For foreign language learners, the effect of making the connection between a word (abstract concept) and an actual object is more long-lasting than remembering the meaning of the word in English. The connection is easier to make when the object is something that we can imitate it recreate in the class. So our young learners made paper jumping green frogs (青蛙:qīng wā)to remember the features of a frog, as well as how to write and say the word in Mandarin.
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Writing Chinese characters is undoubtedly the most difficult part of learning the language. Repetitive practice to build muscle memory has been long practiced in China for young students to connect the spoken language with the written language.
This week, the 7/8th grade students focused on new vocabulary and getting familiar with the shapes of the characters. "Authentic Material" in the case of language education refers to contents that are created for native speakers instead of foreign language learners.
The elementary Mandarin learners have been working on a Chinese children's story from the last century. We have built vocabulary on features of a common frog and how to describe them. One of the benefits of using authentic material is that it gives a natural context to the teaching. It also contains rich cultural elements for the students to observe. Here is a video link to the story "Little Tadpoles Looking for Mom" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpspc7it3SY Here is a sample of the artistic style of the video. 5th and 6th graders continued to expand on ways to express likes and dislikes in Mandarin language.
This week we worked on common expressions for whether something tastes good, sounds pretty, or looks pretty. It is personal and subjective. So the students looked up images of things that fit the above category on their computer, and worked on learning to type in Mandarin Pinyin to find the correct characters. Part of discovering who we are is finding out what we like and why. Students can use simple Mandarin to express the seasons that he/she likes and what make them liking that season.
The 5/6th graders made pictures to show the seasons, wrote "I like (season), because (reason)" in Mandarin., and presented their pictures to the class. The indiviality of each student sure shows in their works. The writing language (characters) is probably regarded as the most difficult part of Mandarin. It doesn't use English letters (Pinyin, the letters with tone marks was only developed in the 1950's for educational purposes).
Although it is not the primary focus for the 1st and 2nd grade learners, we still had some practice writing characters in connection with the story of little tadpoles. Fitting a sentence and drawings in a limited space requires estimating proportion and practicing fine motor skills. The second SK cooking club session was held this Tuesday.
We did a quick review of the character for "rice" and how to say it. The students remembered how to cook it, as well as the proportion of rice and water. There is more action in this session because there is cutting (tomatoes 西红柿 xī hóng shì) and beating (eggs 鸡蛋 jī dàn) We went through the logic behind how those ingredients are named. I also introduced the word "炒"(chǎo)which means stir-fry. So the name of the dish that we made to go with the rice is "西红柿炒鸡蛋". It is a typical family style quick dish in China. Even though some students prefer uncooked tomatoes to cooked ones in general, they still tried the dish and ended up finishing the whole thing! SK's after school clubs always have a wide range of variety that are hands-on, fun, and skill-building.
I am very happy to be part of the after school club this semester. I decided to have it as a cooking club to introduce basic cooking skills and simple Chinese style dishes. For the first session, I introduced the character "米” which is rice, and "米饭” which is cooked rice. The students washed the rice, added the right amount of water to it, and cooked it in a rice cooker. We used "香米” (jasmine rice) so the final produce smelled good and tasted great! The story we are working on in 5th-6th grade is related to farming and seasons. This week we started talking about which seasons we like and why.
So here is the brain storm chart to record the vocabulary that are related to each person's preference. It will be a good starting point to have a mini conversation about seasons. Today 5th/6th class did a rehearsal of the first two scenes of their Mandarin story. They are working in groups of 6 or 7, and made headbands with drawings of their role in the past two class sessions. So today was the first time to put two scenes together to figure out how it works. The spoken script is taught during class but the performance is created by the students within their groups. It was noisy sometimes. There were arguments sometimes. But the students eventually found ways (sometimes I was involved to help with the navigation) to work as a group. |
AuthorI'm the 1st - 8th Grade Mandarin language and culture teacher at Summers-Knoll School in Ann Arbor, MI. Archives
June 2016
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