2011 IIME REPORTCountry: Taiwan
School [Wen Ya Elementary School, Chia Yi City ] Teacher [ Ruth Hou ] (grade:4 /students number: 62 )JP School [Nishi Elementary School, Kanazawa] Teacher [Asako Sugiyama]
MMr.
]# Subjects, Activities and Times of the lessons
Subject

Conception of the lesson

Times

General Class

Students learned to investigate the meanings of traditional Chinese holidays, special
food for holidays and children’s games.

3ICT

Students made self-introduction films to say hello to partner schools. They also
participated in the video conference twice to talk about the content of murals andbrief introduction of their own culture.

3ArtStudents drew murals.

9Students created their own self-introduction sheets in English and read theself-introduction sheets from the partner school.

2

English# Theme and Message of the mural
Mural One: Holidays and Food
Theme

Message

Mural Two: Toys and GamesIn Mural One, we chose one important holiday from every season and included the traditional
food made for that specific holiday. Holidays and food are important to every culture. Fromholiday traditions and food, we further understand important issues in the culture.
In Mural Two, we chose four toys/games to share with our partners. Toys and games are usually
the most popular topics among students. With the help of interesting topics, mutual
understanding and friendship would be built easily.
Attach photos of your painting and a competed mural.

Class 401 is painting Mural One

Holidays and Food ( Mural One Completed)

Class 402 is painting Mural Two.

Toys and Games (Mural Two Completed)# Effects and the Problems
Effects your students have gained
Making friends with others is always attractive to thestudents. The world is big and there are so manydifferent things for us to see. Cooperating with others tofinish one project is a rewarding experience.
Secondly, students’ English ability may be limited but
they enjoyed expressing themselves in every possible
way. Without too much preaching from teachers andparents, they saw the importance of learning English.

Points for further improvement
It was a pity that we did not spend too much timeworking on the forum. We always communicated with thepartner school through emails. If the partner schoolpreferred leaving the message on the forum, we would
try to cope with it, too.

# Have you made your activity open in your school or in your local area? How was their reaction or reputation?

PR you did inside/out of your school
We displayed the murals in the public places so thatevery student at school saw the murals. We also invitedthe heads of our city education department to do thedrawing with us. Finally, everyone taking part in thedrawing signed at the back of the murals.
We took the two murals back to our partner school inJapan after we finished painting. Thanks to the great
help from Professor Shimizu, the Artmile corordinator inKanazawa, we visited our partner school as well as theother two schools who alos worked with Taiwaneseelementary schools in 2011. Our visit was published in
the local Japanese newspaper.
# Flow of the Activity
ContentMonthIntroduction

ResearchSep.

Oct.

What you did
Teachers showed the websiteof Artmile to students to tellthem what they are going to do.
Students in groups made thebrief self-introduction films.
Students in groups looked forthe information related to thethemes of the murals. They
also made a short comparisonand contrast between Taiwan
and Japan.

Reaction/reputation from around
Parents, teachers, students and the heads of local
education departments appreciated the idea of working
on the same project with friends from the world. Painting
is one of the best ways to get rid of the language barrier.
Students’ world view was broadened in an easy way.
International exchange project should be the project for
students of all ages. Building the concept of making
friends with the world helps the youths to walk on thesame route to world peace. They learn to be more caring
to people in different countries because there is always
friendship from various parts of the world.

Your students attitude/reflection
Subject
Students were surprised with the great English
paintings presented on the website. They
wondered if they could accomplish such a bigjob. They were happy to make theself-introduction films and they tried very
hard to make the films as best as possible.
Students understood the history and Generalrelationship between Taiwan and Japan. They Class
found it interesting to see so many
similarities between these two countries. It is
understandable to assume thatTaiwan andJapan are like brothers and sisters.

Composition

Nov.

Dec.
Jan.
Feb.

Painting

Appreciation

March

Students met their Japanese
partners on Skype and shared
their own culture with eachother. They also had a long
discussion about the overalldesign and content included inthe murals.

Students started to paint themurals and read the photos
taken while they were painting.
After receiving the murals fromthe partner school, they tookturns to contribute they effortson the murals.
Before sending the murals backto Japan, teachers in Taiwan
made a copy of each mural withthe hope that the sweet
memories will be kept in minds
for good.

Regardless of the limitation in English,
students enjoyed the discussion about thecontents in the murals. They learned toexpress themselves, persuaded one anotherand reached a final agreement. They wereopen-minded to take others’ opinions into
consideration. They were excited to knowboth students in Taiwan and Japan played
similar games/toys and enjoyed the same
holidays.
It was a hard time for thirty-one students topaint together. Everyone wanted to paintmore but the space was limited. To make themurals as beautiful as possible, they
persuaded one another to give up thestereotype and to have a new try whilecoloring. The abilities of negotiation andappreciation were developed smoothly.

ICT
EnglishThe big murals looked astonishing toeveryone who saw them. People appreciatedthe hard work from the students in two
different countries. The varieties of colorsand images deserved a long time of sharing.

GeneralClassArt# Aim of the Lessons and Result
Rank (1 to 9 in order you put stress on)

Mark (5:very effective / 4:effective / 3:so so / 2:not so effective / 1:not effective at all)

AimRank

understanding our owncultures

45

understanding othercultures

55 432 1○85 432 1○communication ability
interactively, in English

Mark

4 3 2 1○How your students have reached it
Our students have clear pictures of traditional holidays
and food of the four seasons in Taiwan. So, they had
good understanding about Mural One.
In order to know more about the traditional Taiwanese
toys in Mura Two, students interviewed their parents orgrandparents at home. They also learned to make thetoys by themselves. They had a good time playing with
their own toys.
Our students had very basic ideas about Japaneseculture. But this is the first time they focused on
traditional Japanese toys, which interested them a lot.
Our students learned the names of holidays and food in
English easily because these were the topics we usually
included in the English lessons. They were new to thename of the toys and they had limited English ability to
explain how to play with the toys verbally. Instead, they
demonstrated the games by simply playing with it..

IT skills
online forum and VC

Creating friendshipin the class/with partners

Collaborationin the class/with partners

Keeping motivation highpositive attitude in learning

Expression ability
in painting

Appreciation ability
reading the painting

32 1○

Our students were too shy to speak loudly in public but
they enjoyed the experience of meeting their partners
face to face on Skype. They were a little nervous when
they introduced themselves in the films. They were
courageous enough to keep trying until the work wassatisfactorily done.

154 3 2 1○

Our students were excited to hear from their partners
every time they sent us a message. They also shared
the presents from their partners with one another.

25○

4 3 2 1

Our students worked happily in groups to draw themurals. They were eager to find more time to do thedrawing.

5
4 3 2 1○

Our students were highly motivated when they draw
the murals. They always asked for more time to paintthe murals and they were willing to devote their freetime working on the project.

4 3 2 1○

Our students were good at including most of thedetails. Once they were taught the special skills indrawing, they would be able to apply the skills todrawing whenever necessary. With the help of our Art
teacher, our students understood the importance of
waiting while drawing.They learned to wait until the firstpaint was dry so that the second color on top of thefirst color would show up clearly. Generally speaking,they had great potentials in drawing.

5 4 3 2 1○

Students from our partner school did a wonderful job indrawing so it was very easy for us to understand theparts of murals painted by them. As soon as the murals
were completed, students saw the clever combinationof eight different topics presented in the murals. They
fully understood what the murals were going to say.

93675 45Please submit to jam@artmile.jp . Thank you for your cooperation.