School project: Indtroduction to Chinese - Advice

[edelweis]

Regarding the Pinyin input method: when you tell them that there are thousands of characters, there's bound to be at least one computer-savvy teenager (aren't all teenagers computer-savvy there days?) who will ask: "but how do they TYPE those thousands of characters????"

 

I just want to point out that Google translate has embedded input methods (pinyin and lots of others) provided that you select "Chinese" as the original text language.

So you should be able to demonstrate how to input Chinese characters should they ask...

[Demonic_Duck]

There must be a website that Chinesifies names

 

http://www.mandarintools.com/chinesename.html

 

I actually (sort of) still use the name that I got from this site. More accurately, I used the given name it came up with, along with a surname I'd already settled on, for a while, but people told me it was too 绕口 that way, so I cut out the middle character.

 

 

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

 

You can show them this simple explanatory video!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCFRoILS1jY

 

(Sorry, can't seem to find a Youku version.)

[Hofmann]

Well I didn't expect you to buy it. Just seeing the summary will give you a reference for areas that you may not have thought to address.

If you had to chose some cultural differences which would you chose from your perspective?

Off the top of my head I have Prussian virtues and Confucian values. They're comparable in that they're seen as traditional and have met criticism from the Left. You could compare the effects of Prussian virtues and Confucian values on German and Chinese culture.
 
You could look at what you have listed...

• 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) 

...and compare them with e.g. group physical activities, typical school days, or seasonal foods in Germany.
 
Also, looking at your list above, I know it's just a bunch of ideas, but you may want to maximize diversity and avoid redundancy. For example, radio calisthenics and plaza dancing are somewhat similar activities. You might want to take one out and replace it with something like a board game. Or, because I'm assuming you'll let them eat the food they make, something on table manners.
 
One thing you might want to consider whenever you present a culture aspect is to link products, practices, and perspectives. This way, you can avoid being superficial in your treatment of a culture. For example, if you're going to present 太極拳, you can link it to the Daoist perspective behind it, or the product of prop swords. If you plan to do some brush writing (a practice that produces products), you can also present the perspectives behind it, such as the handwriting meritocracy.

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

I will illustrate this with my answer to...

Which phrases would you teach (if any)?

I would limit fixed expressions to greetings. With the time you have, I think you can teach about basic Mandarin grammar using a phrase bank and a sentence frame. Have lists of phrases that can be subjects, some that can be verbs, and some that can be objects. All on paper with Chinese, Pinyin, and German. Let students make sentences using combinations thereof by rearranging the papers, pronounce them for the students, and let them try reading it themselves. The effect of this is that they are making their own sentences without having to retrieve anything from memory except that Mandarin is a SVO language. They get to hear correct pronunciation and try it themselves. They are also implicitly exposed to Pinyin rules and Chinese characters. Regarding pronunciation, I wouldn't expect more than "close enough." Stay out of the details like the mechanics behind retroflexes and alveolo-palatal consonants.
 

Which hanzi would you teach (if any)?

Before, you mentioned "component approach." I assume you'll teach about the structure of Chinese characters. I would select a set of characters that samples all character types, making sure they understand that over 90% of characters are phono-semantic compounds. I actually have an introduction to a paper I wrote, which you may turn into a presentation; I'll send it to you and I might put it up in the blog.

[Shelley]

As to which hanzi if any to teach, the character for eternity is often used as an example because it contains the 8 main strokes used in characters.

 

One of things that always fascinated me about characters is how long they have been used and how you can read characters that were written thousands of years ago, maybe mention this?

[Mouseneb]

The cup game might be fun for culture and number practice. You will need a lot of dice and some cups.

[edelweis]

@DD the video was fun, thanks for sharing.

 

(The students are German, but perhaps a full understanding the English soundtrack is not needed...)

[edelweis]

Herr Petersen, what did you do with the students in the end?