Children's Chinese Book Garden

Mandarin Chinese

Class Schedule

Mixed Level Class:Tuesday 4:00-6:00pm   

Mixed Level Class: Thursday 4:00-6:00pm   

Mixed Level Class: Saturday 10:00-12:00pm 

Mixed Level Class: Saturday afternoon 2:00-4:00pm

2011-20112 Program Calendar

General Features of Our Mandarin Chinese Classes for Children

A child who takes a 2-hour Chinese class per week during the academic year cumulates 60 hours of work per year (30 weeks per year x 2 hours per week). The 60 hours is equivalent to 10 days of regular school for children (6 hours per day in school x 10 days). If our English-speaking children go to a Chinese-speaking school in China (or vice versa), studies have found that it takes these children 3 months before they can speak the new language at a very basic level. These 3-months of regular schooling translate to 60 days of regular school (20 days per month x 3 months).   Putting these two pieces of information together, we learn that children who take a 2-hour Chinese class per week in an English-speaking society (e.g., the US ) need to spend 6 years to cumulate the same number of hours of Chinese exposure that is equivalent to 3 months of schooling in China.

These facts leave us with two important messages for both teachers and parents. Teachers should offer a program with a scientifically based curriculum that is consistent with a) the nature of the linguistic structures of Chinese, and b) how human mind learns and processes language (see future separate writings about this). Every activity in the classroom should be justified and promotes maximum learning.

On the side of the parents, in addition to helping children come to their classes regularly, parents need to supplement their classroom learning by monitoring their homework, offering chances of Chinese exposure during the long breaks of summer, even creating chances of immersion by having them spending time in Chinese-speaking regions (e.g., China or Taiwan) as they grow older.

Here are some general features of the weekly Chinese language classes of our program.

1. Our core language curriculum is closely based on research findings about how children of various ages acquire a second language or develop bilingually, and what factors promotebilingual language proficiency. Incorporation of research findings is reflected in the selection of words and sentences for different levels, in the specific strategies to teach these language components, and in other aspects of the program design.

2. Our teacher-student ratio is low. For a maximum of 12 children, we have 3-4 head teachers in class. Children are often divided into three or four smaller groups, engaging in activities tailored to their age, learning style, and progress with the curriculum. Such individualized teaching becomes increasingly important as children move to higher levels of the curriculum.

3. We work with parents closely.  Like other domains of education, parental involvement is crucial. Our children all have parents who eagerly, thoughtfully, and skillfully support their children’s Chinese language and culture learning, whether they themselves know Chinese or not. We draw energy and ideas from these parents, and in return, offer advice and an increasing wider array of methods and materials to enable them better support their children’s learning. There is a voluntary teacher-parent conference at the end of each semester to discuss each child’s progress. In addition, teachers often engage in verbal or email communications with parents to handle relevant issues along the way. Parents are debriefed about the curriculum, and for parents who don’t know Chinese but want to support their children’s learning, brief work sessions have been held to help them understand the vocabulary and grammar that are covered during a certain period of the semester. Parents have also come to our classes to share with the children their experiences with Chinese language and culture.

4. We closely monitor each child's language progress. We do it through evaluation charts, notes, regular teacher meetings. This allows more targeted instructions at the individual level.

5. Our curriculum extends beyond Chinese language and culture teaching. We want the time children spend with us to be rewarding to them at different levels. In our classes, Chinese language is not an object to be mastered, but a medium through which children understand more about themselves, their communities, and learn to appreciate nature, respect the environment and the differences among people. This approach precisely reflects the original function of language and thus makes learning more efficient. 

6.  We have a stable group of devoted teachers. These teachers are caring, knowledgeable and highly experienced. This ensures both quality of teaching as well as a sense of stability for children in our program.

Egg coloring

 Story sharing

Writing

Electricity Project

Making La Mian (拉面） 

Reading

Selling snacks

 
Writing

Park Study

Making Sentences

Singing

Guest speaker Dr. Huang

Our puppet theatre

Teacher meeting

Writing

Snack time

Cooking

Guest calligrapher