Hong Kong China Cultural Exchange

Available Dates October 20th 21st 22nd

Thank you for showing interest in 2008 videoconference. Although, the conference meeting is designed to be around 1 hour, there is a very good possibility that it may overrun. Once again, please note that this conference is designed for kids around 5-6 years old (however, you are welcome to involve older grades/kids as well).

Here is the rundown for the videoconferencing of this year. Like last year, there will be around four parts for this conference.

Part 1 : Introductions

During this part, 1-2 children will come up and say a little introduction speech.  For example, they will introduce their names, age and where are we come from. Also, we will talk about something about our own cultures as well. I will attach the scripts of our speech.

In return, please send us a word document of your children’s speech as well. Please keep the introductions short. A good starting point is the length of our speech (which is about 8 sentences.)

Part 2 : Group Demo

In this segment, your kids will teach us something. In return, our kids will then teach you something. I propose that your kids will teach our kids “ How to waltz” (I promise that our kids will not know how to do this). I have attached the web site to you it is for your reference : http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=TFAGFyRYyHY&feature=related

I know that some schools will want to teach us something other than the Waltz. The above video is only for your reference only. If your school really want to teach us something different, please send us a video of that activity well before the actual videoconference.

After your kids teach us their activity, our kids will then proceed to teach your kids to draw “ Chinese Calligraphy” drawings. Don’t worry I will have a teacher to guide the kids though the steps.

Since it will be very difficult for your children to get Chinese calligraphy brushes, I have found some substitutes. What you need are narrow paintbrushes for each kids, some watercolour paint, some white paper.

Part 3 : Real Time Games

In this section, the kids will get a chance to interact with each other in real-time in a game called “Guess Who?” The game goes as follows:

-         Each team will have a board (we will send you a link to download an image file of this board later) which has 24 different people.

-         Each team picks a person from the board (for example, team A picks Henry and team B picks Gigi.)

-         Each team will ask each other various “ yes or no” questions to eliminate candidates (i.e. “Does the person have black hair? Or “ Does he wear earrings?”).

-         The first team to guess the other team’s choice wins.

We will give you the image files of the 24 different people along with the board later. Simply print them out and have them ready for the game. It would help if your kids play this game several times to get acquainted with the rules.

One more thing, given that our children’s English is limited, we will have to pre-decide the “yes or no” questions the children will ask beforehand. The children will simply draw these “yes or no” questions out of a bag. Needless to say, the “yes or no” questions in the bag are the same for both teams. You will need to print out these questions on separate sheets and put them in an opaque bag for kids to during the game.

 ** For the 24 characters’ cards and the questions, you can again download from the ftp:// (for the link + password, please see below)

Part 4 : Drinks Session

Last, we will a drinks session at the end of the conference. Your kids will drink Chinese tea and our kids will drink hot chocolate. If you couldn’t find Chinese tea where you live, you can simply use English tea. Our kids will toast each other as the videoconferencing ends.

In conclusion, you need to send us:

1.      A script of what your kids will say during the short introduction.

2.      Confirm your kidss’ activity (is it going to be the waltz or is it going to be something else). If it is something else, please give us a video of your activity.

Finally, please arrange the date of two test call sessions, one of them have to be as soon as possible as we want to ensure the connection between us is fine. The second one should be on one or two days before the actual videoconferencing session.

How to assess to our ftp://

1.      Open Internet Explorer, type ftp://219.76.198.85 in the address column and press enter.

2.      Then please enter “video” as the user name, and “yorkkindergarten” as the password

3.      You should see the “real time game – guess who” folder + the “Chinese calligraphy” image file. Download them both. You will need to unzip the files in the “real time game – guess who” folder. You will then have everything you need for the activity.

If you have any question, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me! Email rn03smr@yahoo.com.hk

Schedule