Teaching at high school choir in Hong Kong

Hi all, haven't been updated for a long time. I kind of miss blogging, but have been very busy with my performing and teaching jobs.

After my Christmas vacation, I start teaching at a choir of a local high school, which has a long choral tradition and strong music background among high schools in Hong Kong. I found it very interesting to teach, as the students here has to much potential. I also appreciate the students who help me in managing the class that save me so much effort to deal with their discipline problem.

One thing from my observation of local students here. They spend so much time in learning 2-3 songs just for the school music festival (competition) and they have very high standard of performance. However, I found that they don't really know how to read music, and it surprises me a great deal. What a waste that they spend so much time listening and memorizing from note to note but not learning it by sight! They can learn much more music if they can sight sing well.

As a choir conductor who use Kodaly method as a tool of learning how to read music, I do think score reading/sight-singing a one of the most important parts of choral singing.

Hope that I can use what I learned to teach them to be better choir singers.