Shi Jingwei: Learn Chinese happily

Shi Jingwei: Learn Chinese happily Alberta Hope Chinese School Shi Jingwei Chinese children who grew up in the United States have never been very enthusiastic about learning Chinese. As...

>Alberta Hope Chinese School Shi Jingwei

Chinese children who grew up in the United States have never been very enthusiastic about learning Chinese. As a Chinese teacher at a weekend Chinese school, how to make children learn Chinese happily has always been a question I have been thinking about. I have taught Ma Liping third grade at Hope Chinese School for 6 years. Here I will write down some teaching experiences to share with you.

Since Chinese parents send their children to Chinese schools relatively early, the children in our third grade class are generally 7-8 years old, a very lively and active age. I remember two years ago, when I first took over the new class, there was a little boy over 7 years old in the class who couldn't sit still and loved to talk. Even if no one talked to him, he would talk to himself. I have to remind him many times in one class. Later, I carried out a "little teacher" activity in the class, asking each child to come forward and tell a few new words to other children. When it was his turn to be the teacher, he walked up to the podium with confidence, and then seriously talked about the new words he had prepared at home. At this time, I found that the students below were a little noisy, some were talking to others, and some I didn’t even enter the state of listening, and the little teacher on the stage also realized that the students below were a bit noisy. When he didn’t know what to do, I said: Classmates, be quiet. Our little teacher is so serious about teaching new words to everyone on the stage, and you keep talking down there. Don’t you disrespect him a little? Strangely enough, such a common reminder actually made him cry on the stage that day, and it was an aggrieved cry. Maybe he felt that his serious lesson preparation was not rewarded. I was also surprised at the time. I really didn’t expect him to cry, but I immediately realized what a great opportunity it was to educate him. I called him over and talked about it during the break. He immediately realized that his usual performance was not good, and he expressed that he needed to correct it. From then on, he did not immediately become a perfect student, but it can be seen that he has been working hard to make corrections and is constantly improving!

The most important thing in learning Chinese is to make children willing to speak Chinese. Because they usually have too little time to speak Chinese, many children are not very good at describing things in Chinese. The number of students in our class is relatively small this year. Some activities cannot be carried out because of the small number of people, but there are advantages to having fewer people. I can stare at every student and speak Chinese. I stipulate that all speeches in the class must be in Chinese, especially when talking to me, and I also ask the children to take turns to go home and prepare short stories or jokes in Chinese, and go on stage to tell them to everyone every time in class. During this process, the children were no longer so afraid of speaking Chinese, and they were also very willing to learn the stories they heard and share them with everyone.

During the autumn break that just passed, I arranged a short composition "My Autumn Break" for them, and asked them to send it to me via email, with both pictures and text. Because Ma Liping's Chinese teaching materials only start learning pinyin from the third grade, and the class period is very short, the children cannot remember it. How can we continue to practice Pinyin? I thought of asking them to write me an email every week, telling me about the interesting things that happened to them during the week, from the first one or two sentences to the entire composition now, coupled with their own photography, which made me appreciate it and feel very gratified! During class today, I projected their compositions on the wall and asked them to come on stage one by one to tell everyone. The children all rushed to raise their hands and wanted to be the first to go on stage to share their interesting autumn vacation with everyone!

Where did the time go? I have been teaching in a Chinese school for 8 years in a blink of an eye. The students I have taught have grown from immature children to tall and handsome girls. Watching them persist in learning Chinese, I really admire them from the bottom of my heart! I also believe that the Chinese they have worked so hard to learn will definitely help them in the future!

>Shi Jingwei