WEB WATCH
Teaching In Taiwan
http://arkansased.org/educators/
ROGERS — Marilyn Hodgin said she'll miss some things about the U.S. when she spends at least the next 11 months teaching English in Taiwan.
One is being able to speak to anyone she encounters. Another is American food.
"There were days I thought, 'If could just have some McDonald's hamburgers,'" Hodgin said, recounting her first stint in Taiwan three years ago.
Hodgin, an English-as-a-second-language teacher at Bonnie Grimes Elementary School in Rogers, is taking part in a state program that sends Arkansas teachers to Taiwan to teach English.
Julie Johnson Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Education, said the program gives Taiwanese students access to native English speakers. The Arkansas teachers can bring experience of another culture back to their classrooms, she said.
Hodgin was one of three teachers -- all from Rogers -- to participate in the program when it started in the 2007-08 school year.
No teachers went in the 2008-09 school year, and one went in the 2009-10 school year.
Three teachers, including Hodgin, are slated to leave in August on 11-month contracts. Hodgin said she may consider staying for an extra year, depending on how the first one goes.
Hodgin said she made a New Year's resolution in 2007 to spend a year teaching overseas. Weeks later, she found out about the Taiwan program.
In preparation, she sold her car, took a Chinese language class and deliberated on what to pack.
"I basically tried to figure out, 'What do I need to pack in two suitcases to last a year?'" she said.
After a daylong flight, she arrived in Taiwan and traveled to the mountain village where she would spend the next year teaching middle- and high-schoolers how to speak English.
She lived in a dorm provided by the school. She ate local meals, some of them delicious, others nauseating.
She said the students could generally read and write some English, but could not speak it well. Activities included songs and identifying pictures, she said.
But the students weren't the only ones learning, she said. Being in a place where she didn't speak the language made her realize what it was like for students trying to learn English.
"All the language going on around me was just noise," she said. "I learned to give the students time to process what I was saying."
Carolyn Scott, who taught in Rogers schools before retiring, was also among the first group of Arkansas teachers to go to Taiwan.
"I was an Army brat, so traveling was in my blood," she said.
Scott said she would encourage other teachers to take part in the program.
Thompson said she wasn't sure why more teachers don't participate.
"Taking a year out of your life as an adult is never very easy," she said.