1. Description of Our Community
Taiwan Hakka are mainly classified under Si Xian accent, Hai Lu accent Da Pu accent Raoping accent Chao An accent Nan Si Xian accent. Raoping accent is a comparatively vulnerable mother tongue. According to scholars’ researches, Raoping Hakka chiefly reside in Jhuolan, Miaoli County Liujia, Hsinchu County,Guoling, Taoyuan County and Yuanlin, Pusin, Yongjing (??), Tianwei (??), Changhua. Unfortunately, there are approximately one hundred and sixty thousand Raoping descendants in Changhua, but barely anyone there speak Raoping Hakka.
2. Summary of Our Project
Through an interview with the project’s main figure – Meidu Qiu, the research sets out with an exploration of her growing-up stories, dives deeply into her solid literature and history background, and grasps the reasons behind her accepting the mission to relive Changhua Raoping Hakka that had been lost for half century. The project researchers formed Changhua Raoping Hakka Junior Corps. They participated personally in her mother-tongue reliving courses, performed their learning achievements in school and in the community, and also recorded the performances to promote it via Internet, letting more people know that after almost a hundred year of disappearance, Changhua Raoping Hakka is now making its comeback, as if she was creating an oasis in the desert. During the research process, most of the Junior Corps members realized that they are also the members of Raoping who don’t speak their mother tongue. They also realized how much they had lost in acquiring their mother tongue while they were busy pursuing the convenience of life. Fortunate enough, however, there is someone who would stand up and take on the responsibility to restore the language. Through the action research, Chan-Rao-Ka Junior Corps hopes to evoke everyone’s attention toward local language and culture.
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:21-50%
B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:2-3
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dedicated connection
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:4-6
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
We divided them into groups so they cooperated in finding the resources more efficiently. Putting students in groups helps teachers in guiding them to do the research. By presenting to the students the excellent previous works on Cyberfair website helped them get the idea of how this worked and further integrated the knowledge into their own project interview. They were encouraged to practice the interview with their parents. We designated the interview time to be on weekends so parents could drive the students there. Students were asked to prepare flash disks and encouraged to use web hard disks to store up information. Besides, they were taught over and over how application software worked and were encourage to help out those that still did not know how to use it. For the words typing part, they were encouraged to do it after school and practice at home.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
By participating in Taiwan School Cyberfair project, students learnt to build team spirits. Together, they learnt how the project character – Meidu Qiu, a Hakkanese Master, went through a difficult time reviving Changhua Raoping Hakkaese, as if she was building an oasis on the desert. It was a great experience for the Junior Corp. They grew as they saw more about their mother tongue and the mother-tongue reviver. They all wanted to see Mrs. Qiu to succeed and further made the sprouting seeds blossom both in their community and county.
6. How did your activities and research for this CyberFair Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
(1) Purpose of the Study 1. Get to know Changhua Raoping Hakka’s revival process and its history and culture 2. Learn Changhua Raoping Hakka and personally take part in passing down the language of our ancestors’ 3. By doing field-interviews, students get to see the problems faced in the process of reviving Changhua Raoping Hakka, and thus render them to think and find solutions to it 4. Students learn to practice the research method
|