REPORT Artmile International Collaborative Learning 2022
Country/Region [ Taiwan ]School [ National Shanhua Senior High ] Teacher [ Chi-Chen Wu / Eunice Chang ] Grade (11･10) Member (59)
JP School [ Toyohashi Chuo Senior High School ]Teacher [ Yoshio Takakura･Masaki Ajioka ]# Subjects, Activities and Hours of the lessons
Subject
Conception of the lesson
Students will learn how to introduce themselves in either spoken or written
EnglishEnglish. Besides, they will be instructed to do a presentation on their culturalor natural heritages in English.
Students will be guided to collect and sort out the information on the cultural
ICTand natural heritages by searching on the Internet. Also, they have to edit thecontents of their presentation with their computer.
Students will work as a team to decide what to paint on the mural to visualizeArt
the theme/ideas they want to convey.

Hours
16

4

10

# Theme and Message of the mural
Only through peace and international collaboration, the precious cultural heritages canThemebe passed on to the next generations
The worldwide upset followed by the breakout of the war between Russia and Ukraine
has lasted for one year. With no doubt, war like this will pose a great threat to theprecious cultural heritages. Therefore, through this mural, we, in one way, want toMessage
United thoughts tointroduce some cultural heritages we are proud of. In the other way, we want to advocate
share with the world
the importance of peace for all races, religions and countries. The price for losing what
our ancestors have left for us is so high that we should think twice for having a war.

# Effects and Problems
Effects your students have gainedPoints for further improvement

Our students became more confident when they tried to

Before each session, our students found the time forexpress themselves in English because they found even theirpreparing the presentation very limited because they also

Japanese counterparts also struggled to make themselves

had other homework to be busy with. Thus, there is still a lot

understood. Also, students responsible for the technical setting

to be desired, especially the part of doing a greatof each online meeting earned a sense of achievement whenpresentation. Also, IT problems occurred sometimes, which

they offered to help solve all kinds of IT problems.

has been brought to our teachers’ discussion forconnections in the future.

# How has your impression toward your partner’s country/region and the world changed?
Changes in the students
Changes in the teachers
For our students, they assumed Japanese students wouldThis is the 6th collaboration between Shanhua and Toyohashi

travel abroad very often. They even believed many of theirChuo, so we are quite familiar with each other. I think what

friends might have visited Taiwan more than once. However, tosurprised us and set us apart from our partner is that wetheir surprise, most of them have never had that kind ofalways involve English teachers in the project as the mainexperience. Another surprise they found was that some ofcoordinators while Toyohashi Chuo will include teachers

Japanese students were more passionate than they hadteaching different subjects. This leads to a reflection amongexpected. For our students, Japanese should behave in a more

us: is international collaboration only limited to English

cautious attitude.

teachers?

# Flow of the Activity
ContentMonthRESEARCH
the theme

SHAREwith thepartner

UNITEthe thoughts

Sep.
Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

What you did

Your students’ attitude/reflection

Taiwanese Opera, Formosan

Students researched all of the picked-to-be-Black Bear, Green Island White

introduced precious heritages on the internet.

Terror Memorial Park, andTo impress their foreign friends, they had a

Wushantou Reservoir were

lively discussion on what part they planned tochosen to be our focus.

share in the video conference.

A video conference was held in

To introduce one’s own culture to foreigners

the mid-November for students

is never easy, especially in a second language.

from both sides to share whyThus, our students practiced many times

these sites/cultures werebefore they felt they were ready. They workedchosen as their focus.

even harder than they did on the exams.

The way to present the key
concept of the mural, which wasusually in the form of words andput in the middle of the mural,
was decided together in an online
meeting.

artistic way.

Students found an interesting fact, and madeit a feature of the mural: the ways to express“peace” in Chinese characters differ fromcountry to country. Taiwanese will put it as“和平” while Japanese will put it in a reverse way
as “平和”
Even though it was our winter vacation,
students were very enthusiastic about getting
involved in the project. They found some of theabstract meaning behind the heritages wasvery difficult to present, but they tried theirbest.

Our new principal and the dean ofStudents were thrilled to see the mural

students’weredisplayed either in different classes or in theinvited to appreciate the murallibrary. When they watched the mural, they had

with the classes involved.

further exploration on the Japanese heritages.

With the guidance of our art

CREATEthe mural

APPRECIATE
the wholelearning

Jan.
Feb.

Mar.

teacher, students worked
together to represent the four
heritages they picked in anaffair

officeSubjectITEnglishEnglishArtArt# Effect and evaluation gained through the collaborative learning
Evaluation: Rank 5 to 1 (5: very effective / 4: effective / 3: so- so / 2: not so effective / 1: not effective at all)

Expected effectCross-cultural
understanding

Active learningand action

Critical thinking(objective, logical views)

Collaborating withdifferent peopleExpressing in words,in shape

Evaluation

Scenes and reasons that teachers felt the effects

5

Through the video conference, our students learned and left deep
impression on four introduced UNESCO cultural heritages: (1) Gusuku
Sites and Related Properties of the Kingdom of Ryukyu, (2) Historic
Villages of Shirakawa-go and Gokayama, (3) Hiroshima Peace Memorial(Genbaku Dome) and (4) Yakushima.

5When students found what they did (such as doing online presentationor painting a mural) will be seen and appreciated by foreign friends attheir age, they were highly motivated and worked even harder toimpress their viewer. Actually, some of them would practice again andagain to make sure they had done the very best.

5

How to present the relatively abstract concept “peace” on the mural
was not easy, and students spent lots of time thinking how to makeimages “speak” to their viewers. The choice of appropriate symbols,
such as pigeons and lilies, has shown how much students had thought
to make the theme visualized.

5In the beginning of the project, the two classes involved were justrearranged, and some of them were not familiar with one another, notto mention their partners from far away. However, when they worked
together, the multiple talents of their group members were gradually
revealed and cherished. They fostered a sense of self-confidence andlearned how to appreciate others in the process of collaboration.

5For students who have lower English proficiency or are not confident
when express themselves in words, collaborative learning made themfeel less stressed since they could always reach their partners for help.
Painting the mural, a way to express one’s ideas in shape, is also easier
when a group of students work together. The load could be shared in
the team rather than being taken by a single person/artist.