Introduction

Ada: Good morning, eight of us had gone to 4C in St. Stephen’s Collage, which
is a science class. In there, we learnt the same subjects as we did in St.
Mark’s; however, it was a totally different experience.

Teachers

Alex: During these five school days, we have benefited a lot. Apart from
friendship and remarkable experiences, do you know what else we have
gained from the program? In fact, the answer is making the acquaintance of
ten teachers teaching in 4C class. Without them, we may not enjoy
ourselves so much. It is their contribution to provide us a good learning
atmosphere. Firstly, Our form teacher, Ms Shu, as well as our biology
teacher often keeps a lovely smile on her face .She has been very kind to us.
Besides, she told us that we are always a part of the 4C’s family. Secondly,
Our Chinese teacher, Ms Leung. Although she has prepared a lot of exercise
for us to do, we cannot deny that she is a funny teacher. Thirdly, our
Mathematics teacher, Ms Lam was the only teachers who gave us a test. We
were all shocked by the test since we haven’t learnt the chapter before.
Moreover, our Physics teacher, Mr. Lai is a humorous teacher. He not only
performs “wave-dance”, but also relates the lesson with a lot of daily
examples. What’s more, he kindly brought us to some special facilities of
the school campus when we met him in front of the staff room. We would
like to express our gratitude to their kindness and passion.
Lillian: The Music teacher is a male. He does not play piano for us to sing, instead
he plays guitar. In the lesson we attended, he led us to sing the Canton-pop
陪我長大 from Joey Yung. His music lesson was very relaxing.
The Additional Mathematics teacher was also the teacher-in-charge of the
exchange programme. The students of St. Stephen’s College thought she
was like Edna Mode in the animation The Incredibles. She had a pretty nice
smile and was nice to us.

ECA

Cindy: In the following time, I’d like to talk about their Extra Curricular Activities.
As they have an enormous campus, they can play tennis and baseball just
near the dormitories. To be true, I feel quite incredible to enjoy such
 activities at school.
What’s more, they have a Student Association, which provides stationary
sale and holds activities for students. It also acts as a channel for students to
voice out their opinion about things happening in school. Recently our
school has set up the SUFSC; and I think the SA of St Stephen’s can be an
example for us.
Finally, they also have a house system. There are totally six houses, and
interestingly, each of them is named after their principals. But those names
are names of western people. They won’t have a house called like ‘Ms
Mau’. Comparing to our houses, theirs are kind of rich and luxurious. Their
house party is exciting to join simply because we can have a free lunch of
delicious pizzas and drinks!
To conclude, I feel that the school life there is a bit more relaxing than in St
Mark’s because they do not focus too much on academic studies. Instead,
students are more encouraged to join different ECA. I think this is worth
trying because participating in activities is a good way to learn too! Would
you agree with me?

Lessons

Four: In St. Stephen’s College, the curriculum is similar to us. For we science
students, we had 8 main subjects in total, plus music, physical education,
and liberal studies there.
The Chinese lessons there are quite similar to us, although they were using a
different textbook. They still trained our skills in reading, listening, and
speaking during our week. However, the speaking training is focusing on
our article reading. In our school, we usually have group discussion, which
trains our communication skills, but we seldom have the training of reading
out an article. Also, our teacher would teach us some extra knowledge
during the lessons, which was related to the content of the textbook. This
enhances us to understand more about what the article is talking about.
The music lessons there were undoubtedly fantastic. In most of our music
lessons in our school, we sing hymns and learn something about the
classical music, which some of you may feel bored. However, the music
lessons there are fully filled with relaxation. Except from what Lillian has
just mentioned, the teacher showed us a movie “High School Musical”,
which taught us the brilliant side of music. The music room was designed to
have a similar setting as a small cinema, so that we could enjoy the movie
 very much.

Wesley: For the biology lessons, we are actually repeating the lessons as Mr. Cheng
had already covered the part of respiration in the first term. However, we
still learnt some of the teaching methods from our teacher. We hadn’t had
any laboratory practices during the five days; instead we had a lot of
powerpoints showing us about the experiments. But one thing very special
is that the teacher set a policy of “Bonus Points”. When the teacher asks a
question, students there will answer the questions actively to get the points
instead of being reluctant. There was no dead air during the five days. This
method is suggested to be used in our school, but with the following
additions: the teacher must clarify what the functions of the bonus points
are, and how are the points being calculated as a part of the regular mark.
Our only test came to us in the Maths lessons, which was on parts that we
hadn’t learn before. The Maths teacher was good as asking students who
seemed not paying attention. And also, she gave us proofs on all the
theorems that we need to learn. But that is not the main step; the main step
is to ask the students to copy ALL her proofs onto a notebook. The students
have to copy all of that as they are afraid that missing one of the proofs will
cause to lower marks in the regular marks. Yet, this method is not suggested
to be used in our school, is it? Anyway, the lessons were still very
substantial and we could learn a lot.

Lillian: Students were separated into two classes to have the English lessons. It was
said to be divided by better and worse students. Each class had around 15 to
20 of them. 8 of us were separated to follow our guardian angels to have the
English lessons. However we found that the two English lessons were very
different from each other. One is interesting and the other one is
comparatively boring.
In St. Mark’s School, Form 4 and above will have Christianity and Ethics
lessons. St. Stephen’s College, instead, would have the liberal studies like
yours. However, the teacher was unfortunately ill that he could not go to
school. Therefore we could not experience the lesson in the week of
exchange.

Classmates

Isaac: Maggie, Bubble, Henry, Augustina, Anna, Walton, more and more… They
 are all the friends we made in our class in St Stephen’s, Form 4C.
During the programme, every one of us was assigned a ‘guardian angel’
which acted as our shadow within the week. I remembered the moment
when we first stepped into the classroom. I saw about thirty new faces,
staring to us when we walked in. We find a seat and settled down. After
having a silence reading lesson, we started our journey to meet new friends.
In the first lunchtime we had, Alex asked me, ‘Isaac, is the girl over there
twins? They look similar.’ I think I have to appreciate Alex’s observation on
our new classmates. After he had asked me, I recognized that the two girls
are twins. However, we found an easy way to distinguish them; the elder
one has long hair while the younger one has short hair.
The students in St Stephen’s College seldom make jokes neither during
lessons nor during recess, which has a great difference when comparing to
St Mark’s. However, the atmosphere was still very relaxing.
There is not a great difference between the classmates of two schools,
except the jokes. Maybe we are both of similar age, and we are also
preparing for the HKCEE. We are eager to learn and willing to make friends
with new ones.
Our friendship developed within the five days. Up to now, we still keep in
touch in msn. That was a really good chance for us to make new friends!

Closing

Ada: What we had gained in the five-day exchange programme is not only a tie
and a certificate, but a valuable chance for us to build up friendship with
students out of our own school, to learn other methods of studying, or some
advantages that cannot be instantly known. To sum up, we love the trip!