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.