Annual Sharing (Secondary) Enlivening students' learning experiences through infusing life planning and STEM elements into the school-based English Language curriculum

Date :

4 December 2020

Time :

2:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Mode :

Webinar

Objectives :

To share good practices on how to:

• enrich the English Language curriculum with STEM elements to increase students' engagement in learning English and their competence in using English in multi-disciplinary tasks

• help students develop positive values and attitudes, essential language and generic skills and work habits for the workplace through experiential learning activities

2:15 pm - 2:30 pm

2:30 pm - 2:35 pm

An introduction was given to show how teachers can adopt an integrative approach to enliven students' learning experiences through infusing life planning and STEM elements into the school-based English Language curriculum.

2:35 pm - 3:05 pm

To deepen students' interest in learning English, provision of quality learning experiences is the key. Teachers in Tseung Kwan O Government Secondary School have designed a range of experiential learning tasks that enabled students to apply knowledge on different themes and lifelong learning skills in an integrative manner. For instance, in the Food Module, students were asked to run a snack tasting competition and persuade the "customers" to vote for the best food. While the food tasting activity provided students with fun time, it also enabled them to develop creativity, organisational skills and communication skills. Teachers also included some STEM education elements in another module which required students to design a gadget to save the environment. They needed to identify the environmental problems and explain how the gadget they designed could solve those problems. Through this process, students were able to apply research skills, creativity, problem solving skills, and presentation skills for a meaningful purpose.

3:05 pm - 3:35 pm

Senior secondary level is an important phase for students to proceed to tertiary education and the world of work. To provide students with career-related learning in accordance with their interests and abilities, HKWMA Chu Shek Lun Secondary School infused life planning education (LPE) into the senior English Language curriculum. In this project, a thematic unit on "Internships" was implemented in an S5 English class to build students' self-understanding and career awareness and an internship opportunity was offered in a real work setting to extend the learning of the target students. The project findings show that the LPE-infused English unit has successfully fostered students' development in language, self-understanding and personal goals while the career-related OLE activity (i.e. the job attachment programme) has provided the student interns with work-based learning experiences and helped them achieve personal growth. Teachers also saw the value of the project in supporting students' smooth transition from school to work.

3:35 pm - 4:05 pm

To unleash students' potential in innovation and enhance their creativity, Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School has been promoting STEM education for years. As STEM projects often involve discussing plans, presenting products and concepts, English teachers saw the positive contributions that they could make by integrating STEM education into their school-based English Language curriculum. While teachers of the Maker class focused on the 'making' of the products, English teachers supported students in analysing promotional texts of innovative products, creating multimodal texts (e.g. videos) and equipping them with effective presentation skills to persuade the audience to vote for their products. Through participating in the STEM-related learning activities, students' self-esteem, creativity, collaboration skills, problem solving skills and language skills were enhanced; and they were able to demonstrate positive values and attitudes such as perseverance, commitment and responsibility.

4:05 pm - 4:30 pm