher Jasper (my B-class teaching partners) things went pretty smoothly. The kids are just so lovely and sweet. I will forever miss Ellie, Laura, Tina, Dabby, Sally, May, Sandy, Betty, Julia, Emily, Allen, Jane, Sofia, Jenny, Selena, and Jack. I love my kids even if they were rowdy at times and complained a lot. The food at Jianxin Elementary was actually really delicious. I actually looked forward to eating lunch at school. The best part was the sweet soup of the day that ranged from grass jelly, red bean, green bean, and ai yu. 7-Eleven breakfasts and biandan dinners were alright. They were mostly gotten for us by Rossi, one of the security guard soldiers at our school. I will miss my juggling lessons with my Shifu during breaktimes after class is over. The two weeks went by way too fast and before I knew it, my life living in that quaint little faculty dorm was over. I will miss that movie marathon on typhoon day where we watched four movies in a row nonstop. I will miss chilling in the bedrooms and playing cards for hours straight in the AC meeting room. I will miss the hilarious conversations about Zimbabwe. I will miss Big 2 and BS Poker. During those two teaching weeks, I built such a close bond with my group: Jasper and his Zimbabwe obsession, Rachel and her ratchetness, Lynn and her artistic talents, Crystal and her harmonizing/ukeleing/pooping/peeing/showering, John and his "beg" Canadian accent and his "pardon me", Luke and his Oh-kah-lah-ho-ma-ness and his interesting reactions to the food we eat and his addictive fondness to sun cakes and pineapple cakes and Rubiks cubes, and Kevin and his awesome food and how he is perfect at every single thing. I also befriended Jimbo and Rossi, our school's awesome security guards who both led such interesting lives. Leaving Jianxin Elementary broke my heart. The last part of my experience was the tour where sometimes they annoyingly separated my group into different bedrooms. The tour is nice so far, even though the heat is unbearable at times. BUS C! Shoutout to Vicky, Mina, Andrew, and Henry - our awesome bus counselors! Good job everyone at the talent show tonight. Everyone sure loves 1D and High School Musical. The food on the tour is getting a bit repetitive though. But the mango shaved ice from the fan-making place was absolutely delicious. And Dream Mall is my favorite mall ever now in Taiwan. The Mayan Adventure scary crazy roller coaster thing at the aboriginal culture village place was so fun. It's been pretty great so far. Next summer, hopefully, A 3-3 will be reunited at a certain B-dawg's wedding. To wrap my reflection up, here's our group chant: WHO ARE WE? A 3-3! A 3-3! A 3-3! B-DAWG!!!
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Cheng, Justin (程文暄)
Initially coming into this program, I was extremely nervous yet eager. I had no big teaching experience before this program so I no idea how the children would react or respond to my teaching. Once I arrived at the school, the children proved to be extremely touchy and anxious to meet all of us. They demonstrated their eagerness by clinging onto us and constantly asking us questions. Once we entered the classroom environment, many problems began to arise. Some of the problems included lack of motivation, varying English levels, and rowdiness. Lack of motivation was difficult to fix because that issue stemmed from the children’s personality and upbringing. However, in order to minimize their lack of interest, we decided to introduce more games and exciting ways to teach them vocabulary and topics of interest. To fix the problem of varying English levels we tried to help the students who struggled, more. To solve the problem of rowdiness, we had to apply some classroom management skills. We decided the best way was to reward the good students. By rewarding the good students, the bad students learned that good behavior would be noticed and rewarded. This changed the atmosphere by creating a more positive learning environment. By the end of the two weeks, the children showed great improvements in behavior and learning capabilities. We stressed physical activities in order to satisfy their desire for moving around and to compensate for their short attention span. While we were teaching the students, we were also learning at the same time. Every time something happened, we had to decide how to change subtle things to solve the problem. Above all, I felt that learning stuff from their culture was the most exciting. My most memorable experience was the combined activity of rice harvesting and making mochi from the rice. Initially I was confident that I would excel in rice harvesting, but that quickly proved false. Under the blazing hot sun, I began to feel fatigued and I began to empathize with the actual rice farmers who must do this endlessly. While it was nice supplying the children with a tiny bit of our culture, it was even better having the children reciprocate and provide us with a taste of their culture. This was a truly eye-opening event that allowed me to both bond with the children and have fun. After leaving the children in an extremely emotional departure, we headed down south to begin the next part of this experience. The tour was extremely overwhelming at first; two hundred people would be placed in one huge tour to experience the beauties of Taiwan. This was a huge change, but it soon proved to be a great time to meet new people. While observing the scenery and fun places Taiwan has to offer, we also had the chance to meet and interact with people we would not have interacted with prior the tour. This tour gave me endless knowledge of Taiwan and its culture. This program will always hold a place in my heart.
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Lee, Jasper (李世璞)
It is hard to believe that just one month ago, I was lying in my bed, worrying about what I got myself into. What if my kids did not like me? What if my teachings did not help their English at all? What if my co-workers were uncooperative, creating a split in our group? These questions worried me to limited hours of sleep, leaving me waking up in the morning unenthused and lifeless, definitely not ready to start preparing. This past month, however, I have woken up every morning excited to teach, ready to make new friends, and put as much energy as I could into activities. Starting from day number one, all those involved in AID have treated me nothing other than like a second family. From the counselors, to all the other volunteer teachers, to the assisting teachers, and to the students, I was never left with a time I felt unloved and unwanted. I was blessed with the opportunity to work with an amazing seven other volunteers, whom all shared the same drive and passion for this program I did. Together, we formed the legendary group, A3-3, and racked up first place after first place and accolade after accolade. It was the first time in history that a group had won as many times as we did. But it is not the accolades that make me feel satisfied of what I have done the past month; rather it is seeing the smiles shining on my students’ and friends’ faces. Seeing my students feeling so excited and pumped to learn English motivated me to continue what I had been doing right, and improve what I had been doing wrong. The joy radiating from them also inspired me deeply. In a world where everyone has it so hard, yet I have it so easy, AID showed me a glimpse of what it is like to succeed through pure motivation and hard work when a rare opportunity arrives. These kids were sacrificing two weeks of their summer, a time when children should be playing and having fun, to take the opportunity to work hard and improve their English. These opportunities to learn another language simply do not happen come as often as they come in the United States, and it made me realize I need to cherish and grasp every chance that I get to do something that I want, and not take things for granted. I would like to give shout outs to everyone who made my AID experience so amazing. All the volunteers in this program have treated me so kindly and genuinely. No matter what group they were, everyone has had a positive attitude to making friends and respecting each other’s ideas. My teacher Burgess is one of the most unique individuals I have ever met, and he has taught me not only lessons on how to teach, but lessons on how to live life as well. AID summer 2014 was an unbelievable and great experience that has taught me many things about life and people that I will never forget.
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Hsin, Lily (辛小莉)
With this summer experience, I can finally understand how hard it must be to be an effective and beloved teacher. Nevertheless, the children I taught were very hardworking and attentive. On the first few days I was slightly nervous about how they would perceive me and how I would gain their respect, but my worries were quickly dispelled by the expressions on their faces when they laughed and smiled during class. Having the opportunity to teach was an experience that was certainly rewarding. But the most important is not necessarily what my kids have learned, but what I learned from them and what I saw of their lives and culture. It was only when I met my students that I fully appreciated what I received and what I learned. Looking at their strong motivation to learn, I could only begin to value the meaning of education for these children. When it came to Group A 3-4, even though the planning process and training was tiring, I am glad I was able to work with such compassionate, humorous and responsible people. Because of them I did not stay the quiet and aloof girl and genuinely enjoyed the time I spent with everyone. It makes me sad that we will all part ways, but the several weeks spent together was one of the most unique bonding experiences I have. I would like to say thank you to all the counselors, teachers, students, and fellow AID friends who have made my summer unforgettable!
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Chien, Mercedes (簡呂盈)
The first week at Jian Tan was underwhelming. We woke up, went to class, ate lunch, went to class, ate dinner, and then went back to class for three days straight. Although the accommodations were better than I expected, I felt caged in the whole week. By Thursday night, I was ecstatic we had the chance to leave Jian Tan and take a trip to Shilin Night Market. It took us, however, an hour just to leave the building due to the astronomical number of people in the program. The classes were also disengaging and uninformative. The content itself should be taught to us volunteers so possibly having the teachers who come with us to our schools teach us in small groups would have been infinitely more effective. The small setting makes it engaging for all volunteers. Also, the inefficiency is heightened when native Taiwanese teachers who learned English teach us information in English. They should teach us in mandarin.
Teaching at Miaoli was an overall extremely fulfilling experience. The first weekend was spent practicing for our opening ceremony routine. Although the accommodations took a while to get used to in the beginning, I am extremely grateful for what Rui Hu Elementary School provided for us. The first few days of class were entertaining. We played lots of vocabulary games with the children and it seemed like the children were learning a lot about the different seasons. Making s’mores with them was one of their most favorite activities. Even though it took them awhile to be able to pronounce marshmallow, they all thoroughly enjoyed eating the s’more at the end of the school day. The students in my class all wanted to learn—some were being tutored during the duration of camp so they knew most of the words already. Despite that, those students still enjoyed playing the review games and doing the activities with class. My teaching partner and I also enforced a point system in class. So, every time the student participates, behaves, and is on time for class, he or she earns a point. At the end of each day, the student with the most point receives a prize. The rallies mostly worked in keeping the students behaved, especially the girls. We also organized a separate raffle, in which students receive tickets for winning games. Explaining the rules in Chinese and English was at first extremely difficult. I couldn’t think of the right words in Chinese and had to rely on a lot of gestures, but towards the end of the first week, the students could pick up on most of the English when I explained the rules. Having the students call me big sister in Chinese made me feel as though they welcomed me into their community. They particularly enjoyed playing on my phone and laptop and I am grateful that I had this opportunity to teach them English and experience their culture. Seeing the children laughing and smiling while learning English was the most rewarding aspect of the program. I hope that they continue to learn English in their futures.
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Hsiung, Lawrence (熊子睿)
These children and school officials are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Initially, I thought some of the students were really clingy, but I got used to it because that is how they show their love. Also, although they were a little rowdy at first, I got used to them playing and sometimes played with them. However, when they got too excited, I would tell them stories about life in America and other places I visited. Giving out candy was a great success, and a point system was really useful. We divided our class into 3 groups, and did our best to balance them. However, some students had to be moved due to behavioral issues, and thus some teams were not as balanced as we would have liked. Also, our class, Bubble Tea Class, is the higher level class, so we underestimated their English abilities. Our teaching plans were completely useless, so we had to make new ones every day. Kids enjoyed doing the activities such as making oobleck when learning colors or making smores when learning about food. They also enjoyed playing educational games. A favorite was writing all the words down on the board, then having the students throw sticky balls at the word we said. Sometimes we also told stories that integrated vocabulary for an extra challenge. They learned a lot in 2 weeks, and we had a lot of fun teaching them. The weekend trip was great but also tiring, but the night market at Miaoli was so worth the tiredness. I achieved my goal of buying some unique t-shirts. Our students showed a lot of aptitude toward English and were eager to learn. During the second week, we realized that our vocabulary was much too simple for these advanced students. We started teaching them more difficult vocabulary and had a few formal tests, but they soaked up the knowledge like bread soaks up jelly at a school lunch. Even words like “optometrist” and “physical therapist” did not faze the diligent students.
Our meeting place was upstairs in the calligraphy room, where we held meetings every day after school and ate meals. We ate lunch with the students, but ate dinner every day with each other. Dinner consisted of a variety of bento boxes while lunch was always a surprise with soup. Every two days we would go do laundry back at our living quarters, which was around 500 meters away from the school. We lived in a multistory building next to the bullet train, and it was very loud. We became accustomed to it quickly. The girls were in a room while we had another room with its own toilet and actual beds. It was really nice, but the spiders there were ridiculously big. I did not come out of the room after nine as that was when the spiders would start coming out. Sometimes we had ramen parties in the main living room, but mostly we just watched movies in our rooms at night. We walked to school every day but returned in cars because it was often too dark to see. The house is owned by an old farmer. We had plenty of food and accommodations were excellent.
We missed the children a lot when it was time for the closing ceremony and cried a lot. I was so proud of my students because they were able to show off what they learned in the past two weeks. It was truly an inspiring moment when the students presented the teachers with certificates of appreciation and gifts. We exchanged emails, and they still write to me. I miss them very much, and hope to see them again someday.
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George, Evan (許橋洋)
AID Summer is very Asian. Being a half Asian half white I stuck out a little. Granted there were full white people it is still very Asian. The food at the training week was good if you are used to Chinese food. Some people found it bad and chose to eat cup-noodles for every meal. Training week is fun but lots of work. We defiantly over estimated our kids and so had to adjust accordingly during the teaching week.
The week of teaching crests a lot of challenges and little time for sleep. The first day we felt out the class. We figured out who would sit where based on what we saw the first day. We also learned their learning speed and had to change our teaching plan completely. We also learned that one of our students had ADHD which provided a whole new challenge to overcome. We figured out a system that worked for every kid but the stress amounted. Some of our group couldn't take it all and needed time to regroup. But in the end we all became better teachers and developed relationships with the kids that took tears to sever when we left.
The teaching is not the only experience that is valuable in AID Summer. Bonding with your group of teachers and learning to deal with conflicts in group dynamics. In our group there were quite a few conflicts that had to be navigated properly. It made the group interesting at the least. Also I learned how to deal with certain problems that can arise when a group of people must work together for an extended period of time.
AID Summer is very interesting. I learned things I didn't know I would learn and I found things in myself I didn't know I had. The time flies and the memories are endless. It is a very unique experience that I never want to forget
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Kao, Kimberly (高紫玲)
This 4-week trip to Taiwan has been irrefutably a most memorable and delightful adventure. From saying a many “Hi, my name is Kimberly. What’s yours?” at Chientan to interacting with elementary school students and a variety of colorful bugs in Taitung, I’ve encountered many novelties that have introduced me to new perspectives and taught me the values of friendship and cultural exchange.
The 2-week teaching period at Hot Spring Elementary School was my favorite part of the program. Initially, I did not look forward to being inside a hot classroom trying to teach English to a bunch of students. I didn't know if they would follow instructions or even understand what I was saying to them. It was one of the most formidable tasks I've undertaken, but I'm glad to say that I happily succeeded in giving myself and my students a very memorable two-week period. I will never forget how they were always so excited to run to the board and hammer the words which we called out or to draw cute pictures of the new vocabulary they had just learned. The constant energy in the classroom starkly contrasted with the classroom atmosphere of my high school back in the States, where most students slept on their desks or played on their phones. The students’ unwavering excitement and passion for learning were an inspiring and exhilarating novelty. At times, I felt that I became less of an English teacher and more of a student, learning about the Taiwanese culture from my ten students. They introduced me to the cultural values and traditions unique to Taitung and also the different milieu from which they grew up that I would have a hard time adapting to. The interaction and cultural exchange between my students and me were both enlightening and humbling.
Meeting the other AID teachers at Chientan during the first week was also a very memorable experience. Being able to meet people from other states and even other countries such as England and Australia was one of the most exciting aspects of the program that I anticipated greatly when applying to the AID program. I am so grateful for having been able to do exactly that at Chientan. Though it was tiring to be constantly introducing myself and asking for other people’s names, it was a delight getting to know people from different backgrounds and discovering the similarities and differences amongst us. Within my group, the backgrounds were less varied, as seven out of the eight people were from California, but even then, I was able to learn much about the differences between Northern California and Southern California. The two-week teaching period at Hot Spring Elementary School strengthened the friendships within our group and allowed me to forge an inextricable bond with my closest friends in the program. I will never forget the constant “Oh yeah” from one unforgettable guy and the fangirling over dramas with two other awesome girls. I will, without a doubt, keep in contact with them and continue our adventures back in the States.
Overall, I am so grateful for having been accepted to the AID program and will never forget this experience.
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Lee, Minda (李明達)
AID was an amazing and unique experience that I will never forget. When i first got to Chientan, I was so nervous. I would have to live away from my parents for the first time, I was having doubts about my Chinese skills, and I was worried that I would not be able to fit in.
I quickly realized that I did not have anything to worry about. I immediately felt at home with the other AIDers, even though we were all strangers. I also got to know my teaching group really well, and we became good friends. After we went to the school, it seemed like everyone we met was super friendly and hospitable. Their eagerness to talk made my worries about my Chinese a nonissue. Even though we only knew them for two weeks, we became extremely close to our teachers, host families, and teaching assistants, and I was more sad to leave them than my students.
The actual teaching process was also very enlightening. I initially had trouble controlling the class, but after we got them under control, I got to see that even though the kids were still sometimes infuriating, they were hardworking and I was surprised at how much information they could absorb. Teaching also forced me to become more outgoing and energetic, and I also had to use a lot of Chinese. It improved my interpersonal skills as well as my Chinese skills.
What I got the most out of this trip was a greater appreciation and understanding of both parts of my culture: and American side and the Taiwanese side. Living in a different country for a month is definitely a life changing experience. Even though I've been to Taiwan a few times, I've never had such complete immersion in a different culture before. The first week being in Taiwan was almost unbearable. The heat, mosquitoes, cramped buildings, and Chinese everywhere made me miss my home even more because of the completely new environment. However, the people I met helped to alleviate my homesickness. Their unique Taiwanese hospitality combined with everyone's sense of community helped me to appreciate the aspects of Taiwanese culture that are different from American culture.
This experience has been unforgettable and has made me very eager to come back to Taiwan again.
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Kao, Jonchee (高仲奇)
When I came to Taiwan to participate in AID Summer, I did not expect to make so many friends. I thought that I would act as the teacher to the students, but I ended up being more of a brotherly figure to them. At the beginning of our two weeks of teaching, I felt exhausted from the hot weather and was amazed at how much energy the students had, but by the end of the two weeks, I feel that there is so much more that we did not do with the students. I wish that we could have more time with the students, and also that we could be able to keep in touch with our students after we return to America. The same also happened between the counseling teachers from the school and us volunteer teachers, and we have grown very close to those teachers and we wish that we did not have to leave after so little time. We became especially close with the staff after going out on the weekend, and I wish that we had more weekends to spend with the teachers, and possibly to spend with the students as well. Among my fellow volunteer teachers, we have all become very good friends after spending so much time together in the hotel, everyday after teaching, even though we probably fooled around a little bit too much while we were supposed to be working, and we ended up sleeping a little late every night. Overall, my experience this summer in Taiwan was a unique experience that I would strongly recommend other people to take.
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Hsu, Kathleen (許家齡)
When I applied for the 2014 AID summer program, I was under the impression that it would be a fun experience with teaching kids living in remote areas in Taiwan, but it turned out to be so much more than that. When I found out that I was accepted into the program, I was equally excited and nervous, as I had no idea what to expect. The initial training week at Chientan was mainly full of lectures about teaching and preparing your teaching plans with your teaching partners. I thought that the days passed by extremely slowly during the first week. But in hindsight, the activities that they taught us turned out to be extremely helpful in our teaching. I went to Lishan Elementary and Junior High School, which is a beautiful school located in a tight-knit town and surrounded by breathtaking mountains. In addition, Lishan has the most intelligent, curious, and adorable children. It was eye-opening to experience the lifestyle and culture of Lishan, which is completely different from any other area in Taiwan. Throughout the past two weeks of teaching, I learned a tremendous amount about the importance of teamwork and patience. In our first few days of teaching, my teaching partners and I had a lot of problems regarding classroom management, but all of our challenges dissipated by the end of the first week, once we came up with solutions. The highlight of my two, short weeks of teaching was witnessing our students successfully learn and utilize the vocabulary that we taught them. I believe that my teaching partners and I succeeded in allowing the students to have fun while learning English and exchanging our culture with them. My teaching group and I grew a lot closer as the days went by, as did our relationships with our students. The days flew by, as every day was full of laughter, fun, and new experiences. To conclude, the AID Summer program was an incredibly insightful experience, because I learned about how to view situations and resolve obstacles through a different perspective. The program exposed me to various remarkable places and a unique culture that I would never have had encountered otherwise. But most of all, I have built both relationships and memories that will stay with me long after the program ends. Thank you to everyone who has made AID such an unforgettable and transformative experience for me.
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Hsu, Eileen (許家馨)
My experience at AID summer will forever be one of my most memorable memories. It all started off at Cheintan, where us volunteers spent a week bonding with our group members and learning about teaching. I met with my group members and our teacher Cindy. The days seemed to stretch on for eternity; actually teaching a class seemed so far away and abstract. At last, Friday came and my group and I boarded the bus to go to our school, Cing Shuei Elementary School.
We dropped the boys in our group at their house and then Cindy accompanied us girls to our house. We met our host family, Erin, Jeff, their parents, and their fluffy white dog. That night, we had pizza at our house, where all the school officials and TAs came to meet us. The next day, we had an opening ceremony where we performed and were welcomed by our school director Wen. We also went to our school, made posters, and cleaned up our classroom. On Sunday, we went to a supermarket and bought things for our kids.
On the first day of class, I woke up to discover that my right eye was pink and swollen. I was not very concerned and thought it would clear up by itself. However, the school officials thought differently and dragged me to a dermatologist 40 minutes away. The school officials (Cindy, Wen, and the principal) were like second mothers, protecting and providing for us. They were always concerned about us, almost to the point of being overbearing, but their care for us was definitely appreciated and comforting. in particular, Cindy helped us navigate through the tumultuous journey of teaching young children through daily after-school meetings.
Teaching was more difficult than I envisioned. I had overestimated the students' English abilities and could not control the class. But over time, it became easier and more fun as I learned more about the students and how to motivate them to participate in class. We modified our teaching plan to make things more fun and interesting for them. My favorite parts of the day were during breaks when the students would come up to us and chat. Looking back on my teaching, I thought that my teaching partner and I did a good job on the teaching curriculum. Granted, we could have incorporated more English into our lesson plans, like saying instructions in English. We could also have played a larger variety of games to switch it up for the students.
During the weekend, three buses of Cing Shuei Elementary School people embarked on a tour to Yilan. We got to visit many interesting places and bond with people from the school. Surrounded by all those people, I felt an incredible sense of community and belonging.
The last week flew by in a flash. On Tuesday, it was Prince George's birthday and my class celebrated by eating cookies and making birthday cards. On Friday, we said goodbye to the kids in our closing ceremony. I was so proud of my class's performance; it was the best that they had ever performed it. Then we AID volunteers were given certificates, a keychain, and socks. Everyone from the school lined up to say goodbye and give hugs. Though I felt sad that we were leaving the kids, it didn't feel like a goodbye because many of the Cing Shuei people were coming to the goodbye BBQ that night.
When Saturday came, it was time to leave. As we boarded the bus, many of the school people were there to send us off. As the people turned into small dots in the distance, I felt an overwhelming wave of sadness. I will miss everything about teaching at Cing Shuei Elementary School: the breakfast place, Erin's house, the school, the students, and all the wonderful people who helped us on this adventure, especially Cindy, Wen, the principal, Coach, Erin, Hank, and Nelson. I could not imagine a more perfect school and will terribly miss everyone there.
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Hsiung, Tanya (熊恬亞 )
When I signed up for this camp, I was expecting to not get in because the coordinator said that only one person will get in per family. I thought my brother would be the one to get in, so I didn’t put much thought into the program because I wasn’t even expecting to make it. The day came when I found out I made it into the program along with my brother, and I was even more surprised we were both put into the same team. In the beginning, I was pretty happy and proud of myself because the coordinators actually select only a few hundred people from thousands of applicants. However, that excitement quickly turned into fear and anxiety. I was scared that I wouldn’t make any friends and that my entire month in Taiwan would be lonely and awkward. I was scared that I would have a sucky partner. I was scared that I wouldn’t have the capabilities of teaching the class. I want to give so much to the kids and I was scared that I couldn’t live up to their expectations.
I was extremely fortunate to have a huge family to escort me to my room when I arrived to ChienTan but after an hour or so everyone left and I went from a huge posse to being alone for the first time. I was so stressed out about all the teaching materials and planning I needed to do- and finding a partner and I regretted signing up for the program. The first few days in ChienTan was really depressing but I still acted bubbly even though I was still really stressed out. But being with my team for 24 hours for 5 days led me to discover I am definitely not the only freaking out. During our lessons, we became the “Flag Holding Group”. With our brightly colored American, Canadian, and Taiwanese flags frantically waving around in the sky, our participation won us a trip to Shilin Night market. We all exploded in happiness when we heard of this news. It was that moment when I realized that if the teachers thought we were a competent group, then we must be alright.
It wasn’t until we got to Xihu Elementary at Miaoli that us girls truly became really close. We were closer as a group than any of our friends back at home Although it helps that we were forced to live together in a unfamiliar environment, it was by choice that we opened up to each other and became really comfortable towards each other. We started to have mini slumber parties every night at our home: we watched movies, held silly dance parties, played cards, did face masks. But the thing that made all 5 of us girl become really close friends was our deep talks about our personal lives. We shared snippets of our journals and discussed our thoughts about everything. It was during that 2 week that we became Freeaaakkin Five.
Not only did my partners changed the way I viewed this program, but the kids turned my perception upside-down. Every day we teach and I see them smile, I smile too. I wanted to give everything I could to these kids, and loved them as if they were my own kids. I become happy at the sight of their happiness. Being their teacher for these weeks made me appreciate how fortunate we are to come from middle class families in American, going to top-tier high school, and coming home to a hot, steaming dinner. Most of these kids had broken families and come from unprivileged families. Many of the kids have parents moved away in search for better opportunities in more developed counties, leaving them to live with their grandparents, who still work long hours in the rice fields. Niki was a child who had divorced parents. She lived with his father, who prohibited her mother to see her and her sister. Thus, her mother is forced to only come to school on random days to see her. Because she isn’t able to see her own children often, even time she does sneak in to see them, she spoils them with treat. Thus, Niki became a really attached to the teacher-grabbing onto our shirts and tugging on our arms. She was also bullied at school by even the most bubbly child in our class because she had a history of stealing. Even though she is able to catch onto all the new material we teach very quickly, she doesn’t have a good learning environment which seriously hinders her potential. Another child, Angus Li was the most brilliant child I have even seen. He eagerly raise his hand up high every time we ask a question and always answers it correctly. Not only was he extremely smart but also incredible hardworking and funny. On the last day, we had a water balloon fight for the kids and he just bathed himself in the tub full of water. All the kids laughed and had an awesome time drenching the teachers in buckets of water. We really are not here to just teach English. We are here to play with them and give them a summer to remember.
On the last day of school, we had to make a mini speech about our experience there. And of course, all of us were not able to choke down our tears. Tears were rolling down my eyes like a waterfall when we were on the stage. And when the kids came up one by one to hug us, tears streamed down even harder. Seeing the kids with tears in their eyes, hugging us tightly, telling us never to forget them, broke my heart. We actually made an impact in their lives. Becoming so close my kids makes it so difficult to leave them. I will never forget this summer with them and will forever cherish these memories with them.
Now I regret not spending every lunch time with them. I was selfish to spend many days in the AC-ed office talking to my friends. Only when the AC broke on the second week of school that I came to play ball with my kids and realized how much I would miss them. My perception of the camp changed so much in the course of these two weeks. I am so glad I had to opportunity to join because of the impact I made on these children and the memories we share. In the beginning, I thought the tour was a compensation for our work teaching, but now I feel like I don’t deserve it. Seeing the kids’ smiles every morning of school is reward enough. I feel like they gave me more that I gave them. This is an unforgettable and irreplaceable experience. Little did I know, on the first day of school, that this is what the past AID-ers meant when they said it “changed their life”.
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Yeh, Albert (葉仲豪)
My experience with AID Summer has been one of the best of my life. I applied to the program because I wanted to help disadvantaged kids and get a taste of real volunteer experience. I expected to be touched by the kids but I didn’t know that I would leave a piece of my heart with each of them when I left Sandi Elementary School. I fell in love with the kids from the first day of teaching. They showed so much respect towards my teaching partner and I, and were very willing to learn English. They understood that the main purpose of the camp was not to have fun, but to become more familiar with a foreign language. We had to come up with completely new teaching plans every day, because we had no idea what the academic condition was at the school. The first week of training at Chientan was not very helpful, not because the lecturers and teachers weren’t great, but because all of us were going to such different schools with students who had a wide variety of English knowledge. I think the first week would have been better spent training at the school with the teachers there.
Once we got to the school, though, we got used to the children’s English abilities and were able to cater our original teaching plan around their needs. Preparing for each day was a lot more work than I expected. As soon as school let out every day, we had a meeting with fellow staff members in the school and then went straight back to our rooms to prepare for the next day. Every day would be divided between playing with kids after school and preparing for the next teaching day. These past couple weeks helped me truly appreciate the effort of my previous teachers and opened my eyes to the many difficulties and blessings teaching presented. Although my partner would often go late into the night creating homework, quizzes, and PowerPoints, when we saw the bright, eager faces ready to learn the next day, all the effort from the previous day became worth it. I LOVED the kids that I taught; they were so sweet to my partner and I, daily giving us little gifts and letters, and they often expressed their love towards us through their words and actions. The kids often wished to play with us during break and grew very attached to us. My partner and I also came to love our kids very much, and the last day parting was very tearful and emotional. I miss the kids a lot, and pray for them every day. Although I don’t know how much their English improved during this short time of teaching, I do think that they grew to love English more and have a greater interest in learning my native language. The staff at the school was absolutely amazing and, they really cared for our needs and brought us to really interesting places. I can tell that the staff really love the kids there, and they showed the greatest amount of hospitality to us. This has been a wonderful experience, not only because of the friendships I’ve made and the kids I met, but also because of the newfound love I have for teaching. This teaching experience has shown me that I love helping kids, and has given me a direction for the future. Thank you for this opportunity!
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Shen, Sabrina (沈沁昀)
When I first received news that I had been accepted into the 2014 AID program, I wasn't sure whether or not I actually wanted to attend it. After all, I have zero intention of being a teacher or studying Chinese language/culture, so the AID program doesn't do much for my college applications other than tacking on a few more service hours. A medical program at a prestigious college seemed much more fitting use of my summer vacation, or at . However, my dad encouraged me to attend AID both to learn more about my heritage and to take advantage of the rare opportunities the AID program provided. I took his advice, and I'm so glad I did.
AID has been an incredible learning experience. Between miscommunications, lack of sleep, crazy children, and differences in climate and wildlife (more creepy crawlers than I can mention without shuddering), I've learned to solve conflicts in a mature fashion, to love on the children even as friends rather than students, and to not be (as much of) a wimp, among other things. I've also gained understanding on how stressful it is to be a teacher, or even a parent. Preparing lesson plans and teaching materials are largely what caused stress and conflicts, but they also offered insight into how to manage time, communicate with peers, organize my thoughts, and sympathize with lazy teachers.
AID has also been more exciting and fun then I had ever imagined it could be. Adventures with new friends, pulling pranks on peers, games with the kids, night marketing, late night talks, new experiences in Taiwan (it was actually COLD while watching the sunrise on Alishan!), the list just goes on and on. Amazing cheap food and adorable cheap clothes are just further benefits!
Through all the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows, however, the most memorable part of the AID program was most definitely the kids. Initially, I was worried that they wouldn't like me, or that I wouldn't know how to teach them, but I eventually realized that they loved us volunteers even before we stepped into the room. All we had to do was show that we returned the affection, and they were more than willing to accept everything that we said, did, and taught them. Furthermore, the liveliness and energy that the kids had was very inspiring, and it was nowhere near possible to not fall in love with every single one of them. Two weeks really wasn't enough time with them, both in terms of getting to know them and teaching them English, so all we can do is hope that we left enough of an impact on them for them to learn to love English, and that they won't forget about us. I know I'll never be able to forget them.
Overall, my AID experiences these past few weeks have been indescribable, and they most definitely outweigh anything any other camp could have offered. Everything about it exceeded my expectations, and even conflicts all proved to be tremendous learning experiences. About this experience, like Sandra Bullock said in "Ms. Congeniality", "I'm very honored...& moved...& truly touched."
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Syau, Della (蕭思琳)
My expectations of AID Summer were completely different from what I actually experienced. Initially when applying to this program, I expected four weeks full of relaxation. I anticipated a slow-paced teaching week at Chientan, followed by two fun weeks with obedient students, with a fun tour to conclude everything. My first step into the Chientan Youth Activity Center turned my expectations a full 180 degrees. The week of training was hectic. The introduction of the point system, combined with the early morning calls and bed checks put me in shock. Aside from the strict rules that I needed to follow, I also had to attend classes all day and had to completely redo my teaching plan. The relaxing week I anticipated was replaced with a week full of stress, disappointment, and a lot of homesickness.
The experience I had in my two weeks of training was different from what I thought it would be in both good and bad ways. Every day I had to face giant spiders, cockroaches, an abundance of mosquitoes, ridiculous heat, and naughty students. Yet, despite having all those troubles, I had a lot of fun at Shueiliao Elementary in Kaohsiung. The principal, our teacher, the directors, PTA, the security guards, the assistants, and all the staff were extremely welcoming and did all they could to make us feel at home. There was still a lot for a foreigner like me to adjust to but I really appreciated the amount of effort they put into making our stay comfortable. The fifth graders I taught were mischievous, but they were very fun to talk to and play games with. By chatting with my students, I learned a lot about Taiwanese culture through their lives that they described to me. Throughout the two weeks, I also got a chance to get to know the seven other girls in my group. We ate meals together, battled spiders and cockroaches together, went on late night trips to Family Mart together, and did our laundry together. As a group, we got to know each others' personalities as well as those of our teachers and assistants. Having spent every second of our lives together for two weeks, my friends and I created a lot of memories that always bring a smile to my face. Leaving Shueiliao Elementary was extremely sad for me- I had a great time with everybody and made many new friends.
The tour week has only just begun. I am glad I get to spend another week with my friends and also get to know Taiwan further, but the strict rules at Chientan have returned again. I miss everybody at Shueiliao very much and wish I could have spent another week with my students. All in all, AID Summer has been very eye-opening for me. I made many great friends and learned a lot about Taiwan. This has been a very unique experience with memories that I will cherish for the rest of my life.
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Tsay, Karen (蔡孟妘)
When I got my acceptance letter, I was super excited to teach disadvantaged children English—a universal language that could help the children in the future. Having been raised in Taiwan, I can understand the difficulty and the resources required to learn English, or any other foreign language. In this aspect, I have empathy for the students and the drive to help them to further their English speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. The children are the next generation and the future of our world; therefore, I am pleased to be in this program and to help this program achieve its goal.
To effectively teach young, elementary children English, we, the volunteers, attended training sessions at Chientan for a week. The training sessions were helpful in many aspects of teaching. We heard lectures on classroom management, interactive activities, vocabulary presentation varieties, and instruction of new phrases. The most helpful part of the lecture was also the most annoy part of it. The speaker keeps reminding us to speak slowly and with very simple vocabularies—for about ten times. Before the beginning of teaching, the repetitive reminders were plain irritating. However, after we started teaching, we understood how important it was to speak slowly and simply to the students. The experienced English teachers at Chietan also helped us to shape our lesson plan and classroom rules. We developed effective classroom rules and point system after listening to the lectures. We designed our lesson plans based on the tips given by the experienced teachers. For example, we should attribute more time to activities instead of lecturing about PowerPoints all the time. Taking in consideration of these tips, I believe our lesson plans were both educational and fun for the students.
At Baiji Elementary, my partner and I employed the tips given by the instructors to design our lesson plan. We usually start with a warm up activity, which is stretching and dancing to Just Dance videos. Then, we move on to the lecture for the day—usually in the form of a PowerPoint with vocabularies, pictures, simple phrases, and videos about the subject we are teaching. For example, when we were teaching sports, we used pictures and videos of famous athletes to convey sports vocabulary and simple phrases like “dunk” or “pass me the ball”. After the lectures, we always include a fun activity that was both entertaining and useful as a review. For example, we used bingo for reviewing numbers, Pictionary for reviewing animals, and charades for reviewing sports and recreational activities. The students not only had a great time participating in the activities, but also reviewed the vocabularies and phrases they had just learned. At the end of the day, we gave the students a calming activity as a wrap up. For example, we gave them crossword puzzles, word search, and worksheets to calm them down after the activities. Overall, teaching the children was rewarding and self-stimulating—since I reviewed a lot of phonics while teaching. If the clock were to turn back to April, I would still go through all the frustrating steps of application to participate in this meaningful program.
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Chour, Patrick (仇星于)
Taiwan is where my parents are from; it is their home, the place where they grew up, and the land of their native tongue. However, even with the annual visits to Taiwan, I have always associated Taiwan with only vacation- going to night markets, shopping, and eating. Taiwan has always been just “my parents’ country” until the summer of 2014 when I participated in the AID program. I am fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to participate in this program. This time, coming to Taiwan, AID has given me the chance to teach and experience the life of those in the rural parts of Taiwan. Because my parents also grew up in the less fortunate part of the social class, I feel like I can relate to their past. Teaching in Chiayi, Taiping Elementary has given me many memories that I will forever keep.
M first day of teaching was nerve racking. I was unsure how to prepare for the first day. We had to practice our opening ceremony as well as prepare to meet our students. I was privileged enough to have our own teacher who we could look up to and ask for help when needed. After getting through the first two days, teaching gradually got better. The problem we had was that my partner and I overestimated the students. We were teaching the oldest the group of kids, and we thought their English was better than it was. Although we had to work on our working journals and plans every day, it was fun and an enjoyable experience. It was exciting to always have a change of plans, but it was shocking about the amount of kids who attended class every day. We varied from as little as three kids to ten kids. We also had a typhoon which gave us a day to rest, but we also had to pray that our students would practice for the closing ceremony. Overall, this experience is very memorable. I have made friends with people all across my nation as well as in Canada. They are friends that will never be forgotten and I will be able to keep in touch with them. The counselors and my teacher will also be remembered forever. I now know that whenever I come back to Taiwan, there will be people I can reach out to have fun and make more memories that are yet to come.
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Lei, Natalie (雷凱婷)
When I first learned that I had been accepted to the AID Summer 2014 program, I was ecstatic. I had heard so many things about it from my sister, who had previously attended the program a few years ago. The students, the great food, and the fun activities all seemed so amazing.
Having arrived in Chientan amidst the beginnings of the icebreaking games, I was suddenly nervous. After all, I had just signed up for four weeks of taking care of myself and an entire class of students with my yet-to-be-determined teaching partner. It turns out I had little to worry about. The group I had been assigned with was full of fellow enthusiastic teachers-in-training and an experienced teacher to help advise us. Training week itself was a grueling test of endurance, but it really helped my groupmates and me seriously take into consideration that we were about to be in full control of four classes of students for two weeks. In addition, our intensive teaching lessons were interspersed by a constant slew of meals, late night dance practices, competitive laundry washing, and, for our group, two consecutive nights of going to the famous Shilin night market.
When it came time to leave Chientan, I was apprehensive. Pingtung was said to be even hotter than Chientan, and having come from northern California, where the weather is arid and seldom reaches scorching hot temperatures, I was not all that well-accustomed to the sudden onslaught of Taiwan's hot and humid summer. Following an extensive bus ride, my groupmates and I were pleasantly surprised by the clear air, as well as the fact that several of us no longer faced the issue of our glasses fogging up upon walking out of an air-conditioned room. We were kindly welcomed by Chung Wen Elementary School's staff and our host families. They took such good care of us that there was never a day we felt hungry or bored. We were taken to cultural centers, shopping malls, a movie theater, Kaohsiung, and more places than I can recall from the top of my head. I am incredibly grateful for the care extended to my groupmates and myself by our host families and the staff of Chung Wen Elementary School - they kept us company for the entirety of the two weeks and tended to our every need.
When we began teaching, my partner and I were apprehensive of how we would handle our class. We immediately encountered trouble when we realized that we had not overestimated how much they knew, but rather how fast they could learn. Moreover, we had to plan activities that were both engaging and relevant to our lesson of the day. We initially struggled a bit with keeping our classroom under control, but our students gradually warmed up to us as time passed, making it easier to communicate effectively with them. The two weeks passed by in a flash, and before we knew it, we were watching our students perform in the closing ceremony. Our students had been hard to control and were quick to speak their mind, but even so, I was sad to have to say goodbye.
Tour week has been fun so far, not so much because of the touring, and even less because the living accommodations, but rather because the people have been fantastic. I am glad to have participated in AID Summer 2014.
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Chou, Ethan (周品達)
2014 AID was a once in a lifetime and very valuable experience. It is not everyday that one receives the opportunity to spend two weeks living in below average conditions in the countryside and teaching English to underprivileged Taiwan children. The first week of the program, training, was unnecessarily long and forgettable. The ensuing two weeks, however, were weeks that I will always remember for the rest of my life, as it was filled with all kinds of new experiences. Whether it was living in a dirty household of dead bugs and mosquitos, controlling a classroom of rowdy Taiwan fifth graders who were eager to learn but also to play, or exploring the surrounding foreign countryside and jungle, each moment was one of a kind. On top of it all, my group mates only made the experience better. Living with them for two weeks and spending hours lesson planning into the night were enjoyable and unique things to do. Overall, I learned many things from 2014 AID. Those included how lucky and appreciative I should be of my own living standards back home, how to work with my peers and students to build a productive relationship, and just opened my eyes and expanded my understanding of the culture, people, landscape, and way of life of Taiwan.
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Chiang, Kathy (蔣慶琦)
AID Summer Reflection
Attending the AID Summer Volunteer Program has been an unbelievable and unforgettable experience. I had the opportunity to teach in a beautiful, rural elementary school in Peng Hu island. This past four weeks have been so rewarding, as I have not only been able to reach out to disadvantaged children in the countryside, but also learn and grow a lot as an individual.
During the first week at Chien-tan, I attended a variety of very useful classes that prepared me for the weeks to come. The guest speakers gave us very useful tips and advice. They talked to us about their experiences, taught us many effective classroom strategies, and introduced us to many fascinating classroom games to play with our kids. The advice that they gave us really prepared us for our next two weeks at our respective schools.
After training week, my group and I all traveled to Peng Hu. Although the next two weeks were tiring and hard, I definitely learned a lot. Every night, my teaching partner and I would prepare for the next day’s teaching plan. I would make the powerpoints and other teaching materials, while my partner would complete the daily working journal and make some teaching posters. It was a very collaborative experience. Our kids were generally all very well behaved. They were all very passionate about learning English, and always willing to play games to win the prizes we bought from America. Though they were always very loud and talkative, they were all very enthusiastic and hardworking. Over the two weeks, I saw growth in all twenty of my students. This was evident in the significant rise in test scores. On the first day of school, I gave them all a pre-test. Though some students scored very well, getting near perfect scores, many students also did very poorly, scoring around only 2/20. However, over the next two weeks, they all learned a lot from the four units we covered – travel, Disneyland, sea creatures, and animals. At the end of the two weeks, I gave them the same exact test. All students improved, and a great number of people scored above 90%. My students were all very willing to learn, and their never ceasing positive spirits always inspired me. Leaving the school was incredibly hard, as it will probably be many years before I return to Peng Hu. However, I know that I will stay in contact with my students and that we will all remember this summer forever.
Now, I am on the central tour. It is day four, and I have visited so many places around central and northern Taiwan. I really love how there is a tour week as part of the AID summer program. It really reminds us Taiwanese living in America of our deeply rooted culture. Visiting the ancient temples, and the 921 earthquake museum helps us remember our past and our culture. I’m excited for what the next few days will bring.
AID summer was a once in a lifetime experience and though it is coming to an end, I will never forget the wonderful people I met and all my incredible experiences here.
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Lee, Jennifer (李瑋萱)
AID Summer has given me a whole new experience that I have never gone through before. It has given me the opportunity to learn to be independent, and live away from my family. I mean, it was even my first time flying on the plane by myself! I've grown so much as a person and I wouldn't regret this camp at all. I came here with fear that I wouldn't make any friends or that it wouldn't be as worthwhile as I heard it would be, but AID exceeded my expectations and given me friends that have become my second family. The amount of how much we all bond and love each other is truly amazing, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
I have taken care of kids for many years now, so I assumed I'd come into this camp prepared for anything. Teaching these kids was actually nothing like I expected, it was a lot more stressful and tiring than I thought. I'm very thankful for it, though. I learned to adjust myself to the unexpected, and work with what I have. I've developed good habits like managing my time better, to always push myself harder, and appreciate the little things people do. I knew I never appreciated teachers for doing their job, but being them for just two weeks have made me realize how selfish I was before.
AID has also improved my Chinese by a lot. It made my parents proud, actually. I never spoke that much Chinese at home, and I was starting to lose my touch with my own culture. Coming here has changed all of that. Everyday I learn new Chinese words, as well as learn about my own culture more and more by talking to my school TAs.
I've improved myself in ways I always hoped myself to be but never got there. Coming to this camp I have reached my goal of becoming the person I want to be. I can now open up more easily, and talk with confidence. I'm not afraid to speak up anymore, and I found my own voice. Without such an important aspect I wouldn't have worked well with my team, especially my teaching partner, or met some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I've only met these people for a few weeks and yet I feel like I've known them for years.
I thank AID for everything it has given me and wish it wasn't coming to a close so soon. Big thanks for giving me such a great opportunity like this.
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Liou, Zachary (劉建東)
My sentence started on July 6. Long hours of dragging lectures were capped off by a closed campus and 11 o' clock bed checks . Homework was impossible because Wi-Fi was non-existent at Chien Tan. The only thing that held me together was my new group of friends.
Then the teaching began. I was sent off with seven other volunteer teachers to a small town. Distance from Chien Tan seemed to grant some freedom, and I gradually grew accustomed to life at a motel near my assigned middle school.
Perhaps more interesting are the interactions of my groupmates during the teaching weeks. Although a bisection into two major groups who interacted less than they should have kept us a bit distant, my individual groupmates were still kind, brilliant, and cooperative. In the end, we still became great friends.
Teaching went as anyone would expect. Teaching came with bumps that were smoothed as they came along. Shy students the first day gradually opened up, until they were singing their hearts out in front of their classmates and fellow students. On the last day, the students set to work on their own to prepare for their closing ceremony performances. Meanwhile, I slow-dripped my thoughts for a speech onto an index card.
Eighty pairs of eyes look upon me, and I squeeze out: “I thought I was going to Taiwanese prison for four weeks, but now I realize that I'm in paradise.”
After the two weeks of teaching, the tour began. Leaving the kids was painful and tear-jerking, but, at the same time, I was reunited with friends outside my teaching group. I was ready to set off and explore the beautiful paradise of Taiwan.
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Cheng, Andrew (鄭宇宸)
Last year, Wang Lee Hom made an Oxford Union Address at Oxford University in England. He began with a flashback to his childhood days, when he, the only Asian American in his school in Rochester, was surrounded with racism and bullying, and ended epically with a cultural philosophy. He noted that Western culture is overtaking Eastern culture. For example, most people in Taiwan know a lot of American pop music while Americans don’t exactly appreciate Chinese pop songs. As I watched Lee Hom present his point, I realized how true and frightening this reality is. At the end of his Oxford Union Address, he made this call to action: through the use of music, understand each other. Don’t simply listen to the music, but pay attention to the different styles and understand the meaning behind the words. While I agreed with Lee Hom’s idea, I also took it another way, which was to actually become a bridge between two cultures myself. Thus, I applied for Aidsummer 2014.
When I first began the program, I had no idea what to expect, much less what kind of teacher I should be. However, I did give myself one goal: teach, but more importantly, learn. And learn I did. On the very first day of teaching, we found that students here were a lot more respectful and obedient than those back home. They cleaned up the classrooms before we walked in, and though introductions were awkward at first, they eventually opened up to us that same day after we showed them a few games of interest. But the most interesting story of the day was probably lunch time. After passing out the bentos to the students, they sat there—awkwardly—waiting for us—the teachers—to begin the meal. This was definitely a culture shock; back home this kind of formality between the students and teachers did not exist.
On the second and third days we began to run into a more serious problem. See, during training week we had been instructed to use as much English as possible for the immersion experience. As a result, my partner and I became awkward teachers playing charades constantly in front of the black board, which only ended up with a more confused class. After the third day we realized this was not the correct way to teach any language. Our parents are Chinese and we can speak Chinese, so why weren’t we using that to our advantage? On the fourth day we finally fixed this problem by putting our translation abilities to the test. Gradually we became the bridges I interpreted Wang Lee Hom’s call to action to be. We taught them English, but at the same time, we were improving our own Chinese skills. However, this whole encounter can be interpreted as yet another culture shock: Taiwan education versus that of the United States. In Taiwan, the parents expect to place their students in the most rigorous academic environment possible, even if they don’t really understand. While this style can be quite efficient, it also has its disadvantages. Thus we took measures and disobeyed our teachers’ orders. Thereafter we didn’t run into any problems.
Teaching experiences aside, I also found free time for both the teachers and students quite enjoyable—I learned a lot from both. Free time was a time when teachers and students truly bonded. We were allowed to use Chinese in casual conversations in addition to playing sports and games with them. And then we realized we aren’t that much different from one another after all. Perhaps one of the best memories I had with my students during free time was going to the night market with a few of them. There, they became our teachers and we, consequently, became their students. They taught us what various foods are as well as many of the traditions they had in southern Taiwan. Overall, this was probably the most important point: watching as teachers turned into students such that both parties increased their knowledge of each other.
In the end, I have no idea whether we became what Lee Hom wanted us to become, but even if we didn’t, I feel that we came extremely close. All the moments everyone had, whether it be having culture shocks, teaching, or learning, turned them into vital connections between two different yet similar cultures. Although the time we all had together to teach was only a short two weeks, I trust that everyone enjoyed their times doing so. Because I certainly did.
On a final note, I want to thank the Taiwan cultural department for ever creating such a wonderful program, the counselors for taking their time to lead us, and the schools for allowing us to teach in them. Without these, I seriously doubt the world can become a better place filled with understanding and friendship. If I ever get another chance to volunteer, I would definitely take it.
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Tuan, Yi (段弋)
Initially, I prepared for the worst, both for myself and the students. I feared that I might not be able to effectively and appropriately deliver my ideas to my students, for I cannot yet grasp their English comprehensive level. I also worried about my students, about possible outliers who simply cannot, and others who would not, learn the materials I present them with. Even though I have had previous teaching experience in America, this is the first time I am to lead a class of native Taiwanese speakers, students who have extremely limited English abilities. On the first day at my first school, I confidently approached my class, having prepared long and hard on my teaching plan. That very first day, I had the time of my life, excited my students’ enthusiasm and curiosity towards learning English. What I thought would be the most awkward and hard day turned out to be exact opposite. In the next week, I began to realize that I had worried too much, for the answers to my questions appear on their own during my interactions with my students. When a student cannot understand an instruction or a question, I first try to coax the answer out of the student by either using body language or placing emphasis orally on certain key words that they know; most students are then able to figure out what I meant. For the few that still struggles, I translate the sentence word by word for them, and then make sure they know each and every word before I leave. Through this method, the students eventually got familiar with my style of teaching, and a bond is established between us that makes communication between us easier and more efficient. Another problem I came across was some students’ stubbornness to not participate. This behavior cannot be tolerated, for it will have a dramatic effect on the rest of the class. For these students, I first talk to them personally, motivating them if that’s what they lack. If the first method doesn’t work, I will try to give more opportunities to these students, allowing them to speak on more occasions and forcing them to participate for at least a few times. By the end of the first week, everyone was so engaged in class that it became surprisingly painful when it is time to part. The lessons I learned during the first week helped me ease into the second week at the second school. Having already gone through the lessons, I was much more relaxed and my teaching went smoother. The second week flew by before I know it. Overall, in addition to maintaining positive and efficient communication with the students, another strategy I utilized was having a resilient teaching style. Instead of treating everyone the same way, I spent more effort on the weaker students, offering them a slower pace of learning that has allowed them to catch up with their peers. Having a unique approach to each and every student is a key to success in being a teacher, and thanks to all my students, I now have a personal experience that proves this method to be indeed effective and necessary.
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Che, Mandy (石傳慧)
Upon stepping foot onto the streets in Taipei, I honestly felt like a stranger to this unfamiliar place around me. My Mandarin was not polished as I occasionally mixed it up with Cantonese, and I did not have any exposure to Taiwanese culture since none of my family members were native Taiwanese. Despite my lack of assimilation to the Taiwan lifestyle, the AID summer program has exposed me to this beautiful country, and through a very rewarding opportunity of teaching kids living in remote areas English.
At our host school, Heping Elementary School in New Taipei City, all the staff members were so welcoming and so caring, which really set the tone to our trip. On the first day, the students whispered among themselves saying, “Look, foreigners!” as we walked by them. But they slowly swarmed around us, eager to get to know each of us volunteers. At that moment, I felt the excitement in store for us in the next few weeks.
Something I learned from my teacher experience was that being a teacher isn't as easy as it seems, especially when you’re teaching younger kids. My first day with my partner was a little demoralizing: kids were rolling on the ground, screaming, not listening to our directions, and barely understood a word of English we said. But as our teaching days progressed, we began to really understand how to manage a classroom. We figured out that the way to keep young children engaged was to: 1) Play A LOT of games, 2) Give them lots of rewards (ie. stickers and candy,) and 3) To keep them quiet, put on “Let it go” from Frozen. Although the they were not always the most well behaved and drove us crazy at times, being able to see the the effort each and every student put into learning English definitely made a huge impact on me. Witnessing their improvement in speaking and their eagerness to learn made me feel like I made the slightest mark on those children’s lives. But this wasn’t just a one-sided teaching experience for us to the kids; to me, the kids taught me so much more about myself. I learned patience and compassion, I found the love I have for sharing my culture, I realized how much I actually love little kids, and most importantly, I learned that it only takes a little to really change the life of someone else.
Not only have I found a connection to the students I taught, but the friendships that I have made through AID are ones that I know will last for a long time. Each person I had gotten to know to from all over the world were each very accomplished in different ways, and being brought together with the same intentions to teach and experience Taiwanese culture, was like fate as cliche as it sounds. I was very fortunate to have such a memorable experience my first time coming to Taiwan and I will definitely miss the daily milk teas and bento boxes, the children's’ bright smiles at the end of every day, the kind staff members, the thrills at the night market, and just all the adventures I had with my friends. This teaching experience has definitely changed my impression of Taiwan to one that is truly indescribable and has inspired me so much more to really put myself out there and experience the unfamiliar out there in my life.
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Lo, Albert (羅偉修)
Over the past 3 weeks, I have gotten to known a group of friendly colleagues and a school of children. The male colleagues were eager to express themselves and so was I, so we were able to become friends the moment I entered our shared bedroom. On the other hand, the female colleagues were shy and remained silent despite our relentless pursuit of having them open up and talk to us. However as time passed, the females slowly opened themselves up but just to a mere acquaintance level. They seemed to be happier talking among themselves as opposed to with the other males. It did not bother me because, at the end of the day, we became a collaborative group despite some distance between each other. Of course that description is only limited to the females in my group. During break time, my roommate and I would mingle around and converse with other people. We were able to meet equally outgoing people of both genders during our excursions; however, there happened to be more females willing to develop a friendship after a quick exchange.
The children were similar to the females in that they were extremely shy on the first day. As they became more acquainted with us, they opened themselves up to us. My male colleagues were the idols of the female students whereas the male students gathered around me. At times they pestered each other, but with immediate action, they eventually grew to appreciate each other as friends and classmates. There were also other times when students became so attached to me that I was annoyed. However, I was still saddened when I passed my plates to them and hugged them goodbye
My award plates best represent the time I spent teaching these children because they were awards for my group of six amazing students. In a short amount of time, I was able to discover their most particular traits. I felt like they were super, so I made them into superheroes in their awards. Despite their differences, they banded under me and made me feel special, mature, and proud.
Overall, I enjoyed the company I made while learning and teaching. Most of the lessons at Chien Tan were not very interesting and became repetitive after a few days, but they were necessary to learn in order to effectively teach the students. The teaching experience was decent because the students followed directions and were quiet, but when I needed them to be loud and excited, they were not. I think that the AID Summer program was amazing, but the other volunteers and students could have interacted more with us as fellow volunteers and teachers.
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Leege, Christopher (李克賢)
When I received my acceptance to the 2014 AID program, I was ecstatic, and when that passed, I was conflicted. Between the time I had applied for AID, and when I received the acceptance, many things had changed. For one, I learned that I would be attending college next year in Connecticut. Secondly, I learned that my dad might be getting a new job, and as a result our family would have to move from San Jose, California to the East Coast. This meant that this Summer might be my last Summer in San Jose, where I had lived all my life and where all my friends are. So when I received my acceptance, I didn’t know what to do. I decided to attend the program, but I think my subconscious was working against me. I didn’t try very hard to get things in on time, and near the end, I didn’t know for sure whether I would be attending or not, but on July 6th, I found myself at the Chien Tan Youth Activity Center.
The first week of the program, training week, felt a little long, but I met a lot of people who I enjoyed talking too, and I learned some of their reasons for joining AID, which helped me when the teaching weeks came, and we went to our schools. I was assigned to Da Wu Junior High School in Taitung County. The first day of school was a little nerve-wracking. I had never taught English before, and I wasn’t sure how to teach properly. There is only so much that lectures on English teaching and education can do. As I met the students though, some of my fears were assuaged. The kids were all well-behaved (with only a little mischief), and all of them were eager to learn. As I stumbled through my first day of teaching, they were helpful and encouraging. Their enthusiasm for learning English was what made the program worthwhile to me. Even though they were young, they understood the advantages of learning a second language.
This program was also an opportunity for me to connect with my family in Taiwan and learn more about my Taiwanese roots. Living in America all my life, and being half Caucasian, it was fairly easy to not to seek out my Mom’s cultural heritage. This program has helped me to learn more about Taiwan, since before it I had only been to Taipei and Hualien, and to improve my Chinese skills as I communicated with teaching assistants and the teacher at the school I was assigned to.
I believe that AID was a great opportunity for both my students and myself to learn about a language and culture that they were not as familiar with. I know that I have come away from the program with a much deeper connection to my cultural heritage in Taiwan, and I believe that the students we taught improved in their English skills and their understanding of American culture.
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Yu, Cynthia (于慧觀)
When I first applied for Aidsummer I didn't know what to expect, I had applied for fun with my sister and some friends and was not at all sure I was going to actually go through with the program. Although I always wanted to travel to Taiwan, I wasn’t sure I could commit to a program that lasted an entire month overseas.
My parents both grew up in Taiwan and moved to America during their college years. Despite my parents growing up in Taipei and majority of my family living there, I have never once along with siblings been to Taiwan. I always envied my friends who were able to travel to Taiwan every summer and visit their family.
When I discovered that I was accepted into the program along with my sister, I decided that this is an opportunity that I cannot pass up since it is a chance to visit someplace new and learn about my culture while doing something extremely productive.
When the assigned schools were released and I saw that my sister was placed in Ping-dong and I was placed in New Taipei City (which is just about the furthest we can be separated!) I was so scared and nervous because we realized that we would not be even remotely near each other and we would be stuck in Taiwan living and teaching with people we did not know.
But as I arrived at Chientan on the first day and met the others in my school group, I began to feel less nervous because I realized that everyone else felt the same as I did and everyone was nervous to meet one another. The first week at Chientan was extremely fun despite having to wear our blue polo’s, long pants and closed toed shoes all the time! Everyone I met was really friendly and we all had our little stories we could share with one another. It was fun meeting new people from around the world and learning a bit from one another.
During the second week, we left Chientan and with our groups we all departed to our individual schools. My school was located in New Taipei City, I honestly had no idea what to expect at my school since I didn’t know if it would be in a mountain area extremely far from the cities or some other type of strange area. After arriving at our school we discovered that we were extremely lucky to be placed in an area where 7-eleven, family mart, and the MRT were all walking distances.
During the first day of teaching, our students were somewhat shy and didn’t really speak, but as the week passed our students began to open up and we all grew close to each and every one of them.
During the weekends, our school counselors and assistants were really cool and brought us to several different nearby cities such as Yingge, Danshuei, Taoyuan, Pingxi, Taipei, and many others and let us experience all the popular sites and activities like pottery, Chinese lanterns, bike riding, shopping, arcades and of course eating all the different types of food! (:
The two teaching weeks flew by and our entire group was extremely sad we had to leave our students, counselors and assistants.
After leaving our school we left for tour week. The tour week was fun, but I have to admit not as great as the 2 weeks at our school since we weren't allowed much freedom. But it was still great since we all had the opportunity to hear from other group’s experiences teaching at their individual schools in different areas of Taiwan.
Overall I still can’t believe Aidsummer is actually over. I think that this program taught me a lot about the Taiwan culture and created many great friendships and memories that will last a lifetime. I am extremely fortunate that I was able to participate in such a great program and meet such great people. I would recommend Aidsummer to anyone that wants a life changing experience! (:
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Yu, Lillian (于慧馨)
Having never been to Taiwan before, AID Summer has really made this summer an unforgettable experience. In just a few weeks I have met so many new friends and learned a great deal about Taiwan culture. My first week in Chientan was tiresome and exhausting, but once our group arrived in Pingtung, we were all very ecstatic to teach our students. Everyone was very excited to meet our school, Chung Wen Elementary School, and welcomed us with open arms. At first, I was a bit nervous about meeting the students because I have never been to Taiwan before and young children who would be learning their third language intimidated me. Everything changed on the first day at Chung Wen. The children were all very shy, quiet, and well behaved. Their excited faces and enthusiastic personalities made me want to try harder and aid them in learning English. My fear of being too quiet or shy immediately went away. The children were eaasy to get along with and looked up to us as role models. Originally, I thought that living in rural Pingtung city would be difficult, but it ended up being a great experience. The host family I lived with were very friendly and accommodating. They made our two weeks in Pingtung not only filled with great food, but also took us places to explore and experience the night life around the city. Overall, my time spent at AID Summer has been incredible. I have learned a great deal about my own culture and in the end, have become a more mature person. I believe that AID Summer has opened me up to many new opportunities and gave me a chance to finally give back to my community.
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Fang, Alex (方培淳)
I arrived in a room at Jientan, where I met three of my group mates for the next four weeks. We quickly got to know each other and throughout the week, the four of us and four additional people attended classes and meetings together, as we were all going to be teachers at Hot Springs Elementary School at Taitung. At Jientan, our group got to know each other better, and also learned various teaching techniques, such as playing different games to keep the kids’ attention, classroom management to keep kids in order, and creating a teaching plan to stay organized.
After a week of training at Jientan, I felt like I was ready to teach the kids English. When I landed in Taitung with the rest of my group, I was immediately welcomed with a funny sign inside the airport, stating that the raising of birds near the airport is strictly prohibited. Although at that time it was already pretty late and I was tired, I still laughed. The rest of my time spent in Taitung proved to be just as full of fun.
Despite all the preparations my teaching partner and I made before Monday, when the kids first arrived, they were different than what I expected. They were all different among themselves, from a quiet, aboriginal girl, to a friendly, outgoing, helpful girl, to a pushy, loud boy. It really surprised me that everyone was here to learn English, and that everyone seemed to have chosen to go to English camp themselves, rather than forced to. Every day, the kids grew bolder and bolder, more willing to smile, laugh, and talk to us teachers. Their excitement at playing a simple vocabulary game, or going outside to play basketball reminded me of my time as a kid and how energetic and happy they can be.
On the weekend, we went to Green Island and toured around it. Through this trip I bonded more with the teachers from the school and my group mates. We spent the time touring around the island, seeing all the special rocks and notable landmarks, and we even went snorkeling. On Sunday morning, we all went to watch the sunrise, and it reminded me of how everyone participating in the AID summer camp always did their best and were learning. By the time we were heading back on the boat, I wasn't thinking about Green Island, but about the upcoming week.
During the second week, the kids and I were like friends rather than a teacher and student. We talked together, played games together, and even napped together during breaks. By now, most of the kids were willing to speak to us teachers in English. Although we had encouraged them to speak English, the final challenge that remained was to get the kids to learn a performance for the closing ceremony. Because the kids were not comfortable with singing a full song, we settled for two different dances. After the closing ceremony, we exchanged contacts, and hoped to meet again, and by the next time we meet I hope they will have improved their English by a lot, because I know they can do it.
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Chen, Nicholas (陳天麟)
Having waited for this opportunity to come and participate in AID Taiwan for the past three years, I certainly had high hopes and expectations for this month; and I’m glad to say that I wasn’t disappointed in he least. This summer was a chance to witness a modernized Taiwan, the unique aboriginal scene, teach in a rural school setting and of course enjoy the pride and joy of Taiwanese culture: food!
My training week in Chientan gave me my first taste at planning a curriculum while also providing me a chance to finally meet my beloved family for the next month. The accommodations were wonderfully complete with a professional set of staff and counsellors. After Chientan, I realized just how blessed I was to have been placed in Chiayi’s Liou Jiao Elementary School. Our teacher Joe would go above and beyond on a daily basis to make sure that we were all as comfortable as possible. Our military supervisors and every additional helper at the school kept us entertained with their life experiences and stories. The children in of themselves made each day worth it, with their bright smiles and truly admirable desire to learn.
Though it was quite saddening to leave my routine lifestyle in Liao Jiou, the tour week definitely made it easier to ease through the feelings of doom and gloom associated with withdrawal. Our four bus counsellors: Paige, Mike, Crystal, and Elaine were truly wonderful caretakers and it’s definitely been my pleasure to have been paired with them. Though the tour portion of this trip has only been one week it feels like I’ve already come to experience more of Taiwan than I ever could have on my own. The amount of precision and planning gone into this last week honestly must have been immense and to all those involved I give you my warmest and most sincere thanks. Though I’ve diligently spent the last month scribbling down every detail of this eye opening trip, I still feel that there’s still just so much missing in my entries. Luckily pictures are worth a thousand words and I got a lot of those so I guess I’m in good hands. While this trip is quickly winding down I know that my time in Taiwan, while brief will definitely shine bright forever in my heart as well as in mind’s eye. It’s been real AID, thanks for everything!
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Wu, Elizabeth (吳佩珊)
My participation in this year’s AID program has been a truly rewarding and unforgettable experience. I haven't visited Taiwan in about five to six years and it was my first time traveling to another country alone. It was also the first time that I was away from my family for so long.When I first arrived at Chien Tan, I was pretty nervous because I didn’t know anyone else and my Chinese was horrendous. But after meeting the other people in my group and seeing how their situations were very similar to mine, I felt much better. The first week was rigorous and tiring, but also informative. Being together with my group for the majority of the time helped us to get to know each other better. It felt a little restrictive at times because we couldn't leave and there were so many rules and regulations as well as a super strict schedule. However, I learned quite a few things such as information about the communities that we were serving, the environments, and teaching tidbits that helped me to feel a little less nervous and more prepared.
When we first arrived at Shueiliao elementary school and started preparing our teaching materials, I worried about how I was going to interact with the students and how they would react to me. The first few days of teaching were pretty hectic. The students seemed reluctant to speak in English (though they knew more than we thought) and would make fun of us a bit in Taiwanese, knowing that we (especially me because my teaching partner was way better than me at Chinese) could not understand what they were saying. Classes proceeded with my partner and I talking to the students mostly in English and the students replying in Chinese. There was one particular student who was basically the naughty kid. He said a few cuss words and flipped us off. It was frustrating but I decided to pay more attention to him. One particular day, we were playing with water balloons and everyone needed to have a partner to pass the balloons to. Nobody really wanted to be his partner so at the beginning of one of the many rounds of that game, he wanted to sit out. Instead of letting him do that, I pulled him into the game and played with him as his partner. After that day, he began to open up and he went from not acknowledging us to greeting us when we passed by. By the end of the two weeks of teaching, I felt much more connected with my students a there were many sad faces when we had to say goodbye. What was more touching was that after the students went home, some students came back and brought us drinks that they bought from the nearby FamilyMart. From this entire teaching experience, I realized how hard but also rewarding it was to be a teacher. I really hope that I was able to make a difference in at least one of the students' lives and make their interest in learning English to continue to grow.
In addition to being able to teach, I was also able to visit so many different places in Taiwan that I've never been to before. Going to the Shilin night market during the training week and Kenting during the weekend of the first teaching week was so incredibly fun. I'm really thankful for this program as well as my teaching group for making this summer so enjoyable.
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Wang, Lillian (王一竹)
AID Summer 2014 was an amazing experience for me. I'm so fortunate for being able to have this opportunity to teach less fortunate kids English in Taiwan. All the kids in my class were so adorable as they showed their eagerness to learn English. It was fun working with other volunteers from all over the US, and I was able to get very close to the group of volunteers at my school. The memories that were made through this camp will definitely last a lifetime!
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Tham, Arthur (譚祖崙)
In America, I am a Rotary Interactor. In Taiwan, I am an AID Volunteer.
AID is like an Interact event. Energy filled the first day, and it never ceased. Volunteer teachers started making new friends. People started socializing. Everyone spoke English. One could say that every day was a good day.
At the start of the teaching portion, most volunteer teachers left Jiantan to live in their schools. Our group, A3-1, went to Cingshuei Elementary School in Changhua County, but we lived in other people’s houses. While the guys’ home’s owners acted really kind to us, things started out very tense; no one wanted to make the first move toward socializing with each other.
Nothing really took off until the first day. The sons and daughters of the households happened to be our teachers’ assistants. In our high-level class, Peter and Eva kept the children in check, but Penny took off with language translation. Great teaching partner Bob and I tried to teach using one-hundred percent English, but ended up mixing the two languages because it helped the children understand what we were saying. Bob worked very hard every day, but it was never enough, and knowing how Bob works really hard, I realized that it was very hard to teach that class.
By the second day, I was used to the class. Everyone knew everything, and we kept running out of things to teach. However, it was like teaching an elementary class in America, so it felt like home.
That is, until the switch happened. It was like the MLB trade deadline, except classes were trading teaching partners. I was traded to a lower-level class, led by the coolios girl Eileen. Things changed fast. First of all, the children wanted their old teacher Minda back. As much as I like Minda, I felt slightly insulted. However, they quickly caught on and I ended up loving them as much as my initial class’ children.
The first day with Eileen’s class was rough. There was a fight between members of two classes, and one kid almost had his arm broken off. I could not finish the class; I hung out at the English lab for the rest of the ten minutes of class. As much as I loved children, I never knew that I could get so mad at them. From then on, I knew that as a teaching master, I could not tolerate the small things that could lead to big fights.
The TAs helped me out in that class too. Erin explained harder things in Chinese and controlled the class. Nelson and Hank took over PE. But the most interesting person of all was my teaching partner.
Up to this day, I still don’t know why I was traded. It was widely agreed that Eileen and Minda were too soft and that their class needed a loud voice to control the children. But I knew Eileen and Minda were good teaching partners. Why was I traded?
Over time, I watched Eileen grow. Or maybe she already grew. I don’t know. Either way, her voice was very soft; no one could really hear her, and the school had to bring in microphones to amplify her voice. Later on, she refused to use the mic. She didn’t need that stick. She taught like a boss. The kids loved her, and she loved them back. She knew what to do when I didn’t know what to do. Eileen was a quick favorite, and for that I love her for who she is.
Perhaps the most interesting part of my experience in Cingshuei is the choreographies for the opening and closing ceremonies. At Jiantan, I established myself as the tech guy in my group that attempts to fix stuff on Chinese Windows and English laptops. I ended up cutting and mixing many songs within the last few weeks as well. It was amazing how many times I had my audio cuts played in a month in Jiantan, Cingshuei, and even on tour in the talent show. I could become a DJ. Maybe.
But in order to know what to cut in the audio while at Cingshuei, I listened to genius choreographer Jennifer. She is kind, lovely, and holds nothing back. In two ways. Firstly, she’s not afraid to express her attitude and thoughts when something good or bad happens or is said. It’s like she has no filter in her brain. But most importantly, her love for children is off the charts. No matter how much she loved or hated them, she stayed dedicated to them. It felt like her energy filled the opening and closing ceremonies, from her singing to her dancing.
You could tell she was a dancer. Or at least, it looked like it. She helped choreograph the A3-1,2,3 group dance. She led the Hoedown Throwdown for the opening ceremony. She helped us launch fireworks in All Star in the closing ceremony. Here she was doing the Hoedown Throwdown for Bus D’s dance. And for all four, she seemed really happy and motivated.
Her attitude and charisma made me want to do her dances. It got to a point where I practiced every day to not just make her job easier, but also make the children and volunteer teachers happy. From Chinese songs to K-Pop, I did it all. And those are moments I will never forget.
Funny enough, the closing ceremony performance I never forgot wasn’t choreographed by Jennifer. It was something I played on the piano: Tong Hua. I love playing the piano because I can improv it most of them time. Bob and Matthew, the latter being a nice college student, both sang the song well, but it was the children’s reactions that changed it all.
They sang to it.
They sang with purpose, with power, with energy. There was so much energy that I had to start slamming the piano in order for everyone to hear the music. Bob’s and Matthew’s voices were drowned out. It was then when I realized that everyone was willing to sing the song with purpose. The participation from everyone in the auditorium convinced me that they were excited for the performance.
Over the last few weeks, my social life was centered on seven other volunteer teachers. For the guys, besides Bob the debator and Matthew the computer science guy, there was Jason the magician. For the girls, besides Eileen the coolios girl and Jennifer the face-filter-less choreographer and socializer, there was Kelly the positive believer and Minda the marching band girl.
Our green-shirt teacher, Cindy, was like my leader. Well, she really is our group leader, but she played a really important role during our two weeks of teaching. She got mad when she had to, and she complemented us when we did something great. There is no doubt that I love this teacher and that I will never forget how she impacted group A3-1.
Normally, green-shirt teacher Wen would lead us. Eileen and I took on a liking of both Wen and her husband, Coach. Both are really cute and all, but they also helped us with transportation and AID advice. After all, Wen is in charge of the AID program and Cingshuei.
The homestay families were nothing like I thought they would be. When I first saw the news, I immediately thought, “Wow, I’m an international student living in Taiwan, and they’ll only speak Chinese, and I am so screwed.”
Now, I can never forget them. Nelson was the cool guy that did a ton of random stuff, but he could also get mad at my class with seriousness. Eva was like my mom and made me drink medicine when I had to. I first saw Erin as a troll, but she became my lifesaver.
Of course, there are the TAs. All of the other TAs I remember, though I cannot talk about them all here. I still remember Nelson, Eva, and Erin. I also remember Penny, who never stopped smiling even when we got mad at the class. And who could forget the principal’s daughter, Zora? At first, I thought we had to be super careful, but within the last few days, Zora and I started playing random games together. She’s super chill, as well as the other TAs. I love them all.
As the final days start coming up, I can’t help but realize that I may not see my new friends again. The people at Cingshuei. Eileen, my teaching partner. Bob, Matthew, and Jason, my roommates. Jennifer, the socializing choreographer. Minda and Kelly. Eric, Kevin, Daniel, and Joel, my tour friends. Nate, the leader of our Bus D talent show. Alice and Rachel, the A3-1,2,3 dance choreographers. Even Alexis, though I remember meeting her by comparing my height to her. And many more that I can’t name.
Wow, I will miss them all.
All of my students, before and after the switch. All of my gray-shirt friends. Mr. Eric, also known as Bee. Changhua in general. I don’t even know if I will come back to Taiwan. This could be it.
This could be my last time in Taiwan.
When I step off that stage on the second floor of the youth activity center, I will remember to think of all of these people. I refuse to believe that I may not see them again. I know I will meet everyone again someday. I want to see their faces again. They have changed me as a person, and it has gotten to a point that I would want to visit them again and treat them to dinner or something really great.
I will see them again someday. And you can count on that. Like one, two, three. Because that’s what friends are supposed to do, right?
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Chang, Yung Hsiang (張詠翔)
First, some truth. When I first stepped into the classroom at Dawu Middle School, I knew that it was impossible for me to use the lessons taught at the one week training camp. At the training week in Jiantan, the lecturers continually tell us not to “BS” your way through teaching, and that each lesson should be meticulously thought out and planned beforehand. I can tell you that this is completely false. Kids are fickle—and you have to adapt your teaching on the go so that it fits the kids well. Everyday, my teaching partner and I stayed up at least until 12:30 finishing up lesson plans and working journals in the hope that it would work. And it did, and it was fun.
What did I learn from this program? What I realize about the point of this AID program is that it is not only about teaching kids English. To be completely honest, I really doubt that when their school starts again, they will remember the basic vocabulary words that my wonderful teaching partner Wendy and I had taught them. Instead, there were three main points that I had taken away from this one month:
1. Teach the kids a love of learning. From this program, I realize that teaching is not supposed to entirely teach the kids things. Instead, it is to instill a love and passion for learning. The kids at the end participated in every game; they even went so far to want to play review games because for once, learning English was fun for them. Instead of teaching them English, we taught them to love learning English and to not be afraid of speaking out.
2. The bonds formed. Throw six total strangers from all over the US and give them the task of teaching a foreign language to kids for two weeks, and you will make amazing bonds. Staying up until the early hours in the morning thinking of seating charts, making powerpoints, and coming up of songs do that to you. During this one month I have met amazing people. I’ve met kindred spirits that I could talk anything to about, among others. And the kids—the rowdy kids who had been so hard to control the first day ended up begging me to take them back to America, inviting themselves to my future wedding, and asking me to visit them in the future.
3. Diversity and finding myself. Where I live in the US, everyone is Asian. The homogeneity is nice in the sense that it is easy to get used to, but when I came here, the diversity is overwhelming. I met people with intense back stories, different aspirations, and varying life views. By talking to these people, I could take lessons learned from these people and continue to build who I am. I had always been shy and introverted, but as a teacher who is teaching 15 very excitable seventh graders, it is impossible to be quiet around them. Activeness is a must. So with the help of Wendy, I learned how to open up, make a fool of myself and laugh with the class in doing so.
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Ku, George (古家治)
Coming into this program, I was a little nervous, but also a little relieved. I knew a handle of people in my area that was planning on attending this program, so I wasn't too stressed about not knowing anyone in the program. Therefore, I was looking forward to the four weeks of freedom from my parents and relatives. Once we arrived at the activity center, I was overwhelmed by the amount of volunteers who were there, along with the wide range of places these people were from.
When we first sat down to dinner, I wasn't aware that the people I sat down with was going to be the volunteers who were going to the same school as me. I had already met Hank, the other boy who was going to the same school, since he was my roommate. He was pretty cool, since he also played baseball and was in the same grade as me. The girls were also nice, and most of them were from California, so it was easy to relate with them. Two days later, it felt like we had known each other for years. We were probably the loudest and most talkative group, but we were still able to get things done. By the time we finally arrived at Yude Elementary School, we were already treating each other like family.
On the first day of the school,I wasn't so excited to teach my kids, but after I got to know them, I was excited to go to school every day to teach them. At first it was hard to communicate with them, but after a while I got used to them not being able to understand every word I said. They even surprised me a little when they were able to sing "What Does the Fox Say" for our closing ceremony.
If I had the chance, I would definitely come back, and I recommend that everyone who has the time for it come and try it out. It's a great experience that is worth spending a month of your summer in the hot, humid weather of Taiwan. Although you might not be used to the heat at first, after a while you can get used to it.
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Kao, Laura (高韻宇)
Dear all those who contributed to my experience at AID Summer Program 2014,
To my adorable students:
Hello Linda, Zoe, John, Abby, Oscar, Jason Huang, Jason Zhang, Ted, Peggy, Maggie, Vicky, Mia, Nina, Rachel, and Tina.
Choosing to participate in the AID Summer Volunteer Program to teach English has been one of the most memorable and meaningful decisions I have made thus far in my life. Though I may not have gotten a high paying summer job or internship and a famous company as people I know are doing, I definitely did made the most out of my time here. In fact, I was able to directly influence and interact with a group of young people such as you. I did this by sharing my knowledge to help you expand yours, as well as listening and paying attention to what you had to teach me about your lives and culture.
I still remember on the first day of school, all of you were extremely quiet. No one wanted to say a word. Some people did not even seem to make a sound during class time and would instead only mouth some inaudible words. Sarina and I also slightly underestimated some of your English skill levels. As a result, the first couple night we spent much time adjusting our lesson plans and trying to figure out what topics and activities would be appropriate. Additionally, some of your English skill levels are better than others, so we tried to work in some additional activities such as worksheets for those who were up to the challenge.
I believe it was the third day, Wednesday of the first week of class that we all had an insane amount of fun. Sarina and I taught you guys about seasons and other vocabulary and characteristics that are commonly associated with those seasons. The best part was that we played many interactive games that finally got you guys all riled up and excited. As the days went on, I began to realize how much I, as a teacher, feed off your guys’/students’ energy. When you all are having a blast and I see you laughing, I don’t feel tired even though I might have slept roughly only 4 or 5 hours the previous night preparing for class.
I legitimately have a deeper appreciation for those teachers that possess the ability and patience to teach any group of students.
My hope is that you all not only gained some knowledge about the English language and American culture, but also had a memorable and joyful time these past two weeks as I had with you all. Thank you for all the laughs we shared.
To 老師，阿姨，Eric, and Dory:
Where do I even begin…老師, I don’t think I could ever thank you enough for all the time you have dedicated to us and the AID Summer Program. Thank you for providing us with a framework that included a couple planned special programs, but allowing us the freedom to approach topics however we saw fit. The AID Summer English Program and Jhongyun Junior high would not have been a success if it were not for you and your commitments as well as never-fading support to us, the volunteer teachers. Even during the weekend when we weren’t necessarily working on school/class material, you drove us around southern Taiwan and took us to see so many fun and unique places.
阿姨, Thank you so much for everything you have done for us as well. You became like a mother to us. One who unconditionally gives and cares for her children, including doing our laundry, chopping plates of fruit every morning, and trying to continually stuff us with more and more food. (Trust me when I say that we all have gained at least some weight from the two weeks that we stayed with you all in LinYuan.
Thank you for taking us in and treating us like family. I will never forget the time I spent with you all and look forward to the next time we can meet!
To my fellow teaching partner, group buddies, and 小灰灰:
Sarina: Thank you for being the best teaching partner I could ask for. I had a great time planning and teaching with you. Staying up late some night for the students was worth it. I remember when we both first started. We felt a little skeptical and unsure about some students, but we managed to figure out how to play along with the students and focus and sometimes avert their energy to other tasks. It was around that point where teaching and interacting with our students became less impersonal and a lot more interesting, to say the least.
Your optimism never fails to brighten up my day, so keep doing what you’re doing, and I hope that ever day will be the “best day ever” for you. 啾咪 ^__^
Sarina, Sabrina, Emily, Rachel, and Hellen: hanging out with you all has been a blast. Though we may come from different areas, we all got along quite well (some perhaps even more than others, ahem, Sabrina and Rachel). The first week of training at Chientan was pretty tedious and jam-packed, but luckily we were able to entertain each other. These past four weeks went by way too fast. I cannot believe that we only have two more days of AID Program together. By now we have all gotten used to each other’s sleeping and eating habits and random quirks. I will certainly miss our daily word games of “Contact” during supper. Oh, and thanks for letting me take some fish/seafood from your table when the vegetarian table at Chientan/during the tour had some sketchy/strange looking “fake meat.”
Lydia~! You were the best小灰灰 ever during the first week of training…but why did you leave us during tour week? ☹ Thank you for trusting us, being so nice, and playing around with us. We had so much fun going to Shilin night market with you that first week, hehe.
At least during tour week for our bus we had Maya, Mango, Sophia, and EeJohn. Thank you Maya for taking care of us and playing along with us. Thank you Mango for entrusting us the task of giving you an English name. (The Taiwanese translation of it still sounds better). Thank you Sophia for being so sweet and making sure that our bus stays together/is safe. Thank you EeJohn for sharing with us the tales of your once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
To everyone:
I will miss you all dearly. As this summer program comes to a close, know that I have already started missing you, my students, friends, 老師，阿姨，etc.
謝謝大家跟我一起度過這四個美好禮拜。希望能夠在會來台灣看大家或者在美國一起見面。我一定不會忘記妳們的！
Sincerely,
Laura Kao
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Fang, Justin (方培旭)
My roommate Evan had just shook me again, and as much as my body protested, it was time to go out and see LiShan Elementary school while it was not shrouded by the dark. Opening the front door and stepping upon the open-air hallway on the second floor of the dormitory, I was greeted by an absolutely breathtaking view. Soaring peaks including Xue Shan appeared across from the spot where I was standing, and nestled in between us were acres of farm and irrigated by a small river at the very bottom of the valley. Gorgeous views like this would be the standard for the rest of my time up in the beautiful LiShan.
Christopher McCandless once wrote that true happiness was only real when shared, and so for the longest time I was actually not truly happy, even when put in such a beautiful setting. At first, I felt pretty lonely and unsure of what I was doing here. It seemed like everyone except for me had come to this camp already knowing other people, and that I was just kind of an outsider. So I spent much of my time exploring my surroundings and taking photos, so that I could eventually share my happiness with others. But as time went by, I became pretty close to all those around me at LiShan. The kids were extremely easy to befriend, and how could I not want to explore and play with all these absolutely adorable little kids who were just bursting with happiness and excitement. Also, I would play basketball with the many aboriginals that were training at the school every night. I also got to get to know the other teachers really well, and so by the end of the two weeks, I felt like I had made some good friends.
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