NIENTNU2019

Our adventures in the second week brought us to the outskirts of Taipei city, an area named Sheng Keng. The are was relatively difficult to navigate to, needing to transfer from the MRT line to a public bus followed by a 10-15-minute walk (in which we almost got lost). Our night started with a sumptuous meal courtesy of our host school’s teachers. We ate at a restaurant known for its smelly tofu (makes an appearance in the picture), which we had in a mala broth, along with other local dishes and specialties. After dinner we took a stroll through the old street of Sheng Keng, appreciating the architecture of the building, as well as trying a few of the area’s delicacies. One of the first we sampled was “burnt tofu ice-cream”, which tasted, quite unsurprisingly as the name suggests haha, something like icy creamy barbequed tofu. A another particular peculiar snack we had was an sweet dessert roll. It was an interesting combination of flavours as we watched the shop keeper prepared a wrap...

Time sure flies! Week 5 marks our final week in Longmen Junior High School. It was also a short week as Friday happened to fall on Dragon Boat Festival, a major public holiday in Taiwan. The week started with a Geography lesson by Mindy. She covered many topics which are relevant to their Grade 8 syllabus, such as South East Asia's trade and ASEAN. During one of the days in this week, we got to visit another school in the more mountainous area of New Taipei City. At this High School, we got to sit in one of their sports classes. The students in this class are all capable athletes who balance studies and sports.   Because of their sports trainings, this class had lessons until late at night. We even managed to play a friendly game of volleyball with the students! Our Last Day Our last day of IP started with Mindy's lesson, a light-hearted introduction of Singapore's culture. In the afternoon, we had a formal farewell ceremony, which was graced...

Week 4 was a very big week for us- most of us had lessons to teach, and some of them were even observed by teachers at Longmen Junior High School and our supervising professors from the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). Lessons Rachel's and Bryan's lesson with Grade 7s. There was an Air Defense exercise happening throughout Taiwan during the lesson, so everyone had to turn off all the lights. Rachel and Bryan had an interesting experience of conducting a lesson in the dark. Qiyuan's math lesson Having fun while solving inequalities during Qiyuan's lesson. Outings We also got to go follow two Year 9 classes who were going on excursions after they have completed their High School entrance examinations. Firstly, we visited the Geology museum and Physics museum at National Taiwan University. We also got the rare opportunity to visit the Taipei District Court. A representative of the District Court gave us an introductio...

Week 3 was a pretty intense week for some of us. Ryan and I (Esther) had our lesson observed by history professor from NTNU, and teachers of 龍門國中. Personally for myself, Week 3 was the craziest! Okay maybe let me share a screenshot of how some of our week 3 went. Ryan and myself had our lesson assessed with class 906.  On top of that, we had several self-introductions with the grade 9 classes as we were going to join them in their post-exams learning journeys! The respective form teachers felt it was good for us to introduce ourselves to the class so that the students could be familiar with us. (PS. The grade 9 just finished their national examinations during our period there. So they had many exciting activities lined up for them!! We were veryyyy privileged to be able to join them on these trips!! Making our IP more meaningful and interesting than it could be!) I am going to share about these self-introductions as well as the learning journey to 和平島 (Heping Is...

5th May 2019 (Monday) Reporting to NTNU A New Beginning ~ As soon as we arrived in Taiwan on 4th May 2019 (Sunday), we reported to our host institution, National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) by 9.30am! All of us were excited in embarking in this exhilarating journey for the next 5 weeks!  AT NTNU, we've met the liaison officer, Mr Hiki (A really nice guy! ^^), and also our respective buddies who would be coming to Singapore for their version of International Practicum in July! We are really thankful to have met them even though it was only a short period (since they had lessons in NTNU and we had to go to the school later in the day)!  They took us for a short tour around NTNU, it was an enjoyable day for us! Next stop after NTNU, we took a short bus ride to Longmen Junior High School, beginning our 5-week stint at LJHS! Wooooooooooo ~   10th May 2019 (Saturday) A trip to the Presidential Office  Enjoying Taipei! After our f...