Back in the summer of 2006, as I began my third year of teaching middle school, my school asked me if I would like to pilot a Chinese language program. I was undoubtedly excited and overwhelmed. I would be the first (and so far the only) Chinese language teacher to come along in the school's 45-year history.
Finding materials for Chinese at the Junior High School level was extremely difficult back in 2006. Chinese is a language typically taught in High Schools and colleges, or in immersion elementary schools. Therefore, to find resources, such as texts, workbooks, manipulatives, games and other materials only came through word of mouth. I had no collaboration team, no other Chinese language teachers in my school or district, so I had to scour the internet, Chinatown bookstores, and NYSAFLT annual conferences in hopes of finding Chinese teachers and vendors.
After two years of struggling to create my own materials and teach how I was taught at the NY Chinese School back in 1994-1995, I was able to attend a class at Hunter College on Chinese Teaching Methodology with none other than Prof. Wei-Ling Wu, the author of the textbook I had chosen for my class!
I was still in the minority, both as the only ethnically non-Chinese teacher in the class, and as the only junior high school teacher, so everything I learned had to be adapted to my classroom situation. In addition, my classes only met three times per week, so I had almost twice the number of students as my colleagues spanning eight different classes between grades 6-8.
Differentiation in my lessons had to be universally designed in order to accommodate for the diversity of the student population in each class. I typically had to deal with four categories of students:
- Heritage Students (OBC) - "Overseas-Born-Chinese," or those who were ethnically Chinese and were born in their native countries. Also typically ELL students who attended some school in their respective countries.
- Heritage Students (ABC) Set 1 - "American-Born-Chinese," or those who were ethnically Chinese, but born in the USA. These students spoke Chinese with their parents, understood much of the language and possibly attended weekend Chinese schools. They could read and write basic Chinese.
- Heritage Students (ABC) Set 2 - "American-Born-Chinese," or those who were ethnically Chinese, but born in the USA. In spite of their parents' best efforts, they could not be motivated to go to Chinese school or watch Chinese television. They understood Chinese, but mainly responded in English. They could not read or write Chinese at any level.
- Non-Heritage Students - all other non-Chinese students with little to no prior knowledge of the language or culture, except for the standard American fare, such as Americanized Chinese take-out, kung fu and Disney's "MuLan."
Each lesson had to accommodate for all four types of students. Therefore, my lesson plans include options for homework, projects and assessments depending on the population.
The following artifacts represent the Chinese Standards and a sampling of the Unit Designs and Lesson plans I have constructed over the years to address these needs. I also included two reflection pieces from the Chinese methodology course on how it changed my understanding of teaching Chinese language.
Chinese Language ACTFL Standards
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Chinese K-5 Essential Questions Framework: Click HERE
Sample Chinese LANGUAGE Unit Design/Unit Map and Lesson Plan for the topic "My Hobbies" in Grade 7-8.
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Sample Chinese CULTURE Unit Map and Lesson Plan for the topic "Dragon" in Grade 5-7.
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