First 4 Chinese teaching lesson plans

Thanks for reading my blog, I have received tremendous number of requests regarding my Chinese lesson plans. I posted four for now. Keep checking, I will post more soon!

You learned counting from 一 to 三十 in Chinese, now what?

Counting from 一 to 三十 is EASY as many of my students shouted out in my class. What can your children reflect their learning in everyday life? Here are some of my suggestions:

- Counting the number of family members: 
Ask: How many people in your family?
        你 nǐ   家 jiā   里 lǐ   有 yǒu   几 jǐ   个 gè   人 rén？
Answer: Three people.
               三个人

Fun facts:
1. 人rén : a person, people. In Chinese, there is no difference between plural and singular.
2. The word "个 gè" is a measure word. It follows by the number. For example, 一个人(one person)，七个人 (seven people).

- Reading the clock:
Ask: What time is it now?
         现 xiàn  在 zài  是 shì 几 jí  点 diǎn  钟 zhōng？
Answer: It is four o'clock.
              四 sì  点 diǎn  钟 zhōng

Fun facts:
1.  点 diǎn  钟 zhōng : When you ask about the "time", you say "点 diǎn  钟 zhōng". If you want to buy a "clock", you say "钟 zhōng".

- Reading the calender:
  "月yuè" means "the moon", it also means "the month".
  "日rì" means "the sun", it also means "the day".
The number of the month + the number of the day = # 月yuè  # 日rì

• The 1st month of the year: 一月 January
• The 2nd month of the year: 二月 February
• The 3rd month of the year: 三月 March
• The 4th month of the year: 四月 April
• The 5th month of the year: 五月 May
• The 6th month of the year: 六月 June
• The 7th month of the year: 七月 July
• The 8th month of the year: 八月 August
• The 9th month of the year: 九月 September
• The 10th month of the year: 十月 October
• The 11th month of the year: 十一月 November
• The 12th month of the year: 十二月 December

• The 1st day of the month: 一日
• The 2nd day of the month: 二日
• The 3rd day of the month: 三日 
• The 4th day of the month: 四日 

When you combine the month and the day, see below as sample:

• January 10th: 一月十日 yī yuè shí rì
• May 24th: 五月二十四 wǔ yuè èr shí sì

- Days in a week:
In Chinese, reading Monday through Sunday is very easy. "星 xīng 期 qī " means "week". You need to add the number of the week after "星 xīng 期 qī".

星 xīng 期 qī  +  # of the week:

• The 1st day of the week 星期一 Monday
• The 2nd day of the week 星期二 Tuesday
• The 3rd day of the week 星期三 Wednesday
• The 4th day of the week 星期四 Thursday
• The 5th day of the week 星期五 Friday
• The 6th day of the week 星期六 Saturday
• The last day of the week 星期日 or 星期天: Sunday is an exception in the standard rule.

Have you seen these before?

A wedding gift from the Chinese wedding

Chinese candies

The Chinese book of the month is called "Yes! Chinese" 朗朗中文 textbook 1A

 The Yes! Chinese materials have four different series - Starter, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. Today, my evaluation will be focusing on the Starter set. The Chinese Starter set includes both a text book and a work book. What I like the most about this book is the duo language translation for each lesson. Unlike most materials from China, this material has both English and Chinese on each topic, content, and instruction. For non-Chinese readers, you will be able to understand the lessons and complete the homework assignments. I also like the cartoon characters, picture layout, font size and the color on the book. For young learner between age 4 to age 11, the book is easy to read and follow.

Many young learners between age 4 and 6 think in pictures. Whether we realize it or not, we often visualize what we are attempting to learn to help solidify the information in our memories. I personally think the content of this material was too difficult and complex for young beginners who do not have any Chinese language background. For example, lesson 1 in textbook 1A starts teaching how to greet people. The new characters from that lesson are “你nǐ，好hǎo， 老lǎo，师shī，我wǒ，叫jiào. I am sure many adult learners found this topic to be very useful in everyday life. However, it does not apply to young learners. All of these characters have more than five strokes which are very difficult to young learns to memorize without learning the stroke order. Stroke order knowledge is an important handwriting skill in Chinese reflecting the characteristics of the Chinese orthography. Before we go any further, we have to understand what children can process at different ages. Adults can hold chunks of information in their short term memory, each chunk contains 7 ± 2 items. In contrast, 2 year old children can hold about 2 items, 5 year old children can hold about 4 items, 7 year old children can hold about 5 items.

Furthermore, the textbook does not have writing sections to help young learners to trace strokes on each new character as classwork. Most of my students between age 4 and age 5 have struggle to learn new words with more than 5 stokes. I found it is extremely helpful for students to work on the writing in class so that they will get familiar with the word.

Tips: As you know, children love to draw. Making flashcards with colorful pictures that relate to the characters can be an effective learning tool. In addition, teachers or parents can have children draw their own pictures of each word to help them link each character with the respective pictures.