Hi all,
My name is Dianne McKenzie, I am TL living in HK and have been here for 13 years.
I finished my Masters in 2001, and was working at the Australian International School in HK for a number of years before being taken for granted and being trodden on took its toll. The team we had there were brilliant and achieved so much in such a short time, but alas, no one but us knew it until we all left disgruntled and bitter. Now they miss us!
I am currently working as a part time TL at Renaissance College a K-12 IB school. I was employed as an extra to help get their brand new library up to speed, and unfortunately I have not yet had the opprtunity to teach and get my teeth into the curriculum and interact with the kids. I also work as a part time lecturer at HKU SPACE - teaching the local TL's in HK about the finer points of being a TL as it is new position in schools here and has been having some teething problems. If you think that no one understands your role - you need to come here and you will feel alot better about what you have. I am learning Cantonese so that I can better communicate with these teachers, and hopefully be able to conduct some research into the local TL scene here. I still cannot hold a conversation - so I have a long way to go yet.
In HK we have a huge International Literary Festival in March where international schools spend an inordinate amount of time and money participating. I would like to do research into the topic of - Do author visits and literary festivals make a positive impact on the reading culture of the school? with particular focus on the HK literary Ferstival.
This is something I need to start on now so that I can guage the reading culture of schools now, and then look at how much time and money schools and spend on organising and attending the festival and if it really makes a difference.