Tune: Oh My Darling, Clementine
“Spring is warm. Spring is foggy
To the park I always go.
I wear a T-shirt and a cap
I love spring, la la la~”
“Summer’s hot. Summer’s sunny
To the beach I always go.
I take a bucket and a spade
I love summer, la la la~~”
Remarks: Primary school, P2 Term 2 lesson – Chapter 5, Weather and seasons
After ten months of hard work, World Voice Hong Kong Pilot Year cumulated in a final demonstration session on 26 May 2016 at Yan Oi Tong Madam Lau Wong Fat Primary School. It was our pleasure to have five teachers and over 85 Primary 1 and 2 students participating in the demonstration lessons in front of over 200 members of audience.
We were honoured to have Ms Laura Lau, Head of Philanthropy and Ms Alice Lai, Programme Manager from The Swire Group Charitable Trust; Professor Kenneth Sin Kuen Fung, Director, Centre for Special Educational Needs and Inclusive Education from The Education University of Hong Kong; Mr Chi-kwong Fong, Senior curriculum Development Officer (Special Educational Needs) from The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region - Education Bureau; school principals, teachers, parents, students and British Council colleagues participated in it. It was a very good opportunity to show the audience how children respond to and benefit from the programme, also to share our valuable experience for this meaningful and successful programme.
'In Hong Kong, the World Voice programme runs differently. We focus on the diversity of learning needs of the children (e.g. learning difficulties, behavioural problems.) to ensure that they feel socially included with the neuro-typical children as well as to adequately equip the teachers to teach in mainstream schools' said by Ms Sophia Chan-Combrink, Head of Education and Society, British Council.
Mr Richard Frostick, World Voice Artistic Director and Trainer for World Voice Hong Kong also shared with the audience: 'This is not primarily a singing project. We are not singing just because it's fun. It is well documented that singing can help all students to learn more quickly and achieve better results. This is not only true in the learning of languages; it applies to all subject areas.' 'Because of the wide variety of techniques used in the teaching of singing, pupils who sometimes experience difficulty taking part in lessons participate more readily and begin to achieve well alongside their classmates'. He also explained: 'Through song, pupils are learning vocabulary more rapidly and retaining it. Because singing follows the natural rhythm of speech, they are speaking more intelligibly and pronouncing words more clearly.'
Now that we've come to the end of the World Voice Hong Kong pilot year, I, as the Programme Manager, would like to say a BIG Thank You to Sophia Chan-Combrink, Head of Education and Society and Susannah Morley, Head of Partnership Development for giving me tremendous support and trust on me; My programme team colleagues, Cissy Lo, Connie Kam, Stella Wong and Karol Koa for giving me on-site support; Mavis Ma and Daphne Ho for arranging media interviews. Also, thanks to British Council colleagues from English and HR who joined the demonstration session and reception last Thursday.
Shirley Wan
Programme Manager
