Flipgrid Video Exchange with Houston Texas

Making Mandarin and English speaking videos to exchange school life and the beauty of our hometown with Mandarin Immersion Magnet School in the U.S.A.

 

Thanks to Caitlyn of Fullbright Connect, a U.S. foundation specializing in exchange programs, my ICE students and those recruited participated in a video-based virtual exchange with the American students in Houston.

 

The Taiwanese and American students not only made video responses on Flipgrid in both languages for the assigned topics but also left comments below each other's videos.

 

My students enjoyed this exchange a lot because they got to share hobbies and answer interesting follow-up questions with their American counterparts online.

 

To better prepare my students for the exchange, I showed them how to use Flipgrid to make a response in the format of audio and video, complete with worksheets of guided writing.

 

Claudia, a driven and dedicated Taiwanese teacher at MIMS, also exchanged her ideas and teaching practices for bilingual teaching, which I couldn't agree more with. 

 

One of the highlights of my FullbrightConnect experience was that my students and I unboxed a parcel and tasted some American sweets mailed by Caitlyn.

 

The biggest challenge I encountered was that I only met my ICE students once a week and couldn't get them to respond on Flipgrid promptly, not to mention those recruited coming from different classes.

 

I hope to have more exchange programs from Fullbright Connect soon because I enjoyed working with Claudia and Caitlyn to create a more authentic environment for my students to feel the need and have fun speaking English.