I got a gift from a grade 2 student today. What a surprise! It's a 2015 calendar featuring a traditional Chinese painting of goats and peony flowers. Both are symbols of good luck. Besides, 2015 is the year of Ram according to the lunar calendar. I love it and put it in our classroom. Thank you!
The elementary students watched an award-winning Chinese animated movie called Three Monks recently. I must have watched this movie hundreds of times since I was their age! Here's a Wikipedia link. Enjoy! The latest Valley Press featured a story on one of my classes at Roaring Brook School last Friday. Here's the report: Here are a few more snapshots taken by my colleagues who was there observing my classes.
Kids at RBS learned a Chinese nursery song "两只老虎", the music of which was adopted from one of the most widely known songs in the world -- Frère Jacques (Are You Sleeping in English). 两只老虎,两只老虎, 跑得快,跑得快, 一只没有耳朵,一只没有尾巴, 真奇怪,真奇怪。 English Translation: Two tigers, two tigers Running fast, running fast. One has no ears. One has no tail. Very strange, very strange. Pinyin: Liǎng zhī lǎohǔ, liǎng zhī lǎohǔ Pǎo de kuài, pǎo de kuài Yī zhī méiyǒu ěrduo, yī zhī méiyǒu wěiba zhēn qíguài, zhēn qíguài Languageguide.org is a nice website for beginners to learn the basic vocabulary of Mandarin Chinese (and other languages), such as numbers, basic body parts, fruit and vegetables and so on. Just hover your mouse pointer on the image, and you'll hear its pronunciation.
Click the picture to go directly to the Mandarin Chinese page. Today is the International Day of Peace. The daughter of my colleague at the Confucius Institute in San Diego wrote a song to celebrate it. What a genius! Her teacher made a music video of the song "Pray for Peace" and posted it on YouTube. Enjoy! In the past few weeks, kids have learned how to say 1-10 in Chinese. Here they are: 一(1) 二(2) 三(3) 四(4) 五(5) 六(6) 七(7) 八(8) 九(9) 十(10) I started teaching Chinese with numbers because, as in 15 Reasons Why Learning Chinese Is Easier than English (see link below): Numbers are used wayyyy more effectively and efficiently. Months, for example, are just number + word for month. So January is 1 month, February is 2 month, etc. And... for me, because Chinese characters are monosyllabic, counting and calculating are a lot quicker when it comes to Chinese. Here's a video I used in my class to help students to learning numbers in Chinese. Guess what, with the help of the video, they can also say tiger and squirrel in Chinese now! Traditionally used by Chinese teachers to teach beginners how to write Chinese characters, "Tianzi ge" provides a simple quadrant template for Chinese character writing practice. "Tianzi ge" means "field-style grids" because the grid lines look like 田 (the Chinese character for field). The grid lines are used as guide lines for practicing characters with the correct size and proportion. Boys and girls at Roaring Brook School,
It has been so much fun to be with you. Thank you for portraying me as who I am... and who I am not. :) |
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九月 2016
About MeI currently teach Mandarin Chinese at Avon Public Schools, Connecticut. I am also Associate Professor of English in the School of Foreign Languages at Shandong Normal University. Categories
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