TEACH WEATHER IN CHINESE FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

Ages: 7-8 years old

Objectives:

- Pronounce words correctly

- Ask about and describe the weather (今天天气怎么样? 今天下雨)

- Compose short sentences about weather (今天印尼下雨)

- Recognize some of the characters

- Write some of the vocabulary using the correct stroke order.

Learning Activities:

1. Introduced a new unit and assessed student’s prior knowledge: As a starter, I read a big book from “Mandarin matrix” green level “天气预报”to the whole class. This book was written in Chinese characters, which was good because students have to use their senses (visual and listening) to know the meaning of the story. I listed down all new words, led students to pronounce them and asked them to tell me the meaning of each of them.

2. Passed the vocabulary sheet. Once they learned new words orally, I directly passed the vocabulary sheet and asked them to read the sentences and draw the weather’s symbols.

3. Sang a weather song (Used the melody “Sedang Apa”) to review previous words and learn new ones.

4. Showed flash cards and led them to pronounce words correctly.

5. Practiced Chinese characters. Chose simple characters, showed the visualization and taught them the writing order. (下, 天, 雨, 风, 云, 晴)

bishunwang

6. Speaking practice. Students learned the sentence pattern to describe a country’s weather condition. 国家 + 昨天/今天/明天 + 天气

Note: They have learnt name of countries in the previous unit. Re-used the old words and combined with the new ones will help students to review and extend their knowledge.

7. Writing practice. Each student got “raindrop” writing template and a slip of vocabulary paper. They had to write a sentence used that word and visualized their writing. Students were expecting to write sentence using mix pinyin and characters.

8. Rolling activities:

ü Peer activity; exchanged the information; there were worksheet A and B. In pairs, students had to exchange the information to complete the task.

ü Reading practice; read short passages and drew the weather’s symbols.

9. Taught the concept of 冷 and 热 by asking the students to draw in two posts it notes: one picture represented 冷 and one picture represented热.Then, they would practice to expand the sentence:

国家 + 昨天/今天/明天 + 天气 +  很/不 + 冷/热

10. Summative task: students in groups created a lap book which contains three days weather’s report in a specific country then presented it in front of class.

TEACH CONCEPT OF NUMBERS IN MONEY FOR YOUNG LEARNERS.

When my grade 4 learned “Buying and Selling” in Chinese, they also had to learn how to count money in Indonesian currency as they lived here. We faced the challenge that Rupiah has more nominal than other currencies. Therefore, I would like to share my learning activities that we have done in our class.

Ages: 10-11 years old

Objective:

- Count numbers 100-100.000 in Chinese correctly

Learning activities:

1. Assess student’s prior knowledge: we played a game when all students stood up in a circle and I played music. When it started, they had to move along the circle. Suddenly I stopped the music and called out a number (above 10), example 15 and students had to make a group with 15 kids and the rest of students who did not make it had to sit down. Then it continued with a new number.

Note: Our class consists with around 22 students.

There was another game that we also played when students sat down in a circle with a ball. One person had to say a number above ten and tossed a ball to someone else to continue the number.

2. I showed Indonesian money flash cards that I already printed before the class begun and I asked students to examine how many zeros in each of it and grouped them into some categories. Example: All two zeroes (100, 500), three zeroes (1000, 2000 and 5000), fourth zeroes (10.000, 20.000 and 50.000) then fifth zeroes (100.000). Then, I introduced new vocabulary 百(bǎi), 千(qiān), 万(wàn), 十(shí) 万(wàn) and lead them to say the numbers.

3. I checked student’s understanding by giving oral quiz. I showed random flash cards and asked students “多duō 少shǎo 钱qián?” 

4. Rolling activities: I grouped students based on their abilities.

Ø High level: Peer activity: place value battle; each student got a number strip that they had to cut and listening worksheet. They would do rock, paper, and scissor to choose who will say the number first. One of them would start arranged the number and dictated it to his/her peer. Then the second student would arrange the same number, wrote it as numerical and words in a paper.

Ø  Medium: They would do writing worksheet. 

Ø Basic: I helped this group to review the lesson, answer their question and clarify their understanding. After all, they would draw a thing (could be stationery) wrote a price label and then created play money according to the price.

5. To wrap up the lesson, we played place value bingo as whole class activity. We set up the range of numbers, example: 100-100.000 and I decided the numbers that we were going to use. Students got blank Bingo sheet and wrote those numbers in random boxes. One student read one number and whole class would crossed it out. The winner would be those who got all 5 boxes crossed vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

TEACH CHINESE MEASURE WORDS FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

Measure words (量(liàng) 词(cí)) are playing important role in Chinese language, as Chinese don’t directly use numeral and noun to quantify an object. The measure word serves as a kind of context that helps us to identify the meaning of the word that follows. There are many of the measure words used for specific things and it can cause confusion for those who are new to learn Chinese. In this section, I will share my classroom activities in learning about measure words for stationery.

Ages: 10-11 years old

Objectives:

- Know the types of measure words for stationery

- Identify correct measure words for specific objects

- Use measure words to form phrases or sentence.

Learning activities:

1. Assess student’s prior knowledge about name of stationery. I showed pictures of stationery and students in groups made a T-chart to list down all known and unknown words related to stationery in pinyin/Chinese characters. Then, one representative from each group will share their list.

2. Introduced new vocabulary and their measure words. First, I asked my students to follow me in reading word, example: 圆( yuán) 珠(zhū) 笔(bǐ) (Pen) and showed picture with two pens. 

The question was how we would say this? Most of them said: 两(liǎng) 个(gè) 圆(yuán) 珠(zhū) 笔(bǐ), which was not wrong BUT not precisely correct. Then I continued to explain the concept of measure words. My suggestion is grouped the vocabulary based on some categories, example: all writing tools (pen, pencil, crayon, and marker) with (支(zhī)) or all books with (本běn).

3. Vocabulary and measure words game: students sat in 3 groups and one person from each group came in front. I would say:  三(sān) 支(zhī) 铅(qiān) 笔(bǐ) (three pencils) and they had to race to get the correct thing and gave it to me.

4. Writing worksheet. I asked students to practice independently by drawing their stationery and listed the things down using correct measure words.

This worksheet could be expand for peer activity, when they had to interview their classmates “你(nǐ) 有(yǒu) 几(jǐ) (measure word) (noun)? 

朋友	铅笔	圆珠笔	彩色笔	蜡笔	橡皮	尺子	铅笔盒	固体胶	剪刀

5. Groups activity. I prepared stationery flash cards and dices to be used in this game. Students arranged the cards on the carpet; took turn to throw dices and said the correct phrases based on the picture. 

6. Students created a book “My Chinese Measure Words Book” to compile all the material from this lesson. Hopefully, by creating this book their memory about measure words will last longer J

LISTENING TO A VIDEO CLASS ACTIVITIES

Now, my grade 2 students are learning about “Chinese and western food.” They are exploring about common types of Chinese and western food. One of our class activities is listening to a video and doing some engaging activities related to it.

Ages: 7-8 years old

Objectives:

- Listen and understand the general meaning of a video

- Organize story based on correct sequence

- Visualize an ending of a story

- Create a mini book

Resource: “好(hǎo) 饿(è) 的(de) 小(xiǎo) 蛇(shé)” 

(You may consider using “The very hungry caterpillar” in Chinese version.)

1. I showed the title and asked a volunteer to read aloud. Since no one could read it properly; some of them only recognized some characters then I guided students to read together.

2. Passed next questions: “what the title means to you?”, “what maybe the story about”, “who is the main character of this story?”, “do you like snake?”

3. Introduced new vocabulary to students.

4. Played the video and paused sometimes to clarify meanings.

5. Played short quiz to assess their level of understanding.

                                              



   

6. Passed one sheet of picture and another sheet for a mini book template to students.

7. Students cut the pictures first and organized the order.

8. Played the video for second time so they could check their answer.

9. Now, they glued it to a template and wrote words in pin yin/ Chinese characters.

10. For the last box, everyone could visualize different ending and you could see how creative they are in doing this J

11. Decorated the mini book

12. Ready to be displayed or they could bring it home and shared the story to family.

TEACH CHINESE CHARACTERS FOR YOUNG LEARNERS

Learning Chinese characters could be very challenging for non native Chinese. I was born as Indonesian and I experienced how hard it was writing Chinese characters. It took many hours to practice the stroke order and another hour to memorize them.

Based on my teaching experience, I know that we can start to write once we can recognize the character itself, because every Chinese character is a piece of art by itself. It means, most of the character is made up of building blocks of pictographs or symbols, which can be visualized. The more exposure we got to Chinese characters the more easy for us to memorize them.

Here, I share some tips to teach Chinese characters for young learners:

1. Choose simple and easy Chinese characters from vocabulary list to teach to your students. There are no necessary forcing students to memorize everything from the list.

 2. Use picture or image to introduce the meaning of a character. You  can browse “Pinterest” to get more ideas.

3. Put the characters as classroom displays. You can ask students to create flash cards or posters. By doing this way student can have ownership with their learning and your classroom will look interactive.

4. Build classroom’s library where you can display many Chinese books and set activities in this corner. These books will be fantastic resources to help expand your student's vocabulary as well.

5. Show and teach the writing order. I usually use a website “www.bishunwang.com” to help my students visualize the stroke order.

6. Independent practice. Once they know the correct order directly ask students to copy and practice 1 to 2 lines. Move around and check their writing.

7. Repetition. Next day show the character, revise the meaning and ask a volunteer to write stroke order. Then, challenge students to think how they can use that character in form of sentence. By doing this way, they also practice their speaking skills.

8. Be creative in practicing Chinese characters. Prepare many tools/media in the classroom for students to practice their characters as this will sustain your student's interest. You may prepare play dough, brush and ink, magnetic sand or even puzzle.

9. Create classroom games. Everyone loves game and this activity can help students to retain their memory of Chinese characters.

•     Recognizing characters game: Prepare flash cards with Chinese characters only and divide students into some groups. Distribute the cards and ask them to spread them out on the table. The only rule is no one touches the cards. Teacher calls a word and they have to race to touch the correct card first. Those who win can keep it.
•     Writing stroke order game: Students sit in groups on the carpet. Prepare one small white board and one marker for each of groups. Show the Chinese character and then they have to take turn to write the correct order. Those who finish first show the white board to the teacher.

10. Involve parents in student’s learning. Build good communication way with parents because learning Chinese characters needs a lot of practices. Only rely on school time definitely not enough. Update your lesson regularly and ask their help to remind and encourage their kids to practice at home.

11. Create assessment task that allow students use Chinese characters. Even if you have a unit which focus more on speaking we still can incorporate Chinese characters into their assignment. Example:

Thematic unit: “Going to a doctor”

Assessment task: present a role play between doctor and patient

Criteria of assessment: 1. Use comprehensive vocabulary and correct sentence structure in writing the script. (This part you can ask students to write it in Chinese characters) 2. Pronounce words correctly 3. Speak fluently 4. Show appropriate gesture and eye contact.