Submitted by ciau on
In March and April, CIAU faculty Zhaoyun (Catherine) Zhai continued teaching Chinese at Binghamton City School District. Her 6th graders kept practicing and consolidating numbers. They also learned some new topics including recognizing Chinese money, asking after prices, and talking about time, including dates, days of the week, and time on the clock. Ms. Zhai emphasized timely review and repeated practice, so that students can understand and apply numbers to topics of daily conversation, such as birthdays, U.S. holidays, weekly schedules, and specific times.
In the third marking period, Ms. Zhai kept guiding students to practice Chinese character writing and to read Chinese ancient poems as part of class routine.
Besides that, Ms. Zhai designed a series of programs to introduce the students to Chinese culture. In the very beginning, she talked about Chinese food, discussed diet differences and customs all over China; secondly, she showed the geographical landscape of China, focusing on the introduction of Xi'an and Beijing, which were well-received by students; thirdly, she presented Chinese folk arts, including dough figurines, shadow puppets, embroidery, and kites. In addition, she explored traditional Chinese painting with a goal of appreciation of this ancient art, introducing students to painting tools and giving them a chance to experience painting themselves. This greatly enriched the Chinese classroom teaching, inspiring the students’ interest and passion to learn Chinese language and culture.