Mrs. Chen’s Chinese Blog

Weather Report

Your project is to create and record a weather report in Chinese.

First choose a city about which you want to report the weather.  Next you will follow the weather of that city for one week, five days.  You will write down the weather and temperature that is reported for that city in sentence form and in Chinese characters on a daily basis.  This rough draft of the project is due November 24. Corrections will be returned to you by December 1. November 24- December 1 you are to collect pictures that represent the weather you described for your city.  December 1- 4 you will make corrections to the rough draft.  The week of December 8, we will use the Mac computers to record your voice in Garage Band and add pictures to create your weather presentation.

Timeline, Due Dates:

November 24                 Rough draft due

December 1                  Corrections will be returned to you by this date

December  1-8               Practice oral presentation at home

December 4                  Pictures for presentations are due

December 8                  Begin recording on Garage Band

December 10                 Project due

Here are a few more language learning strategies.  These are some that I strongly suggest, being a visual learner, I use these quite often myself.

·         Listening to Chinese TV    Watching Chinese television stations helps us to learn Chinese because it is visual.  We can see the actions and faces of the people as they speak; it pulls us into the drama.  It is far more entertaining than listening to someone speak.  Since it is visual, we can learn at a faster rate.  The down side to this is that you need to find a program that fits your interests and time schedule and stick with it.  The Mandarin pronunciation is also regional, meaning the local actors have more of a local accent rather than a Mandarin pronunciation.

·         Apply what you have learned in the classroom when you go on an outing with your family or friends     When going around Shanghai or to other areas in China, speak as much Chinese as possible.  It is important to remember that the purpose of language is to communicate; to be understood.  It does not mean that you have to be an eloquent speaker of the language; you just have to be able to get what you want.  When your meaning is understood, or you get what you want, you should feel proud of yourself because you succeeded!

Learning a language is rewarding especially when you are understood, or when you can understand others.  Make sure you take advantage of the many ways to learn a language.  The more you practice, the more you will learn.  The more you learn, the more relaxed you will feel in the language environment.

Here are some more ideas about how to learn foreign languages.  Today I will write a little about note taking, daily review of class notes, and listening to the CD that comes with the textbook.

·         Taking notes in your notebook   Taking notes is an effective way to learn a language because it helps to make a brain connection.  When you write things down, it becomes visual, and reminds you of what you learned in class. 

·         Reviewing your notes daily   Daily review helps to remind you of what you learned in class as well as helps you to make connections with other notes taken in previous days.  Reviewing your notes nightly gives you the opportunity to organize your notes, and to make sure you understand the flow of that day’s lesson.  It also gives you a chance to organize your thoughts as to whether you need to ask questions about clarification when you next meet that class.

·         Listening to the CD that comes with the textbook    Listening to the CD that accompanies your textbook will help you with your listening and reading skills.  The CD reads the text to you.  As you follow the voice on the CD you will be able to hear and see the repetition as you follow in the book.  The added bonus to this is that you will be able to learn better pronunciation as the CD speaker has model Mandarin pronunciation.

Please give these strategies a try for at least a week or two, then evaluate whether or not you see a difference in your language learning.  If you do not have a textbook CD, ask your teacher for one.  We have plenty for you to borrow!

Learning a new language is challenging as well as rewarding. It is important to begin with a desire to learn the language, or at least a reason why the language will be a benefit so that we have a purpose for learning to take place.

Once a purpose is found, finding strategies to help retain the information is important. Some of the best language learning strategies include the following: flash cards, taking notes in your notebook, reviewing your notes on a daily basis, listening to the CD that accompanies the textbook, listening to Chinese TV, and applying what you have learned in the classroom when you go on an outing with your family and friends.

Using flash cards helps make memorizing new vocabulary easier and more efficient. Flash cards are easy to carry around and it is easy to put them into a random order for learning. Putting flash cards in a random order allows true memorize because when words are in the same order, we memorize which words follow one another rather than memorizing the word itself.

You will have a quiz on Friday covering grammar.  The grammar that will be covered is : stative verbs, the comparative, the superlative, noun modification, and the grammar formulas.  There will be a test covering the clothing unit Friday, October 17.  Things that you need to know for this test are : clothing vocabulary, grammar, and how to describe what someone is wearing.  I want to make sure that you are well prepared, so we will have a practice test Monday.  Make sure that you take advantage of HOT.  I am available on Mondays, and Miss Shen is available on Thursdays to give you the extra help you may need to feel successful in the classroom.  I hope to see you all take advantage of this  great resource.  Make sure you sign up in advance, so we know the areas you want help.

I want to remind you that there is a quiz over greetings on Friday, and a unit test covering numbers and greetings Wednesday, October 15, or Thursday, October 16, depending on when your class meets.Remember that there is HOT with me on Mondays and with Miss Shen on Thursdays.  Please come see us on the morning of HOT to sign up, because we need to know what you would like us to help you with.

I would like to welcome you all to our classroom blog.  This blog will be a window to what we are learning in our classroom, as well as help students find assignments from their Chinese classes.