海报
每课生字文课文中都包含:一张精美的图片,课文,和需要掌握的字词句。☞☞☞
课文 字词句
第一天:学生可以认读书写生字并理解意思。 第二天:学生可以理解生子文内容;学生可以使用不同的方式分析生词的意思。生字文的学习目标
点击下面链接, 看一下这位经验丰富的老师在生字文学习的第二天如何帮小朋友巩固新字词的吧!
Better Immersion 没有一本传统意义上的“课本”。 它主要包含两部分的阅读材料: 生字文和主题文。
Better Immersion is a K-5 Chinese Immersion Language Arts Program based on the adaptation of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. Topics in Better Immersion are derived from National History and Social Studies Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, as well as Common Core Math Standards. Meaningful vocabularies are selected by referring to ACTFL, AP, HSK requirements, and also determined high utility words across content areas. The target proficiency level at Grade 5 will be the equivalent of the ACTFL intermediate-mid level.
There is not one “textbook”. Better Immersion mainly includes two types of reading materials: Vocabulary Text and Thematic Text.
Year of the Monkey is just around the corner. Let’s send out our best wishes and New Year greetings. You can make a card, write spring rolls or sing a nice, catchy song!
How about starting our greetings with a card? Let's write a card or even make our own card!
Click to download the Lesson Plan on Making Greeting Cards
“During Chinese New Year, front doors of houses are adorned with poetic "spring couplets" (春联 chūnlián), wishing people good fortunes such as ‘a long life’ or ‘good health.’...Chinese New Year is also a time to pay one's respects to both the family and spiritual deities. Elders hand little children red envelopes (红包 hóngbāo) containing money, while adults reunite with family members they do not get to see otherwise.” (From Lesson 40 in Discovering Chinese Pro.)Let’s learn one of the most popular greetings for New Year in Chinese: 恭喜发财[Gōngxǐ fācái]
Click to download the full page Finally, best wishes for you and your family!Looking for more ideas or resources on teaching Chinese New Year in your classroom? Check back for our daily updates on Chinese New Year activities or contact your account managers (Kelly , David and Wendy) or at (888) 384-0902 for assistance.
[Language Point] 春节, 习俗, 贴春联, 放鞭炮, 吃年夜饭, 看春晚, 拿红包; “过年好!”, “恭喜发财”
[Language Point] “福”, “福” 到/倒, 幸福,福气, 祝福, 幸福; “我们一起写’福’字”,“我们一起贴’福’字”
The Year of the Monkey is slowly coming down the pike. Do you have Chinese New Year activities all planned out? Here are some ideas Better Chinese would like to share for teaching Chinese New Year, and we are sure your students will enjoy learning it very much! Remember to check back for daily updates.
First, Let's know about Chinese New Year Traditions:
Start out with a story that gives students an overall view of Chinese New Year celebrations. Students can work in groups or read individually for 5-10 minutes, then come back as a whole class to discuss: 1) What is the story about? 2) What are the main characters in the story? 3) What do people do in the New Year? 4) What are some of the new words/sentences that you don’t understand? You can also create exercises (matching/ filling in the blanks/ multiple choices, etc.) for students to work on while reading? Teach new vocabulary or sentence structures that you think are important in the book. You can use direct instruction in this part, or use the Total Physical Response approach for students to physically interact with vocabulary words and improve their pronunciation. The book, Chinese New Year from Chinese Traditional Festivals is a very good book to start with. Like Thanksgiving to America, Chinese New Year is the most important festival for Chinese people. The book Chinese New Year introduces various celebrations and traditions, including some traditions including lighting firecrackers (放鞭炮, fàng biān pào), making dumplings (包饺子, bāo jiǎo zi), gathering family together for reunions (家人团聚, jiā rén tuán jù), conducting a New Year’s eve vigil (守岁, shǒu suì), and reading the Story of Year (年的故事, nián de gùshì) and etc. Read the book with your class and introduce the traditions with your students. Second, Let's learn by doing some interactive activities! If you have enough time, bring up a dumpling session in the class! You would need only dough, filling, pot and heater. It’s an easy and fun activity to do in school or at home. Another fun and easy activity is to lead students make their own New Year hanging decorations. Looking for more ideas or resources on teaching Chinese New Year in your classroom? Check back for our daily updates on Chinese New Year activities or contact your account managers (Kelly , David and Wendy) or at (888) 384-0902 for assistance. ]]>You mentioned that you have hired a native speaker. I'm curious about his role. Do you prepare the materials and have the native speaker use them with your children? Or does he have a more autonomous role in planning what he does with your children? Or is he not really teaching the material, and instead providing non-structured conversation practice?
"I failed learning Spanish for months because of perfectionism, but embracing a 'screw it, I want to actually use this language, mistakes or not' approach allowed me to communicate and ultimately make friends."Thus, when we moved back to Oregon a few months ago, I reached out to another native speaker (who has in the past taught conversation classes at the local community college). We have just begun working with her on a bi-weekly basis, focusing specifically on conversation skills. Though they do not collaborate, her role is more of a teacher's assistant. I have lent her our Better Chinese materials so she is familiar with the vocabulary that the kids are familiar with and what lessons they are currently working on with Shawn. She encourages them to come prepared with questions to ask her and she in turn, asks them questions. The first couple of times we have met, my son hasn't been very receptive but he is slowly coming around. Her dialect is slightly different and she uses some unfamiliar vocabulary (intentionally). This is all good but it is challenging. My daughter on the other hand LOVES it! She has really blossomed this past year and has discovered the joy of speaking another language.
"Language is about being able to converse with people, to see beyond cultural boundaries and find a shared humanity. And that’s a lesson well worth learning." ~ Timothy Doner
Some 一些 A Few 一些 Many 许多 Several 几个
He first read the story aloud and then discussed what the story was about. The kids were asked to summarize in their words what the story was about. Utilizing the pictures and context clues, they were able to translate characters or words that were unfamiliar to them.
Shawn provided them with a vocabulary sheet for these new words - using both pinyin and the simplified Chinese character. He also provided us with an audio recording he made. For homework, they were asked to utilize the tools provided to listen to the story and practice reading it themselves until they could read it fluently.
We really enjoyed the illustrations in this book. To our delight, the last page unfolds to reveal the whole picture.
Additionally, he asked both kids to write their own story following this same pattern. This is a great teaching strategy for foreign language learning.
They were encouraged to choose a location different than a park - though a location with which they were familiar - perhaps a beach, airport, or shopping mall. Utilizing the same vocabulary and sentence structure, they were both able to compose a similar story (90-120 characters in length).
They reviewed the story in class the following session. In the image below (an excerpt from my son's work), a few characters have been highlighted in red or blue to indicate an error. Below each error, he was asked to make a correction. With the corrected version of their story, they are now working to create a similar story of their own. With their completed story, they will read aloud their story utilizing illustrations or photographs to create a multimedia project they can share with others.
]]>- Online resources only, try My First Chinese Words + I Love Chinese + Online Story Library - Online resources plus the book set, go for simplified or traditional version of My First Chinese Words 36 Books Set + I Love Chinese 12 Books Set + Online Learning System + Online Story Library
One of the projects the kids recently did with Shawn was to construct a family tree in Chinese and present it orally. To not overwhelm them, they didn't show all of their family relationships.
As an amateur genealogist, I was particularly intrigued with this assignment as it gave us an opportunity to discuss family members who the children had not met (great grandparents). We had a great time pulling out the photo albums and selecting photos for the project. I enjoyed passing down our family stories as we turned each page.
There are many ways in which to explore genealogy with kids beginning with the youngest of learners. I share a few with you in a post I wrote on my homeschool blog, Genealogy with Kids.]]>Assessment and TBLT (Task-based Language Teaching)
In a task-based language classroom, assessment can take place flexibly before, during, or after the task cycle. The goal of assessment in a language classroom is to help teachers adjust teaching plans according learners’ needs, provide effective feedback, track students’ learning progress, and measure student learning outcome.
Assessment can be classified into summative and formative assessment. Summative assessment is to provide a summary of students’ language competencies. The purpose of a summative assessment is to make a one-off measurement. This kind of test include final exam at the end of a semester or the standard placement test.
Formative assessment, on the other hand, aims at providing information for both teachers and students. Through formative assessment, teachers can gather information about students’ learning progress, thus making adjustments on their teaching plans. During the process, students receive teacher’s feedback and revise their work, which provides opportunities for further improvement and better learning outcomes. Formative assessment happens frequently in classroom. A brief conversation can be accounted as formative assessment if a teacher has a clear purpose for this conversation. Other types of formative assessment include portfolio assessment, task-based assessment, etc.
Doing Formative Assessment: Reasons and Rationale
What type of assessment that a language teacher chooses should be based on the goal of the curriculum, the cohort of students and his/her teaching approaches.
In my case, the goal of my Chinese curriculum is to trigger students’ interests in learning Chinese and have them taste the joy of learning another language. Therefore, using formative assessment enables me to give regular feedback in multiple forms and through various tasks that could increase my learners’ motivation, meet students’ needs, and effectively demonstrate their language performances.
Types of Formative Assessment
1. Tic-Tac-Toe
Example:
Description: It is adapted from a very simple game. Students are usually divided into two groups. Students from each group take turns to choose a grid and come up with any word that belongs to this category. If the meaning and the pronunciation are both correct, the teacher can mark this grid with a circle or a cross as a label for this group. The group wins if they first line up four grids.
Reflection: My students are familiar with this game in English. It is easy for them to understand how to play it in Chinese. The competition stimulates students’ interests in recalling words they have learned. In addition, this game also promotes children’s higher level of classification skills in this stage as I mentioned in my previous blog.
Extension: Based on students’ language and cognitive skills, teachers can adapt this game by using certain picture in one grid and ask students to think of the corresponding word.
2. Mind Map
Example:Description: In a mind map, the teacher sets the topic in the center ("color" as demonstrated in the example). Students are asked to think as many words that belong to this category as possible. They are required to draw out the image and then present to the whole class in Chinese. In the example, students need to say the words “红色,绿色,黄色,黑色”. If the topic is fruit, they can draw apple, banana, or other fruits and present the corresponding words with Chinese.
Reflection: Mind map helps students to focus on relevant information and organize information coherently. Teachers can also test students’ prior knowledge of certain vocabulary words. Similar to tic-tac-toe, it is engaging and flexible.
Extension: In addition to vocabulary words, teachers can also use mind map as a tool for students to think about phrases they know in a certain context. For instance, teachers can set the topic as "conversation in a restaurant". Then students can come up with phrases as “你吃什么”, “你喝什么”, “谢谢”, etc. If students are familiar with pinyin and character, mind map can also be used as a tool of writing assessment.
Description: Students are divided into several groups. They take turns to roll a dice or draw number cards, which decides how many steps they can go. They are required to follow the instruction on the grid they stop. If they cannot complete the task, they have to go back to the previous place and then roll a dice next time. The group who first arrives the finish grid wins.
Reflection: The adoption of board game captivates students’ attention and increases their participation of the task. A single board game map can incorporate many tasks such as role-play and imitation games. It provides teachers with abundant opportunity to assess students’ language competencies (vocabulary, sentence structure, pronunciation, etc.) and evaluate their performances (communication, completion of tasks, etc.)
[1] Picture downloaded from http://becuo.com/blank-game-board-template
]]>对于低年级的学生而言,颜色和动物的词汇是常用也是基础词汇。很多老师在介绍这些词汇的时候都会用到《棕色的熊》这本书,本篇文章,笔者要跟大家分享利用这本书可以做的阅读和写作活动。
第一次介绍这本书的时候应该由老师朗读,学生听,如果有不明白的地方老师可以用图片讲解一下。之后再朗读的时候,因为书中的句型是重复的,所以有的学生已经可以根据图片复述出下面的内容。在第二次朗读的时候,老师还可以提出问题,测试学生的理解程度。在全班讲解完这本书以后,学生在生字小组里面可以开始做拼字游戏,把正确的字和图片拼在一起。学生还可以在听力小组继续听这本书,更加熟悉书的内容。
故事书有声视频 写作练习 Writing Practice在学生对于书的内容很熟悉了以后,可以开始创作与写作练习。开始的时候,老师会用字卡帮助学生用书里的句型造句子。比如老师举例:“棕色的熊,棕色的熊你在看什么?我在看紫色的龙。” 然后请学生把紫色的龙变成其他颜色的另一个动物,并且帮助学生口头完成这个句型。比如:“紫色的龙,紫色的龙你在看什么?我在看绿色的鸟。”依此接力类推。这个过程中,老师可以把学生造的句子写下来,最后大家一起朗读。
等学生很熟悉这个句型以后,他们就可以开始创作自己的《棕色的熊》的故事了。他们自己写的过程中可以参考之前大家一起想出来的故事。
作品展示 Presentation
学生写完自己的书以后,可以先和老师分享,此时老师需要帮助学生正音,检查学生是否明白书的意思。然后学生还需要找一个朋友分享自己的书,听的人需要练习给出评论。比如:“你的字真漂亮。” “你画画真好。”最后,他们可以练习读别人写的书。
通过阅读故事书,学生的听、说、读、写四项技能都能得到有效的锻炼。老师们不妨在每周的教学中抽出一天或一节课作为“阅读日”,带领学生们朗读故事书,激发学生的学习兴趣,鼓励学生发挥想象力,来创作属于自己的故事。这样就可以通过语言学习,提高学生的写作与创作能力,并促进第二种语言的习得。
In my first blog, I mentioned the adoption of Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) in my first-grade Chinese classroom. One of the most important factors of adopting TBLT is to successfully design tasks that are suitable for students. To achieve the goal of designing effective tasks for first graders, it is extremely important to understand their cognitive developmental stage [1]. Cognitive activities involve, solving a problem, gathering and interpreting information, and completing a task etc. The well-known developmental psychologist, Jean Piaget, divides children’s cognitive developmental progress into four stages: sensorimotor intelligence (from birth to approximately 18 months of age), preoperational thought (from toddlerhood to age 5 or 6), concrete operational thought (age 6 or 7 to age 11 or 12), and formal operational thought (adolescence).
Without careful consideration of students’ cognitive abilities, it may create huge difficulty for children to understand the task procedure, let alone Chinese language development. Since the ages of my students are around 6, most of them are at the boundary of preoperational thought stage and concrete operational thought stage according to Piaget’s category of developmental stages. Therefore, I will present characteristics of children in these two stages and appropriate tasks for them correspondingly.
前运算阶段 Preoperational ThoughtDescription of the stage
According to Piaget’s theory, children in this stage are characterized by the capacity for semiotic or representational thinking. In other words, children begin to understand that one thing, either symbols or signs, can stand for another. The formation of symbolization brings flexibility to human thought, opening opportunities for children to “communicate about the past or the future, as well as the present” (Nelson, 1999, as cited in Newman & Newman, 2007). Based on symbolization and representation, children are able to share experience with others and to create imagined experiences.
Implication on task designBased on the description above, role-play tasks are suitable for children of this developmental stage as they allow the use of language, development of imagination, and other aspects of symbolic thought. Role-play utilizes children’s imagination and representation skills that emerges from their cognitive development stage. It also helps children connect the task with their past experience, so they know the expected discourse naturally due to their previous observation of others, making the task implementation easier.
The example I present here is the role-play for waiter/waitress and customer. At the beginning of the task, I pretend to be the waiter by holding a picture of the role. Then I ask them “你吃什么?[What do you (want to) eat?[2]]” and “你喝什么[What do you (want to) drink?]”. With a menu on their hand, I expect my students to answer the question with “我吃……[I eat]” or “我喝……[I drink]”. The goal of the task is to produce these sentence structures as well as vocabulary words of fruits and drinks.
During the procedure of the task, students barely need any explanation from me since this task attracts students’ interests in pretend play as a developmental outcome of imagination and representational skills. Students had a lot of fun in pretending to be waiter/waitress and customer, which promotes their motivation of acquiring the target language form.
具体运算阶段 Concrete Operational Thought
Description of the stage
According to Piaget, this stage marks an increase in logical, focused problem-solving abilities. Children start to develop mental operational skills. In other words, they can carry out an action within their mind. However, this mental operation is more tied to physical reality, and they are unable to understand abstract concepts or think hypothetically. This is the rationale for the word “concrete” in the name of this stage. Two operational structures are prominent in this stage. The first one is conservation – children gradually understand that certain physical attributes (e.g. mass, weight, number, etc.) of an object will remain unchanged even with the change of shape or container. Number manipulation also belongs to this category. The other is that students develop more advanced classification skills. Children can hold a consistent concept in mind and make a series of decisions based on it.
Implication on task design
Recognizing the development of conservation and classification skills, teachers can design tasks that utilize these skills as well as promote them. My students are at the entry point of concrete operational thought stage, so I include simple classification skills in the tasks.
The worksheet C of My First Chinese Words Lesson 1 is a great example of involving classification skills in language learning. Students have to divide objects/people into family, animals and school stationaries as well as pronounce the vocabulary. To make the task more communicative, teachers can ask students to complete the task by pairing/grouping with each other and asking them to conduct a simple interview. Teachers may also ask students to brainstorm additional words that belong to certain categories. If students are at higher cognitive and language level, teachers can ask students to come up with their own standards and classify objects/people based on these standards. For instance, teachers may ask students to think of ways of classifying the things from their backpacks. The categories can be shape, color, things they like or dislike, etc. According to Willis and Wills (2007), having students come up with their own standards of classification provides students with richer space of language use while also setting up higher requirements for learners.
This is just a glimpse of how I consider students’ developmental stage when I design tasks. It might also be helpful for teachers of other grades to refer to Piaget’s theory and design tasks that are suitable for their students.
Reference
Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (2007). Theories of human development. Psychology Press: New York, NY.
Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing task-based teaching. New York: Oxford.
[1] Cognitive Developmental Stage: by definition, cognition is the process of “organizing and making meaning of experience” (Newman & Newman, 2007, p. 82).
[2] Instead of teaching “你想吃什么”, I choose another intelligible form – “你吃什么” to make understanding easier.
任务型教学法:美国小学的中文课
任务型语言教学(Task-based Language Teaching,又称TBLT)是目前非常流行的一种二语教学方式。虽然学术界对于“任务”的定义各有说辞,但是在我看来,主要包含以下特点:
实际应用:任务设计与原理
任务型语言教学有一些常用的类型,包括匹配任务(matching),比较/对比任务 (comparing and contrasting),拼图/信息整合任务(jigsaw/information gap),问题解决任务(problem-solving task)等等。下面我将分享我设计的两个任务,供各位老师参考。
1. 它们在哪儿?
参考:
学生站成圆圈,低下头等老师的指令。当老师说:“1,2,3,看。”的时候,大家一起抬头。如果你和另外一个人刚好对视,那么你们要互相说:“早上好”, 并且交换位置。如果你在看一个人,但是他没有看你,那么你站在原地不动。如果你不确定一个人是不是在看你,你可以打手势问他(大拇指向上或者向下)。
学生站成圆圈,学生A掷骰子(最好是大的橡胶筛子,这样大家都可以看到点数)。如果掷到3,他要顺时针数三个小朋友,第三个小朋友是学生B。学生A和学生B互相说早上好,然后交换位置。学生A坐下,学生B继续掷骰子。一直打招呼直到所有人都坐下。这个游戏可以用两个筛子来玩以增加难度。用两个骰子的时候,可以先做加法和减法,然后再数。
学生站成圆圈,学生A出列,顺时针数三个人,然后和第四个人(学生B)说早上好。说完以后他们交换位置,学生A坐下,学生B继续数三个人,和第四个人说早上好。一直继续,直到所有的人都坐下。这个游戏可以帮助老师打乱学生的座位,避免有些学生总是坐在一起。
学生站在教室的地毯区,老师设定一分钟的倒计时。学生要在这个时间里跟尽量多的人打招呼。在一分钟以内和所有人打招呼的人可以说:太好啦!或者耶!在开始这个打招呼之前,老师可以先明确一下当天到校的人数。
学生站成圆圈,从学生A开始跟学生B说早上好,并且把手中的球丢给学生B。学生B接到球后学生A坐下。学生B开始打招呼然后丢球。一直继续,直到所有人坐下。老师需要提醒学生的是,第一,球要从下向上丢以保证球不落地。第二,丢球之前要看着接的人的眼睛。第三,告诉学生这是一个练习配合的游戏,他们要一起完成。
学生站成圆圈,从一个学生开始顺时针数1,2,3,第四个学生要说:“跳。”然后坐下。第五个学生再从1开始数。这个简单的游戏可以有很多的变化,比如跳着数,或者一直往上数到一百,等等。
老师发布指令,学生照着做。当老师说:“找一个朋友。”的时候,学生要找一个朋友,两个人一组,手在头顶碰在一起,做好准备。老师等待所有的组都准备好了以后开始新的指令:“膝盖碰膝盖。肩膀碰耳朵。手捧脚。手肘碰手肘。”这个活动可以让学生做一下伸展运动,也可以帮助他们练习和身体部位有关的词汇。
这个游戏需要所有人一起唱歌并且重复老师说的动作。中文的歌词是这样的:“我们都是都是机器人。听我的话然后跟我一起做。机器人说准备,机器人说开始。右手,右手。”这里有一个英文老师的演示视频:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3MVWpXrB5o
学生站成圆圈,大家一起一边拍手一边说:“我说名字你重复。”然后第一个学生大声说出自己的名字一次,同时做一个自创的动作。他做完以后,剩下的人一起重复他的名字和动作。接着大家再说一次:“我说名字你重复。”这时候第二个人出列说他的名字,做他自己的动作。这样一直重复直到所有人都说了自己的名字。
这个游戏比较类似英文里面的Follow the leader。一个人是警察。一个人是领导。游戏开始的时候,警察在教室的外面等待,不可以偷看或者偷听。教室里面的人做成圆圈,一起选一个领导。可以抽签来选。选好以后,领导开始做一个动作(拍手,拍腿,拍头都可以)同时,大家都要做同样的动作。然后,我们会一起叫:“警察”。这时警察进来,走到圆圈中间。警察的任务是找出谁是领导。领导的任务是趁着警察不注意的时候变换动作。其他人的任务是跟着领导变换动作,但是不可以盯着他看,尽量保证领导不被发现。这个游戏可以边讨论边玩。老师可以提出问题,比如:“怎样不让领导被发现?我们应该都看着他吗?第一个拍手的人容易被发现,为什么?” 等等。
Role playing provides them with the confidence to communicate more comfortably with native speakers. They have in their minds familiar topics with which they can ask questions and respond to inquiries of others.
I love role playing because it encourages them to work together (something siblings sometimes struggle with). Not to mention, it is so much fun!
Here's my favorite - coincidentally also the most recent. http://youtu.be/17_lc8NFC48]]>In the past few years, I have been teaching different groups of young children in different language classes. I have encountered several pedagogical problems and one of them is how to manage children with challenging behaviors. They do not listen to me, and they keep distracting others and making noises.
Recently I have tried and developed several strategies to deal with those “naughty” children and they all worked very well. Instead of messing around, the kids listened to me, respected others, and wanted to participate. Below are the strategies that I have developed, and I hope that they could benefit you as well.
1. Set up classroom rules and tell the students your expectations at day one.
开门见山,制定班级公约。
You might have something similar or different, but you need to have some rules. This step is very important as kids need to know how their teacher wants them to behave and the consequence if they do not follow the rules. Keep your classroom rules and put them on the board every time you have the class. When students break the rules, we could point to the board, tell the misbehaving kid, and give them our “punishment”.
2. Show your respect and care first, not criticize them immediately.
安抚在先,批评在后。
We want our students to know that we care about them and want to help them, especially for the students with challenging behaviors. For example, if a kid keeps his head down and not listening to us, the first thing we should do is walking to him, looking at his eyes gently and asking if he is okay. Sometimes students might be sick and thus feel uncomfortable talking or participating in class activities. We need to let our students know that we care about them and want them to feel secured in class. Comforts and love keep anxious kids calm and secured.
3. Build “model” students and invite others to follow.
树立榜样,一起进步。
Apart from “naughty” students in the class, we should not forget about the obedient students. We could emphasize what the good students are doing as a model for the misbehaving ones. For example, if a student does not focus on his study and keeps playing, the teacher may pick a good student (e.g. Alice) and begin narrating, “Oh, Alice really did a good job! Look at her notes on her book, the lovely chart she drew, and the beautiful writing! Alice is a good student.” Students may pay attention to the teacher’s narrative and begin to think about the way they behave. They would notice the difference and adjust themselves because they also want to be the model that the teacher could pick and praise. Believe it or not, this positive narrative sometimes works even better than criticizing them!
4. Give them a warning, provide them choices and let them think for a while.
最后措施:单独交谈,给予警告。
If the kids still do not listen to us and keep distracting others, we could bring them to the back of the classroom and talk to them. We need to give them a warning and tell them what kind of punishment they will get if they continue distracting others. And then we need to give them options and let them think alone.
One day in my Chinese class, a four-year-old kid started to cry and push other students’ desks. I warned him that his behavior was not acceptable, but he did not listen. After a few minutes, other students could not follow me because he kept distracting others. I walked to the crying kid and let him sit alone. Then I said to him, “You could stay here and think about what you did, or you could come join us and learn some interesting things together with us. It’s your choice. You don’t need to answer me right now. You can think about it for two minutes. When you are ready, you can raise your hand and tell me your choices. Okay?” The kid keeps crying, but he stopped about three minutes later. I kept teaching and playing games with other students. The kid looked at me and kept silent. Then he walked back to his seat and opened his book! Finally he joined us and finished the rest of the class as a very good child!
How do you teach very young learners when they hardly know how to speak? How would you design your lessons when you have a group of students with varying ages? This article is going to show you the magic of true Differentiated Instruction (DI) in a pre-K to K setting where students age from 4-month to 5 years old. Modification of teaching materials based on specific classroom situation will also be discussed to help teachers meet various learners’ needs.
Very young learners: Immerse & Grab Attention
Usually, I would differentiate my students according to their ages and design different sets of lesson plans. For very young students who have not learned to talk yet, I immerse them into the Mandarin language by singing songs (insert link) and reading storybooks (insert link). For example, when teaching numbers, I repeatedly sing the song “一二三,爬上山” and play Number Claps (see Appendix).
Assessing young learners’ language acquisition could be difficult since they are still developing their cognitive skills. However, teachers could immerse young learners in the target language where they could imitate and learn naturally. Considering young learners’ short attention span, singing songs and playing games help draw their attention and keep them engaged.
Toddlers: Modeling, Group Work, & Individual Work
For toddlers, I would recycle the Number Claps game and make minor modification. Instead of me doing all the speaking and actions, I ask my students to clap their hands for certain times while I speaking the number of clap times. In this activity, I follow the “I-we-you” sequence, meaning the teacher demonstrates first, then students work in groups, and finally students break down to take turns doing individual work. I often facilitate turn-taking by playing “hot potato” (击鼓传花).
Students love the game and they are more motivated to participate. Teachers can also use effective strategies to facilitate turn-taking and manage their classrooms better. For example, positive narration could be a good instructional strategy where teachers praise a student’s positive behavior and motivate other students to behave accordingly. Teachers can use a teddy bear as motivation by saying: “I will give the talking teddy bear to the student who turns their listening ears on.”
Kindergarteners: Interactive Activities
Kindergarteners are able to handle a variety of interactive activities as they are more cognitively and linguistically developed. To modify and add to the game Number Claps, teachers can ask students to take initiatives in clapping.
The game works as follows: everyone closes eyes, one student claps his/her hands for no more than 10 times, and another student states the number of claps in Chinese. The key of the activity is to practice numbers in Chinese, and teachers could review numbers in future lessons as well. For example, whenever I bring in multiple pictures to class, I would ask my students to count the pictures with me in Chinese.
Constantly reviewing what have been learned is vital for language acquisition. The “i+1” theory (Krashen, 1988) shows that the teacher should help students make one step forward on the basis of their previous level. Thus creating engaging activities that are a little bit challenging for kindergarteners will help with their learning.
Differentiated instruction is a concept that can be flexibly incorporated into various contexts. For language teachers, how to twig, modify, and upgrade your material to suit different learners’ needs is key to the success of learning. If you have any great ideas about teaching Chinese to pre-k and kindergarten students, feel free to leave a comment and let me know!
References
Krashen, S. D. (1988), Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, Prentice-Hall International.
The teacher claps and speaks the number at the same beat.
一 (Clap once)
二、二 (Clap twice)
三、三、三 (Clap three times)
… …
十、十、十、十、十、十、十、十、十、十(Clap ten times)
Twig one: Students clap according to the number the teacher speaks.
Twig two: Everyone closes eyes, and one student claps while others listen and state the number.
What do you teach in the first lesson of your Chinese class? How do you help your students gain interests in the Chinese language and learn Chinese at ease? With more than three years experiences in teaching Chinese as a second language, I would like to share my instructional strategy of teaching self-introduction in my Chinese classroom. When I taught in Harmony Tree Learning Center, a summer camp Chinese program in east LA,, this approach worked well with my beginner and intermediate students aging from 6 to 13 years old, and provided easy steps to learn Chinese number, nationality, and personal pronounces.
1. Watch a Video2. Form-focused Instruction: Vocabulary
Review the vocabulary from the video and introduce sentence structure of self-introduction in Chinese:Sentence Structure
你好。
我____岁。
我叫________。
我读____年级。
3. Practice: pair work
Divide students into pairs and have students introduce themselves to their partners using the sentence structure provided.
4. Form-focused Instruction: Grammar
Explain to students how personal pronoun will affect sentence structure, using "这是…" (This is ...) instead of "我叫" (I am ...), "他/她" (S/He) instead of "我" (I). For example, “大家好,这是…他/她 几岁。他/她 读几年级。他/她 是美国人。” If you have a small-sized class with sufficient class time, you could ask every student to introduce their partners in front of the whole class.
5. Practice: presentational task
Show students some posters that contained pictures cut off from magazines. The poster below shows a young girl that is similar to my students’ age (9-14). Sentence structures are presented on the right: “大家好,这是____。 他/她 ___岁。他/她 读___年级。他/她 是___国人。” I gave each pair a unique poster and asked them to discuss the kid in the picture. After the discussion, each pair will present the person on their posters.
Reflection
Introducing people is something we usually face in real life and students find it useful and interesting. Teaching self-introduction helps learners connect better with the target language group. With visual aids and rich exposure to the target language, learners are able to learn Chinese at ease and gain interests in the Chinese language and culture . About the author Want to try out Discovering Chinese Pro? Request a free one week trial here or contact your account managers (Kelly , David and Amy) for assistance.]]>