School project: Indtroduction to Chinese - Advice

[HerrPetersen]

I am a high school teacher (Math+Physics) in Germany and my school will have two days at the end of the school year, where teachers and students can carry out projects. There will be projects for different sport-activities, cooking, nature, etc. I will be leading the project "Introduction to Chinese".

I will lay out the general setting for feedback. I would especially like to have some ideas for "fun and easy stuff" to lighten things up in between study sessions. 

 

Setting:

• The students are aged 15-20. No Chinese background at all.
• It will take place in the last 2 days of school. 8:00 until more or less 13:00, so around 5 hours max a day.
• My Chinese is far from good (HSK4 passed @90%, vocab wise halfway to HSK5; Relative to HSK-level: Reading ok, Writing ok, Listening and Speaking not so good)

Rough Plan for day1: (I will still have to create the Anki-deck and worksheets; I will attatch those once they are done)

   1.) Start with the first Assimil lesson. (about 45 mins) (text see below *)

• Listen and repeat 
• Explanation of tones + drills
• Read above text again with focus on tones.

   2.) 20 Hanzi (60 min+)

•  Component approach: 手， 戈，我， 小，你，反，饭，饿，田，累，不，汤，口，女， 子，好，马，石，码，十，什，么
• Write each charachter 5 times (with stroke order diagramm)
• Drill chars with anki (computers are available) Hanzi to English, English to Hanzi.

   3.) 太极拳 (30 min)

• First movements of the 24-form. (Using a video + noob knowledge)

   4.) Free time: Check out other projects (30 min)

   5.) Review (45 min)

• Pronounciation review
• More anki reviews for above charachters this time with pronounciation.
• Simple texts containing above charachters. Read to partner. (possibly with supplementary vocab in the following style: 我不ai4 (love)你。)

   6.) Some fun media stuff to round things up. (30 min)

• The Apple song, Maybe a children series etc, or something where you can watch and get the gist.

 

Day two has not been planned yet (I still have 16 days to plan). It should follow roughly the scheme of day one. 

It should contain:

• Explanation of zh ch x j sounds + tongue positions --> Drills.
• Caligraphy attempts. Possibly writing a chinesefied version of everyone's name. (I have a caligraphy set (ink+brush) but have never used it.)

 

Appendix

* a) 你好！你饿吗？我不饿！你累吗？我不累。好!走! b) 要不要饭? 不要! 要不要汤?  你要什么? 我要面包!

 

If anyone has feedback or ideas how to spice things up I would definitly appreciate it. I feel, that the 60+ min for Hanzi-Learning might be a bit too short/hard. What do you feel?

 

[edelweis]

perhaps you could introduce the numbers from 1 to 9 and the hand gestures.

Then have the students do simple additions and either write, say, or sign the results...

[edelweis]

Also, anki might be overkill for a 2-day course - it's not really fun.

For computer based activities,

perhaps you could ask Skritter for a free group account, more fun than anki.

Perhaps you could show the students how to input characters with a pinyin input method.

For instance input something in google translate and then listen to the computer generated voice.

[yhs31217]

i always use the famous '日 and a bar' stuff

 

it's a good introduction of where Chinese characters came from (from drawing)

and i believe that's what make it special and interesting

 

the 日 and a bar is 

 

日 曰 旦 田  由... and some more (i m a little shy i forget some, as a native speaker...)

these characters look fairly similar, but have different meanings

mean: sun say morning farmland and because

 

the 日（sun）came from the drawing of sun thousands of years ago

the 旦 （morning）the bar is the horizontal line, when the sun go up and cross the line, that's morning

and so on...

[edelweis]

ah, an idea of video to show the students if you decide to teach them the numbers: middle/high school students performing 广播体操

[Shelley]

I know a lot of people are not keen on her ideas and methods but, I find her enthusiasm, smiling face and good English a real joy to watch, maybe you could get Shao Lan's introduction video she did with her very colourful graphics and interesting stories.

 

There is also a book she has done Chineasy again very colourful, interesting and aimed at first time learners, older kids and teens.

ISBN 978-0-500-65028-8

 

TED video here https://www.ted.com/talks/shaolan_learn_to_read_chinese_with_ease?language=en

[Demonic_Duck]

^ To counter the above advice, your students won't learn any real Chinese from Chineasy. What they'll learn is a few characters which can be strung together using half-English-half-Chinese to make some rather contrived sentences, without the differences between simplified and traditional script being explained (despite the fact that characters from both are cherry-picked according to which fits into the scheme better), and without any explanations as to how the characters/words can (or can't) be used in real life Chinese (Mandarin or otherwise). I don't think it even teaches pronunciation, though I might be wrong about that.

 

Basically, it's some pretty pictures, without any real system behind it, let alone a system with solid pedagogical/scientific foundations.

 

Also, it looks like it's endorsed by British PM David Cameron, which is another good reason not to buy it.

[Shelley]

@Demonic_Duck, I agree with you. But it is supposed to be an introduction to Chinese. It does teach pronunciation. I would never suggest it for serious study.

 

But it is a bit of fun and might encourage students to study it more seriously.

 

The OP did ask for something light hearted

I would especially like to have some ideas for "fun and easy stuff" to lighten things up in between study sessions.

 

[Hofmann]

TBH, not at all how I would do it. When it comes to a short series like this, I make the goal firmly to get them interested in and like Chinese so they are more likely to study it seriously in the future. I wouldn't count on them getting any appreciable proficiency.

 

Therefore, most of my presentation would be on what makes Chinese and Chinese culture so interesting. I would focus on teaching about the language (giving them opportunities to try using it but not requiring it) and the culture, comparing it with German and German culture. You're not American, but I would recommend taking a look at the ACTFL World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages to guide a well-rounded presentation.

[889]

I agree with that. Teaching calligraphy and even simple phrases is bound to be a frustrating experience for the students in such a short period. Spending your time with them showing how much you've learned is tempting but not a good approach; they'll be overwhelmed by the seeming complexity of it all.

So yes, focus on why China and Chinese make for interesting study, but don't try to run an introductory language course.

[ChTTay]

Agree with Hofmann and 889. I would probably do as above and talk 'about the language', introduce Chinese/Chinese culture and Chinese things to them.

 

You could look at the story behind some characters - show the development over time into what they are today.

 

If you did want to do something with characters a little bit - introduce a few radicals. You could play 'matching pairs' in groups where there are two of each character, they turn one over at a time. If the turn over two that match, they can keep them. If they don't match, turn them back over. This way they don't even have to remember what the characters are or how to say them but they are still kind of getting used to them.

 

For speaking, getting students to say 'Hello, my name is ____' and 'How are you?' 'I'm good' is probably enough. Also, if you could find out what their names are in Chinese for the second day, that would be a fun thing for them to know. You could just print it out with the pinyin for them or something.

[HerrPetersen]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I never had classroom experience in Chinese and I do not have language teaching experience so this is somewhat unknown territory for me.

 

The project is advertised as "Introduction to the Chinese language - With fun stuff on the side". 

 

I agree with the tone of most posts. I will try to remove the "drilling" aspect of the language to a point where it should not be challenging to grasp everything without feeling overwhelmed. The whole thing will however remain centered around a mini language course. (And frankly I would have a hard time to make a course that will just be a huge motivator to really start learning Chinese later)

 

Here are some of my ideas for non-language stuff: 

• 广播体操 for learning numbers (thanks edelweis, I didn't know this drill)
• I know the handgestures and I think this is a really good idea. Thanks again edelweis.
• what is a high-school students day like: 广播体操, raising the flag, eye exercises, gaokao etc  
• taijiquan
• videos of square plaza dancing (of course with participating)
• bao jiaozi (we have a huge kitchen in our school)

So what am I looking for now?

• Comments on the above ideas.
• More ideas in the spirit of the above points.
• Which phrases would you teach (if any)? 
• Which hanzi would you teach (if any)?

 

 

Individual answers

 

edelweis

Suggestions; Anki vs Skritter; pinyin

Thanks again for the suggestions (see above). Anki vs Twitter; I believe Skritter has a free 5 day trial, so I might consider that. Pinyin - input method: I do not think, that they will have enough grasp on pinyin or vocab to make it worthwhile + it might be difficult to get the pinyin input running (our school computers are somewhat restricted)

 

 

 

yhs31217 charachters

I might use this as a motivional tool to start the hanzi-section of the course.

 

 

Shelley: chineasy

I only know a short news-snippet of her. Will look at it again, but I have the hanzi part covered myself. Thanks for the idea.

 

 

Hofmann:

Suggestions, literature 

 

Thanks for being honest. A said above the course goal is set on being an introduction to the language. If they manage to learn the phrases in the OP (pinyin only) + the numbers from 1-10 I would be fine. I do not think this is overkill for 10 hours and there should be enough time. If the hanzi-learning part won't work they can still "graduate" from it by taking a printed charachter, putting it below a thin paper and just paint the charachter by "cheating".

As for the literature suggestion. I looked at the page and read the description. It looks interesting but I feel 30$ are too much for something that I might only perhaps use, maybe won't have the time to read, and probably will not fully understand (seems pretty sciency). If you had to chose some cultural differences which would you chose from your perspective? 

Do you have an example for "giving them opportunities to try using it but not requiring it"?

 

 

889 complexity

I will try to tone it down and keep a light-hearted atmosphere. Do you have some ideas about what would be interesting for my students?

 

 

ChTTay

Suggestions

See Hofmann and 889. Playing "memory" as we call this game in Germany is a nice idea, to have some fun. Are there rules about chosing names? I would just "pinyinify" their names, and let them freely chose from a dictionary.

[yhs31217]

what is a high-school students day like? 广播体操, raising the flag, eye exercises, gaokao?

广播体操 is what students have to do almost everyday, now many schools are trying to use popular songs from internet to make it fun

(songs like, '小苹果', you can hear it everywhere in China, it's funny)

raising the flag, maybe only for monday

eye exercises, I did that since elemetary school, everyday, (70% of chinese high school students need help for their myopia now!!!)

gaokao, the national entrance exam for universities, nightmare for almost all students

 

taijiquan, i learnt that a couple of years ago, to be honest, most Chinese people only learnt the modified version, which is something like 广播体操

only a few people can use it as a powerful kongfu

i would prefer kongfu movies 

 

baojiaozi is a good idea, but it might be a little bit complex, please ask some Chinese for help

[Shelley]

Are there rules about chosing names?

 

Not so much rules, but some traditions and conventions. There has been lots of discussions on the forums about name choices and from what I can tell it can be easy to go wrong.

 

I would just "pinyinify" their names, and let them freely chose from a dictionary.

 

As long as you made it absolutely clear it was just for a bit of fun and don't use it for anything else except for fun on your 2 day course. That way any mistakes won't be so bad.

[ChTTay]

There must be a website that Chinesifies names. I think warning students not to use it is an over reaction. Just mention of they want to seriously start studying Chinese they should look into a "real" name or a better transliteration or people might laugh at them.

Some are already done for you because they are common names and can be found in the dictionary/online. Also, if there is a famous person or historical figure with the same name then it would also be easy to find.

[Shelley]

I didn't mean to sound like an over reaction   just to make sure they understood that there is more to Chinese names than just typing into a website or search engine and getting a result.

 

Actually could be a good bit of fun which I hope they enjoy.

[ChTTay]

Without wanting to get too far off topic ...  

 

It's interesting actually that in my Chinese language class (in China), I would say the majority of my classmates just had their English named turned into a Chinese name (like Anna became 安娜 and John became 约翰). A few of them had studied at home and their teacher had helped them with this while a few had never studied Chinese so the University admin helped them. Maybe this was the case because i started out at quite a low level.

 

Actually, even though I have a real Chinese name my girlfriend and her family just use my 'Chinese' English name (e.g. Anna >安娜) when talking about me. When speaking to me they usually just say my name in English.

[Shelley]

I suppose whatever works for you and you are comfortable with.

[889]

http://ename.dict.cn/

[edelweis]

While you're at it, perhaps you could have a short explanation about the structure of Chinese names (how the surname comes first, how there are much fewer surnames but almost infinite given names, how the title comes after the surname etc).

 

(And perhaps a diagram of family relationships showing that each family member has a specific title depending the exact relationship to the speaker )