Families of the SK Mandarin learners know that because of personal reasons I am going to leave the school at the end of this semester and focus on another stage of my life. It is sad for me to think that I will not be in Summers-Knoll next year - I will miss my students a lot. I will miss the supportive and warm community of SK. It is also a new start for me: to think of new possibilities after I settle into my new family structure.
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This week in Mandarin class is a week for more reviews. "More reviews?" Some students said. But we went into building a different language skill from the prior week for the 5-8th graders this time.
It is a skill that requires patience and attention to details: writing characters. It is often considered the most difficult part of Mandarin language. When I was learning characters, every student spent a lot of time each day writing one character multiple times (sometimes a whole page for one character), until the fingers were tired and eyes were crossing. It is an example of "熟能生巧" (skills come from repeated practice). This week is also my last week having classes with the 5-8th graders. Because next week the students will go on a long trip and the last week of this year we have a sub teacher. So one of my students wrote this on the white board, I am totally moved by this. As the 1-4 grade Mandarin classes wrapped up their mini plays, we have entered the last few weeks of the semester. It means review and reflection. It also means summarizing our past learnings in a more structured manner.
While we were reviewing parts of our body and the concepts of "left" and "right", we did a game on reaction to commands to check for understanding. Then an idea just came to the class that we could use those commands to create fun dances with melodies that the students choose or create. It generated lots of enthusiasm which is a precious thing to preserve in the process of learning. Review can be boring, when it is from word to word and then translation. But reviews can be fun, when a little competition is introduced: the class gets loud and excited over a character. I hear "Yay!" when a person gets something right. The sense of accomplishing something is truly valuable. Then there is another way of review and reflecting: present what we have learned in a little play. "How did I say my line?" "How well did my whole group perform?" "My role is ____ and it means _____." The students took it upon themselves to do a better job each time we practice.
"How can we do better next time?" Would be what I want to ask myself and the learners in our classrooms. I heard from a student the other day commenting about reviewing past vocabulary:"...but reviews are boring...." So this week's review had a different focus: Pinyin (拼音)
For the 1/2 grade learners, it is something we have used but never systematically summarized until now. We used the Pinyin chart to look for the correct pinyin letters that match the pronounciations of words that we have already learned this year. It was rocky and slow at the beginning. But after two sessions, I have seen good growths in the class as a whole. On top of that, the 1/2 graders did their first dressed rehearsal for the Chinese song that we have been working on. I'm thinking of having a performance next week. To bring awareness to Earth Day, the 5-8th graders learned and decorated shopping bags in Mandarin this week.
The shopping bags are taken to Trader Joe's as part of the bigger Earth Day project organized by Ms. Carpenter in SK. Back from the spring break, most of my Mandarin class groups have started to revisit what we have learned in the current school year. We did verbal and written practice on past vocabulary as well as constructing constructing sentences in dialogues in given context.
This is process also serves as an opportunity for the students to do internal reflections on their learnings in an informal way. The 1-2 and 3-4 graders also are moving nicely on wrapping up their preparation for their presentation of the children's song "拔萝卜" Guess what they have made? The 3-4 graders have worked diligently on crafting the presentation of the song "拔萝卜" They worked on getting familiar with what each role is called, and writing the simple script down for our mini play.
In the script, the students learned how to ask for help and how to respond. After the spring break, we will work on making simple costumes, rehearsals, making sure every person can sing the song, as well as the meaning of the words in the lyrics. Learning a second language is like climbing up stairs that like a spiral: we don't cover all the vocabulary in one category at once. Instead, we start with a few basic and common vocabulary in one category, and go move on to a different area. In the next period, we revisit the first category, review the prior basic words, and then add more complicated/sophisticated words.
This week is a short week and we had two sessions for each class. The 7/8 grade class worked on extended vocabulary on family members and did written practice on listening comprehension, and character writing. The 1/2 and 3/4 graders reinforced their vocabulary for common animals and people. The 5/6 grade class learned and practiced ways to inquire about price of merchandise, as well as commenting on the price (cheap and expensive). Last team project done by the 3-4 grade students was the story "Little Tadpole Looking for Mom". The entire class put out one performance with some students taking supporting roles instead of performing in Mandarin.
This time the 3-4 grade Mandarin class learn to do team work in a different way: the 15 students are put into two teams and each person has something different to learn and remember within their team. The students learn new words through performing verbally, as well as making pictures to recreate the situation in their song: "拔萝卜” (pull out theradish). |
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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