Interview the supervisor

Time: Feb. 15, 2006
Place: Teacher Research Room

The National Ministry of Education is practicing a policy:"1 person plays 1 instrument; 1 school has an ensemble ". Its purpose is to increase the amount of music learners, to make the society more harmonious. To respond to the policy, Changhua Education Bureau adopted the violin, a popular instrument. But the cost needed to be lowered. So the bureau designed a plan of violin-renting.

Let parents execute it:
Since a school has no right to privately request money, it asks parents to found a string ensemble and let them directly execute it. The parents formed the ensembles of all schools into a league, and negotiated prices with the instrument factory with a huge amount of purchase. This way also ensures the factory's service quality.

Then, CSEDL would publicly recruit teachers, with criterion of at least 10 years of string instrument learning. The selected teachers must pass basic training to ensure their teaching quality. In addition, the teachers of CSEDL are plenty enough to go public performances. Last year, CSEDL held a thousand-people ensemble concert, which set a record in Taiwan. This year, there are 2500 people performing in the ensemble concert. Japanese broke the world-record by 3000 people in an ensemble concert. And our goal is to have 5000 people performing in an ensemble concert. To achieve the goal, we need to train more teachers. Training up good teachers is not easy; it is what we need to strive for.

The supervisor thinks CSEDL is worth supporting.

Present development of CSEDL
The present development of CSEDL is good because the system was well-designed. Parents give it high praise, and kids are very interested in the learning. Till now, there are 2500 kids over Changhua County joined in CSEDL.

Continue to advance CSEDL
Changhua Education Bureau continuously encourages kids who want to keep learning to learn. In the 2nd year, over 50 schools had joined in CSEDL. CSEDL continues to encourage other schools to join in it and train more string teachers. Then, CSEDL requests all schools to provide performance chances for their ensembles, such as in school anniversary or sports meet, or that some schools together perform in community celebration. Furthermore, the string ensemble can perform with other instruments, to let kids know more instruments. CSEDL will continue to hold activities for all members and grand presentation concerts.

Interviewing Ms. Xiao Yi-Ling, director of art of CSEDL

Time: Jan. 13, 2006
Place: Office of CSEDL

Ms. Xiao is in charge of art-design and administration. She is also responsible for handling e-mails, to realize the reflection of parents.

The executing and teaching are actually done in schools. CSEDL plans a grand activity for each year.

There is a routine-to arrange the class schedule. Mr. Zhuang takes charge of it. It is a difficult task because the class schedule changes very often and the arranger should consider the route, the time and the transportation of each teacher. A school with few learners will be sent to only 1 teacher. Some schools are very far, so the teachers must go for long. If they can not arrive at the school on time, CSEDL will try to send another teacher.

Every has the chance to learn and perform.

Kids use the violin by renting.

Teachers who go on class by motorcycle are very toilsome. Luckily, kids of remote schools are very willing to learn. For example, half of Wen-De Elementary School students have joined in the ensemble. In addition, if a new school ensemble joins in CSEDL, the class arranger must change the class schedule because the schedule of school is hard to be changed.

The advantages of joining in the string ensemble are that students can learn with lower expenses and students attend classes at school, without the need of parents'transporting. The quality of CSEDL teachers is very good. They are graduates of music department of college. More than that, the teachers are benefited by the better working conditions in CSEDL. The foundation of CSEDL is really beneficial for music teachers, students and parents.

CSEDL does not interfere in violin-renting. The parents sign a contract with the instrument company. Every violin is attached with a contract. The price is much lower than the market price. At first, a student should hand in 2000 dollars as guarantee money, which will not be refunded. The rate of depreciation is 500 dollars per phase (3 months). A student pays 300 dollars per month. After 1 year of payment and learning, he owns the violin. The violin is attached with many accessories. Some of the violins are made in China, and they are very cheap. But they are hard to be tuned.

Ms. Xiao wishes that more kids join in CSEDL. Currently, the main problem is the lack of qualified teachers. She hopes CSEDL can overcome it soon. She also hopes that each school have its own ensemble funds, and CSEDL collect funds from each school once a semester, as the printing expense for CSEDL. How much money to collect depends on the number of members of each school ensemble.