NEXT MEETING:
A Bright Moon
Date: Friday 1st July
Time: 7.30pm
Where: Hastings District Council Chambers in Lyndon Road.
The film is the biographic story of Li Shutong, a celebrity in modern Chinese culture. Born to a rich family in Tianjin in 1880, Li Shutong changed his dramatic life to become a great monk of the time, Master Hongyi. 
A Bright Moon, draws a sharp contrast between his earlier life as a wealthy prodigy of the arts, including calligraphy, painting, music, sculpture, and drama, and his later life as a highly venerated itinerant monk steeped in the school of precepts and morality. The transition from ebullience, fame, and accolades to solitude and serenity is phenomenal to say the least. This film is set against the back-drop of major historic events in China up to his death in 1942.
Highly recommended.
LAST MEETING:
Our thanks to Warren and Raukura Hamlin and Albie and Louise Hawea from Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Te Ara Hou, and Hine Edmonds from Omahu Bilingual School, and Janet’s husband Kee, who led a group of 10 teachers to Guangdong and Beihai, Guangxi, in the April holidays. They spent two weeks in primary and middle schools working with students and teachers demonstrating New Zealand strategies used to teach English as a foreign/second language.
They got fit climbing five stories without a lift and visiting up to five classes a day with 60+ students. They were invited to give a seminar to teachers and were surprised when 2,000 attended their talk. They remarked on how students spend a long day from 7.30am to evening study making do with limited technology and the boarding arrangements. Their main message was to immerse students in English via basic conversation practice rather than rote/book learning and dependence on grammar. They found students are much more confident reading and listening, rather than speaking, and they enjoyed Maori action songs and English favourites such as Old MacDonald had a farm. Because Maori and Chinese are pure vowel languages, they noted that the students easily mastered pronunciation of Maori.
The children loved to see photos of New Zealand and enjoyed the haka, and their group appeared on local TV. They reported that teachers get paid according to exam rate passes and that teaching such large classes is difficult, even though the students were eager to learn.
The question and answer session with our members was very informative and they hope that there will be future teacher and student exchanges.
