大葉international newsletter第五期

DAYEH

UNIVERSITY Volume 1, Issue 5 31 October, 2013

International Newsletter Happy Halloween DYU Halloween or more correctly Hallowe’en is probably derived from the traditional English name for this night: All Hallows’ Eve, which is the night before All Hallows’ Day. All Saints and All Souls are traditionally celebrated and remembered by many Christians on the nights before and the days of the 1st and 2nd of November each year respectively and are traditional times for asking for saints’ prayers and for praying for the dead.

It is no coincidence that harvest and Halloween occur at about the same time of year in the UK. In fact, some scholars have even traced the earliest origins of Halloween back to pre-Christian times claiming that this festival may have started off as a pagan Celtic harvest festival.

Perhaps one way of enjoying Halloween here at DYU would be to take a walk out beside the rice fields under the moonlight. In this way, you should be more fully able to appreciate its possible harvest festival origins while enjoying the beauty of the great outdoors at night.

Wishing you all a happy, safe and not too scary Halloween! ____________________ Photos: The rice fields on the left and right are located in Dacun ,大村鄉 not far from DYU. The Halloween photos on the top left, top right and bottom right of this page were taken nearby the Red House 紅樓, Ximending 西門町, Taipei 臺北市

Page 2

Cycling from New Taipei to Yilan

Day three, we headed for our final destination in Yilan宜蘭.

On our way we saw Turtle Island 龜山島(as you can see in the photo on the right) and we returned to New Taipei 新北市 via an old tunnel (as you can see in the photo below).

Although exhausting it was a very satisfying cycling trip and certainly a great achievement!

Frank Chang 章愷峰 (a first year student of Industrial Design 工業 設計學系 at DYU) tells us about his three day cycling trip

Starting off in Zhonghe

Day two, after breakfast we headed for Yeliu 野柳.

There were many cheap fresh seafood dishes (such as the one in the photo below) which we really enjoyed.

中和 we rode to Tanshui 淡水.

Unfortunately it rained and the road was very slippery so we had to ride slowly and really carefully. It was also very hard to see the road clearly because of the heavy rain.

When we arrived in Tanshui 淡水 we had lunch at the Fishermen’s Wharf as we dried off.

After lunch we rode for about 4 or 5 hours to Baishawan 白沙灣.

When it got dark we set up our tent. The ground under the tent was hard and hot so it was difficult to fall asleep.

Yeliu 野柳 is also well known for its naturally eroded rocks. There were many tourists from mainland China viewing these rocks.

After viewing these rocks we headed for Keelung 基隆 where we set up our tent (as you can see in the photo on the right) at a local elementary school on a hillside. Since it started to rain again we set up our tent under a covered outdoor area of the school.

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Page 3

1st Yongjingmaomu Marathon

This was my second long distance marathon but this time it felt much better because my friend ran along with me.

Running this race together with a friend made me We began running from more motivated and the front gate of Yongjing increased my confidence to Industrial Vocational High finish the race.

School. The racing route followed Simen Road ______________ 西門路, Yongfu Road永福路 and Sizhu Road 四竹路.

The race was 5 kms long and took us about 25 minutes to complete.

Kevin 鍾曜安 (a fourth year student of accountancy 會計系 at DYU) tells us about his recent experience of running in a marathon

朱宏佶 and 鍾曜安 (fourth year students of Accountancy會計系 at DYU) getting ready to run

Chinese Zombies: fact or fiction?

Huang Ze-han黃則翰 (a first year student of plastic art 造型藝術系 at DYU) shares some of his drawings of and knowledge about the origins of Chinese Zombies

There are Chinese

zombies called jiangshi 僵屍. The fact that

they nearly always look like an upright standing corpse with their hands extended out in front of them and are usually depicted wearing clothing from the Qing Dynasty is no coincidence.

Their mainly white but slightly purple face is no coincidence either.

In ghost stories they may get up out of their coffins at night to jump along roads, streets, lanes and alleys looking for someone or something to eat. Some storytellers even say they are most powerful when there is a full moon!

However, some scholars have traced their origin back to a time when Qing Dynasty Taoist priests would often accompany dead bodies on their last journey home. Bamboo sticks were used to stand the dead body upright and for supporting the corpse’s arms. A strong man would carry the

corpse along by holding it up on a Bamboo stick. They would often do so on a dark night, but sometimes moonlight would still shine on the dead person’s face terrifying anyone who saw it with its white and slightly purple appearance. The way it was carried along on bamboo sticks gave the appearance of jumping since bamboo is quite flexible. Therefore, there is no need to be afraid of them now you know the truth. Happy Halloween! _________

DAYEH UNIVERSITY

INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE CENTRE Room J314 Foreign Languages Building, Dayeh University, 168 University Road, Dacun, Changhua, 51591, TAIWAN (R.O.C.) Phone: +886-4-8511888 Fax: +886-4-8511666

Call for newsletter contributions from students and staff Submissions should be original, include original photographs and be e-mailed to 馬丁老師 Martin Murray, editor (主編) of this newsletter and ILC English teacher : martin@mail.dyu.edu.tw

http://langcntr.dyu.edu.tw/ newsletter

Many thanks!

Learning with Imagination Braden Rico (an ILC English teacher) shares some of his ideas about engaging students’ imaginations

each student to say a few words about their imaginings.

To my surprise, this defrom the sterile I once taught a class parture procedure of practicing on Saturday afternoons speaking as directed by a at a high school in textbook transformed the Kaohsiung. The mood in stultifying atmosphere of the classroom was so the classroom into one of somber that I sometimes laughter, joy and genuine wished something, any- attempts at selfthing would happen out- expression. side the window just to Suddenly I had students enliven proceedings. speaking up and using On one of these torvocabulary I did not know turous afternoons I sud- they possessed! denly felt the majestic One student who never touch of the muse’s hand opened her mouth and and an idea came to me always gave me that “I to ask everyone to close am too cool for this class” their eyes and imagine look of disdain, began to they were someplace speak. As she shared her else other than a landesire to travel to Milan, guage classroom, doing Italy to learn fashion desomething that made sign, others began to ask them happy. I asked her questions about her them not to think about work there and a converEnglish vocabulary or sation developed about grammar but instead to using English to communithink about being somecate with designers from where where they were around the world. happy and just happened to find themselves One young man who using English instead of seemed to always reserve Chinese. Then with their our class time for sleeping eyes still closed, I asked told the room how much

he would like to ride a Harley Davidson bike through Canada. He imagined himself joking in English with other riders.

I was stunned by what was occurring. What had happened? Was this an English teaching miracle in the making?

What had caused the sudden turnaround?

Obviously my attempt to revive the energy of the room and allow the use of imagination did something to energize those young minds turned off by a traditional and tedious trek through an English textbook.

By allowing the students to take the lead and speak about what interested them, I began to see that imagination is a powerful tool for engagement. From that point on I have felt that the use of imagination in language education ought to be more carefully considered because successful learning

begins with imagination precisely because the use of imagination is linked to our perceptions, our memory, our emotions and our generation of new ideas.

Surely this is not news?

We can all appreciate that imagination is at the heart of learning because it is the engine which drives experimentation and theory forming, constructing a crossroad from what we know to what is not yet known. Perhaps it is time for more language students to consider the role of imagination in their learning. In Taiwan, education is still viewed as primarily involving the memorization of information and facts measurable by standardized tests. This is certainly a tenacious part of education here but engaging students’ imaginations during the education process is a powerful force that awaits discovery by us all. ___________________