On the morning of December 2, 2021, a coffee morning on Chinese learning was successfully held on the campus of BMH.
The Chinese group in this session of the workshop will be divided into three divs from the Chinese learning profile, the Chinese learning activity experience, and the experts to answer questions. In-depth analysis of the children's Chinese learning development process at school, to help parents support their children's Chinese learning at home.
"Chinese is the most important communication tool and an important part of human culture. The unity of instrumentality and humanity is the basic characteristic of Chinese courses."
——"Compulsory Education Chinese Curriculum Standards" by the Ministry of Education of China
At BMH, Chinese is one of the foundations of children's bilingual learning, and it is also the first language used by nearly 90% of families and students in the school's social life, study and work. At the beginning of the workshop, Ms. Wang, the head of the Chinese subject of our school, based on our school’s gradually formed "the whole language" curriculum concept, shared the development of Chinese teaching in our school in recent years and the current curriculum organization structure, from a macro perspective Help parents understand the context of their children's learning in school.
Rigorous, professional, and systematic curriculum evaluation is the important guarantee for school curriculum construction, and humanized home learning guidance is also an in-depth extension of school curriculum implementation. In this regard, Teacher Wang also further introduced to parents the current educational and teaching reform measures of our school, such as teaching evaluation and home study guidance, based on Chinese teaching.
"Teaching without academic sentiment, lacking a foothold, is building castles in the sky." In an international bilingual school, our students come from all over the world. The big difference in Chinese learning level is a realistic challenge faced by schools, teachers and parents. How to better promote the development of students' Chinese learning based on real academic conditions has become the main goal of the teaching exploration of the Chinese group of our school.
In the second part of the workshop, under the leadership of four first-line Chinese teachers, parents transformed themselves into learners of different Chinese learning levels, and returned to the "student age" through group learning, through their own personal experience and exchanges. I think about further clarifying the requirements of children's Chinese learning.
Activity 1: Who is the little literate detective?
Instructor: Ms.Huang (a full-time teacher in the second grade based on China National Curriculum)
Helping children to learn to read is a necessary part of our walk on the road of Chinese learning.When should I be literate? How to help children learn to read? In addition to pinyin, what other ways of literacy? Become a stumbling block encountered by many parents in family counseling.
Through exploring the source stories of Chinese characters such as "Zhu", "Final" and "Wei", pictophonetic character creation and component spelling and other literacy games, Mr. Huang leads parents to learn how to deal with children's literacy problems in a fun literacy learning situation. "Words are like bricks. For reading this building, literacy is an indispensable foundation. In learning, children will encounter confusing forms and typos. Moms and dads should pay attention to grasping. The laws of Chinese characters help children to recognize Chinese characters more efficiently, rather than simple mechanical memory.” said Ms Huang.
Activity 2: Learn Chinese well and build bridges across disciplines
Instructor: Ms.Wang(a full-time Chinese teacher in the third grade based on China National Curriculum)
Is Chinese learning limited to Chinese lessons? Why do we put so much emphasis on laying the foundation of the mother tongue? As soon as the topic came out, the parents enthusiastically discussed it in Teacher Wang's study group.
Through the sharing of teachers and peers, the parents present deeply agreed with the unique cultural wealth of Chinese language, such as national culture, way of thinking, and aesthetic foundation. Through Teacher Wang's sharing of materials on subjects such as mathematics and medicine, parents are even more aware of the value of a good Chinese learning foundation for solving students' real life and learning needs.
Activity 3: How to introduce a character in Chinese?
Instructor: Ms.Luo (full-time teacher of the International Chinese Language Teaching Program)
Children don't like to speak Chinese. How to make children like to use Chinese for expression or communication with the help of children's favorite ways to cultivate children's interest in learning Chinese? This is a problem that many of our families who use Chinese as a second language or bi-native language families often encounter. In this regard, Teacher Luo, the teacher in charge of the Chinese language enhancement project of our school, answered questions for parents through a writing class for intermediate and advanced Chinese learners.
By reading excerpts from famous works and working in groups, the "classmates" who can read and write read the excerpts aloud to the "classmates" with weaker literacy skills; spell out the characters according to what they have heard, and then find out the characters according to the spelled out characters. The main features and other learning processes, parents follow the guidance of Teacher Luo to gradually break through the difficulty of character writing, and also understand how to help children gain a sense of accomplishment, and continue to promote the learning process, instead of "when talking about Chinese, then the face changes".
Activity 4: How to learn Chinese as the first language in the IGCSE curriculum system?
Instructor: Ms.Zhang (full-time Chinese teacher of the British International Course IGCSE project)
As China's national influence continues to increase worldwide, more and more learners have begun to join the vast ocean of Chinese learning. Chinese is also an important part of many international courses, and it has become a key force in helping many students who use Chinese as their first and second language to enter ideal universities and explore career development paths. In the middle school curriculum of BMH, students will have the opportunity to help themselves complete the study process of international courses by taking certain Chinese courses, and lay the foundation for applying for higher institutions in China and overseas.
In Teacher Zhang’s group, after the parents had a preliminary understanding of the British International Curriculum IGCSE's Chinese subject curriculum standards, they followed the teacher to take Yu Guangzhong’s Four Types of Friends as an example to start reading and writing the famous chapters. Through the experience, parents have a preliminary understanding of the requirements of the IGCSE curriculum for students’ essential Chinese knowledge and skills.
After the immersive learning came to an end, the parents took their own thinking into the last link of this workshop, which is also the most exciting part——our school's teaching supervisor Professor Zhang 's education and teaching Q&A activities.
In the sharing, Professor Zhang not only combined her rich experience in education research and teacher training for more than 30 years, to help parents rationally understand the teachers’ effort and educational wisdom for student training from a more professional perspective, but also passionately shared her practice and exploration measures in family parenting over the years.
"True education is a heart-to-heart activity. Only when it comes from the heart can it touch the depths of the soul." The workshop that was originally planned to end at 10am, with the enthusiastic participation of teachers and parents at the meeting, did not start until about noon.
The true love means knowing the ups and downs, but never stop pursuing. Running education with feelings, helping our children to gain a foothold in China, broaden the perspective of the world, and become an outstanding citizen of the global village with the confidence of the country and the nation is the long-standing work belief of the Chinese group of our school. With such a sincere heart, we look forward to strengthening cooperation with more families in the community, laying a good foundation for children's Chinese learning, and going further, better and broader in the future!
