Program visibility

The title of my capstone is Chinese Culture Showcase. My Mandarin class students demonstrated what they had learned in Mandarin class.

The EMMS Chinese Class Yearbook 2021-2022 is an artistic presentation of all the activities, what the students have learnt throughout the year, as well as students’ own understanding of things related to the language and culture learning. This is not only a collection of memory, but also an achievement exhibition.

The DLI program in our school is growing. It needs support and understanding from the local community. And our mural program met the needs in two different ways. One is training the chosen ones to practice Chinese calligraphy for the mural, the other is using the mural to inspire the interest of all the 472 students in our school in learning Chinese or Chinese culture. Besides, it gives extra support for the DLI program by being a complement of culture learning for all the 103 DLI students. They learn more about the Chinese language, writing, and culture by the project. Cooperation between the 6 DLI teachers and other 42 teachers increased too. Now more teachers understand and support the DLI program. And as multiculturalism is better understood through the mural, we draw more students into the DLI program, and now the community get more involved with DLI program and more people know our school and choose to send their children here.

In order to select some students for the mural program, we had the introductory classes for the basic, then the afterschool calligraphy club to learn more and finally the morning training session for 23 mural students. They practiced a certain character in the Chinese poem On the Stork Tower 《登鹳雀楼》for the mural with instruction videos and papers from me. Meanwhile I tutored them during the whole period of time to help them improve their calligraphy writing.

The students surprised me a lot by progressing so much in calligraphy. The first work and the last one are quite different. I am so happy to see all the differences. And they are really interested in practicing calligraphy and still want to learn more after the training. Since the mural is done now, the students feel really proud of themselves and they are admired and envied by their peers. Teachers, school and the community all feel proud of them too.

  February 2022 

For this project, students wrote and illustrated their own non-fiction children’s picture book about history, religion, culture, and lifestyles of a country of your their choice in the Middle East. The books were then read all around the school to younger grade levels and students of those classes were also taught how to introduce themselves and greet in Arabic. The books were finally displayed in the school library.