Should We Pin the Yin? Part II

Talking to colleagues about teaching is like spontaneous professional development sessions.  I love to hear what they say.  How their ideas inspire me to develop my own teaching techniques and classroom activities!  

It all started as a textbook discussion.  Then, the thing that plagues a lot of us came up:  Should we pin the yin, when and how?  My colleague spends a considerable amount of time on pinyin before introducing characters when she teaches high school students; but start both at the same time with the younger students (middle grades, elementary). She noticed that when she teaches pinyin and introduced characters at the same time, her students do not learn their pinyin and tones quite as well.  However, she shared a great activity which seemed to help her students with pinyin and kept up their interest level -- she used all the 'problematic' pinyin in an interesting dialogue and had students act it out. 

Last year, for my non-heritage students at NHCLS, I taught mostly by sound (listening and speaking), and added some simple characters for the kids to start appreciating this different writing system.  I wanted them to be familiar with the sounds, and be able to learn the pronunciation like native kids, before teaching them how to pinyin.  We spent one whole year without pinyin.  

Now, in their second year, I am going to put my pilot class to test and see if they really will learn pinyin in a flash.  They will get their dialogue in pinyin, and they will already understand a big part of it.  This is very exciting.  The new school year is when we put all our planning to work.  Test your hypothesis!

Revitalize Thy School!

Chinese schools as we know them, are heritage schools which cater to students whose parents are from a Chinese-speaking part of the world.  In our case, Taiwan.  As Taiwanese immigration into the New Haven area slows in the past years, we no longer have a robust population of Taiwanese families who are looking to send their children to heritage schools.  With no advertisement nor additional promotion in any form, we were lucky to still exist thanks to all the loyal families who still send the babies of their families to our school.

This June, with a colleague from the school, we called a meeting inviting parents and teachers who are returning, to put their heads together to find a way that will enable the survival of our heritage school.  Majority of the attending parents have kids in my class (the only language class for the non-heritage speakers).  It seems obvious that we need to open up our heritage school to the non-native Chinese-speaking population.  With my colleague and I who teach in mainstream schools, it's a no-brainer that we should welcome and include the non-native population, and develop a curriculum for this track.

On promoting the school, the parents really came through when we were putting out flyers, bouncing emails around for ideas, deciding on administrative procedures, and a teacher who's no longer with us also helped out in a huge way.  I was so impressed with everybody.  Their enthusiasm for their children's Chinese language education is what keeps me going at that school.

Go New Haven Chinese Language School!  Go NHCLS!

Field trip 101 - NY Chinatown

Taking students on field trips requires more planning than I thought.  It helps when my colleague joins me in chaperoning.  She's made copies when it came to permissions slips, info sheets, snacks on the bus...  It's like having an aunt along, someone who's not overbearing but cares about the kids just the same.

We tried out Megabus, a way to get to New York for as low as $2.00 round-trip.  We booked a little late, so it cost $6 per person, still not bad though.  I was also lucky to be able to book "The Walk through History" (a guided tour through Chinatown provided by MOCA).  It costs $7 per student and $11 per adult when going as a school group.  Because it's my first time doing this, I only had 7 kids on the trip.  Still, we were hyped and nervous!

Two days before the trip, I gave out info sheets to all the participating students reminding them that we are leaving from the TRAIN STATION and not from our school.  Even after an additional email the night before, I still had one student who showed up at the school and barely made it by departure time.  My colleague and I were short of lying in front of the bus to stop it from leaving. [You can never have too many reminders!]

Once there, I had students to enter my cell phone numbers onto their own phones.  Everyone had a "mini quiz" on their numbers and we corrected it together.  It's life and death!  We then had students find their buddy/ies for the trip. [It turned out to be unnecessary because they mostly stayed together, and with so few of them it was actually quite easy to keep track.]

We first walked over to High Line Park to appreciate New York from above.  Very soon, I had my first request for potty.  That sort of ended our walk above the city.  [So important to urge students to go to the bathroom whenever there is one!]  Since the weather turned nice then, everybody wanted to walk on the streets to get to Chinatown as opposed to take the subway.  It was a long, long walk.  By the time we got to Chinatown for our tour, everyone was pretty tired. [Conserve energy early-on on a day trip!] 

What's really cool once we got to Chinatown was -- everything we did this year was right there (characters, shopping, ordering food, etc.)  The tour was interesting from the historical perspective and I think the students actually learned something new about immigration in general.  They saw how in the park there were people playing Chinese chess, gaming, doing marshal arts, etc.  There were groups of older Chinese people sitting around on stools chatting.  What a lively scene!  Our 'dim sim' experience turned out to be less ideal.  I miscalculated and did not expect the students to be apprehensive about new foods. [Always have back-up plans.]  We ended up stopping at Haagen Dazs for some ice-cream afterwards.

Our afternoon in Central Park turned out to be a great closure before leaving on the bus for home.  People had opportunities to wander, see new things.  It's really great for teachers to see students in an environment outside of school.  It gives us a lot of insight into who they really are.

天下没有不散的宴席 - Last Day

I was planning on teaching the students about the famous saying "天下没有不散的宴席" but it turned out that on our last day, the kids got into school early with a waffle iron and made waffles for my going-away party.  So much for my "last culture lesson".

However, we did do some Chinese yo-yo-ing, Mahjong, and viewing of their own "movie".  For all their significant tasks this year, I filmed them and put them together in the form of a DVD.  For all their projects, I photographed them and put them together as a slideshow with some of their favorite Chinese music.  It was so much fun.

A colleague asked me if I know why it's so hard for me to make the move, having a wonderful opportunity waiting.  Her thought was that big kids require more investment from the heart, especially in the urban environment.  I agree, having taught little kids for 16 years before this.  We love all kids, but big kids suck you in and they become part of your life.  They are so interesting.  For all of you teaching big kids, do you agree? 

KH from my Chinese I told me that he thinks I must be happy to be leaving, because, he said, I must wanted to strangle him on a daily basis.  I told him that I could not imagine my period 9 without him because it would not be nearly as interesting.  Taishanna from period 3 is hardly a 'good student' in the traditional sense.  I really thought she was never going to turn around when she pushed me so hard into the third marking period.  But things started to change in April and May.  When I gently expressed that I would appreciate if she talks to me more politely, and she told me, "What do you mean Mis, you should hear me talking normal!"  My biggest, most reluctant and loudest big kid was having a hard time with allergy on the last day and her eyes were watering so much she needed a tissue. Jiewang my 6'2" football player was disappointed that we won't be able to compare notes about the latest football games, since we cheer for rival teams.  How I will miss everybody.

They are and will be my BESTEST big kids ever.

Activity for Reviewing - 我有！

Thanks to Joe Alamo for this wonderful idea - I used it several times this year, but always tweaking it so it seems different every time.  The beauty to this is that you can use the same material but use it differently and they become different activities.  This is one of my students' favorite activities.  They don't explicitly tell me so, but the level of engagement makes me want to continue using it.

PREPARATION

Basically, you need to make a list of standard questions which students are expected to know by the end of the unit/marking period/year, such as "What is your nationality?", "Does he have younger brothers?", "What would you like to eat?", "How are these pants?" etc.  For the original version of the activity, make two identical decks of cards, each card with an answer that correlate with one question, in correct sentence structures, like "I am Japanese," "No, he doesn't have younger brothers," "I would like to eat ice-cream," "They feel very comfortable."  etc. 

HOW TO

If there is clearly a student who is more advanced than the rest, let this student take on the challenge in reading the questions, assuming the role of the teacher.  That way, he/she does not throw off the competition between the groups.  And you become the facilitator of the activity and divide up the class into two compatible groups.  Each of these group will get a deck of the cards.  Sometimes the group can lay out all the cards and look at the cards together; and sometimes they can divide up the cards so each person can focus on his/her own cards.  When the questions are asked, whoever has the corresponding answer card needs to call out "I have" in the target language and provide the appropriate answer to the question. And like many competitive games, you put down a point for whichever team gets the correct answer.

Variation 1 - Because our students are also required to know translations for various Chinese phrases on the district quarterlies, I take the same activity and read out the English and they would call out "I have" when they identify the right translation for the English phrases/answers I give them.  This is one occasion when I am using non-target language and my students are using target language.  It's pretty funny.

Variation 2 - Instead of making only the answer cards, make both question and answer cards and mix them up.  Have students try to match the questions and answers in groups.

PRE-ACTIVITY ASSIGNMENT

I like to use matching in assignments, so for the assignments before doing the "I have" activity, I give students a list of 20 questions on one side, and their corresponding answers on the other side but in different order.  They need to determine what answers go with what question.  You can do the same with Chinese on one side and English translation on the other side.  

WORDS OF CAUTION

-This activity is good for when you are confident that students are more or less proficient, otherwise it can make them feel lost and frustrated.

-Feel free to use pinyin with lower-level classes when you are not trying to review the character recognition, but rather are trying to solidify their understanding for question/sentence structures.  But use strictly characters if that is the end-gold for the unit/marking period.

-Color code your cards for the different groups and classes, unless you want to spend half and hour after each class sorting them out.

-Make sure students understand the rules and expectations before starting, so the activity can run smoothly.

Culture Class - explicit

Is there time and place for culture classes anymore in a language-oriented curriculum?  Most of us do something during the major cultural holidays, but these celebrations are starting to acquire an * for having to be a support to our language instruction or having to be taught informally and incorporated during language instruction.  Coming from the other side of the argument, I advocate for teaching explicit cultural practices and perspectives for their own right, at least at my heritage school.  

Culture class on ChongYang (Elders' Day) with NHCLS

What do kids enjoy the most of all cultural activities?  I have tried storytelling with craft, Chinese art, major holidays and their practices with food preparation and craft.  Everyone's favorite is the messiest activity of all -- anything to do with food.

More recently, I have parents and community friends joining in during culture classes, so I felt the need to teach at least parts of these cultural classes in English (just where I felt that the culture part needs to be communicated).  During the demonstration of the steps in food preparation however, everything should be in as much target language as possible because action does make the language comprehensible for even the non-native speakers.

For instance, I have done food prep for Chong Yang three different times so far.  Other than the making of the Chong Yang cake, I felt that it is important to explain to the kids the main idea behind Chong Yang -- respect for elders.  The younger kids may not get the thought behind it to begin with, but they will by the third year we do the activity.

When we made Dragon Beard Candies at my Chinese heritage school, participants appreciated how the emperor would have nothing less than sweets that conjure up an imagery of the dragon's beard.  Giving the same candy the name of 'noodle candy' probably would not have worked for the emperor of China:)

Many teachers asked me about where I got the resources for these culture classes.  I have to give credit to the culture workshop which I have been attending for the past three years.  For information on culture workshops sponsored by OCAC see:

http://www.ocac.gov.tw/unit/unit_pop.asp?no=19236&unit_type=1

The Boys

Anybody who's ever taught high-energy kids knows that we have to keep them moving.  This is my weekly 2-hour class with the 'boys' at NHCLS.  I really had to keep them going-and-going-and-going.  As the year ended, I am already missing the happy energy.  I sometimes wonder if they need more rigor.  

In the effort to differentiate and keep things rigorous I had to give student choice (more like parent choice at this age).  It is up to students to make these -

Characters are compiled on Ppt. for students to print out on their own card stock.  

They can decide whether they want to define the characters on the back of cards or notate them so they remember how to say them.  As an incentive, they will now have the skills to participate in fun character recognition activities in class.