Teaching Elementary Students Chinese

[xiaojiang216]

Hello!

I am 15 years old, and I have been asked to teach Chinese at a local elementary school. Along with a woman from Taiwan, we will be teaching about 12 kids.

I myself am not Chinese, but I have been studying the language independently for about 3 years. I'm now studying under a Chinese teacher at Yale University.

My question to you all is, how should I go about teaching all of these kids? I made the first lesson by myself... But my mom says it's too complicated.. But she doesn't speak Chinese at all, so I was wondering about what you all think.

The first lesson is about introducing yourself. There are only 7 phrases featured in the lesson. "Hello", "How are you?", "What's your name?", "My name is...", "Nice to meet you.", and "Goodbye". Then I have a drawing I did of two cute penguins telling each other their names. Then as an activity I was thinking of having the kids draw a picture of themselves and writing something on it like, "My name is Xiao Lin."

Is this too much? I have taught before, but I taught two Middle School teachers before their trip to China. Now that I typed out my ideas for the lesson, I feel like it's too much for elementary students... If someone could please let me know what they think, I would be very very greatful!

Thank you all very much!

[Ferno]

wow are you going to be trying to explain tones to them and stuff? pinyin? characters?

[Lu]

It doesn't look like it's that much, but on the other hand, I once spent at least half an hour trying to teach someone to say ni3 jiao4 shen2me ming2zi instead of ni3 jiao1 shen2me ming2zi5, without success. Maybe children pick it up easier, or maybe you could not be too strict about the tones, but still...

How about taking it even slower, and only teach them a few words every class? Like, tell a story about a dog but say gou instead of dog when you tell it.

[roddy]

Far be it from me to dictate to 15 year olds who study with Yale professors , but . . .

If this is going to be any kind of long-term course, then you need to have something planned out in advance, and to be honest I think you'll be better off getting at least some kind of structured course - Chinasprout.com has some learning materials which look suitable, even if you just get one copy for yourself to work from.

I used to teach young kids (never again. ever.) and spent hours and hours on pronunciation games. Eg:

Write 'sun' on one side of the board, and 'sung' on the other. If you say 'sun' they have to point at that side. If you say 'sung', they point at the other side. Give 'em points if they get it right or something, make it into a game. Simple, but they're learning to distinguish the 'un' and 'ung' finals. And obviously you can do that with any number of sounds.

If you have the space get them running to different parts of the classroom if you say chi / zhi / shi, etc, or according to what tone you say.

Should fill a few minutes, anyway.

Roddy

[xiaoli]

I've never tried teaching Chinese to American students, but I did teach English to Chinese students for a few years in China. I'd say that many phrases is too much for one class. Start with just a few (two or three?) phrases and work up some activities to practice those words and phrases. Working on pronunciation and tones for just a few words should be enough for one class with elementary students. In general, it's better to go slowly and make sure they remember what you've done so far than try and teach too much too fast.

I know for myself, when I was first learning (and often even now!) one or two new words was all I could remember at one time.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

[Ferno]

but they're learning to distinguish the 'un' and 'ung' finals.

yeah I have some problems with these... before I wasn't sure why languages such as English (and the romanized alphabets they contribute to others) chose "ng" for that back-throat sound when "n" seems like its prounounced completely differently (toungue is used)... yet during listening I seem to be very easily mistaking sylllables such a "shang" for "shan" all the time

[xiaojiang216]

Thank you all for telling me what you think! It really means a lot to me!

I think I have some ideas now, thanks to everyone's input! And I'll have a look at the Chinasprout.com website to see what they have. I looked on Betterchinese.com, but that is more for adopted Chinese children that want to learn Chinese.

Thank you all sooooooooooo verrrrrrrrrrrry much, and I'll let you know how it all goes!

很感谢！

Sincerely,

陶澄逍

[gougou]

Write 'sun' on one side of the board, and 'sung' on the other. If you say 'sun' they have to point at that side. If you say 'sung', they point at the other side.

Are you still available for that kind of games? I sure would need some practice on these...

[mpallard]

Why did you tell us this?

"I'm now studying under a Chinese teacher at Yale University"

You sound pretty lame dude.