Videos

In this video:

• Hao Tzu-Ya (Tommy’s Road Elementary School, NC) leads her students in an interactive activity to help them learn different words in Mandarin to describe the taste of things, such as “bitter” or “salty.” First, Ms. Hao introduces the vocabulary in Mandarin without telling her students the English meaning. Then, students taste food or spices corresponding to each vocabulary word and guess the meaning by describing what they taste.
• Lee Yu-Ku (Wildwood High School, NJ) shares a culminating project that incorporates her beginning Mandarin students’ reading, writing, speaking and listening skills with the vocabulary that they have been learning since September. Students created a dialogue, illustrated and wrote the conversation as a cartoon, and presented it in front of their classmates.
• Peng Yun (German International School, OR) helps her students practice numbers and telling time in Mandarin. Students listen to Ms. Peng say a time, and then they draw the time that was said on their individual analog clocks.
• Weng Yu-Xuan (California Area Senior High School, PA) reviews the names of colors in Mandarin with her students, engaging them in a memory game to identify which color is missing from the board.

In this video:

• Weng Yu-Xuan (California Area Senior High School, PA) facilitates a game of “Simon Says” in Mandarin with her students to help them practice the vocabulary for “sit down,” “stand up,” and “bow.” If students follow the command without hearing “Simon Says” in Mandarin first, they are “out”!
• Peng Yun (German International School, OR) guides her students on how to introduce themselves. Partners take turns asking each other, “Who are you?” At the end of class, students sing a “goodbye” song to practice saying goodbye to one another.
• Hao Tzu-Ya (Tommy’s Road Elementary School, NC) introduces her students to reading and writing in Mandarin by having students match images of the vocabulary with the corresponding symbol for that word from oracle bone scripts, one of the oldest forms of written Mandarin Chinese. Ms. Hao then leads her students in practicing the pronunciation and tone for each word.

In this video:

• Laila Taik (Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy Charter School, NY) helps her students practice both their Arabic vocabulary and their knowledge of Arabic-speaking countries with a fly-swatter game. The teacher describes in Arabic how the flag of an Arabic-speaking country looks, and students at the board compete to identify which flag the teacher is describing and what country the flag belongs to.
• Lo Yu-Ting (Sauk Prairie High School, WI) motivates her students to remember vocabulary words in Mandarin by having her students play a game of charades. One student silently acts out the different vocabulary in front of the class, and the other students must guess in Mandarin what he is acting out. The student who correctly guesses the Mandarin vocabulary word first wins a small prize.
• Laila El Baghazaoui (Washington Latin Public Charter Upper School, DC) reviews Arabic vocabulary words with her students using an English-Arabic matching game. Working together in small groups, students must match vocabulary words in Arabic with the corresponding English translations.
• Yuan Zhen (Butler Academy, SC) leads his students in a song in Mandarin about the spring season. By learning songs in Mandarin, students practice their vocabulary knowledge and pronunciation, as well as familiarize themselves with different aspects of Chinese culture.

In this video:

• Cheng Yu-Chen (German International School, OR) uses a variation of a game of “Tag” to get her students to practice vocabulary in Mandarin. Each student has the image of a vocabulary word taped to their shirt. Ms. Cheng calls out a vocabulary word, and whoever is “It” must try to tag the student whose word was called out. However, if that same student can call out the vocabulary word of a different student before getting tagged, the target for whoever is “It” changes.
• Huang Juanjuan (Hearst Elementary School, DC) engages students in competition to practice their knowledge of vocabulary for colors. First, two students at the board race to identify what color Ms. Huang has named. Then, students compete in groups, with one person saying the name of a color and their groupmates having to race to identify what color has been said.
• Ezzat Belal (Maple Street Magnet School for the Arts, MI) uses a Total Physical Response (TPR) activity to test his students’ knowledge of classroom directions in Arabic. Mr. Belal tells his students to sit down, get up, come close, or go in Arabic, and students must understand the directions and perform the action. Mr. Belal also asks students questions about themselves in Arabic during the activity to get them to practice their conversation skills.
• Chiang Wei-Shin (Vista Heritage Global Academy, CA) practices greetings with her students in Mandarin using a song. Students go around the room and greet other students in time with the song, practicing their Mandarin pronunciation and self-introductions, including saying what their name is, asking what their partner’s name is, and saying goodbye.

In this video:

• Liu Hai (Haven Elementary School, GA) uses song and dance to get students excited to learn emotion vocabulary in Mandarin. The use of movement, sound, and expression helps students identify the emotions both while singing and playing a matching game.

• Larbi Hachard (Advanced Learning Academy, TX) plays a competitive game with students to test their vocabulary acquisition. Students listen to the vocabulary and follow along with its associated movement. When the teacher says the word, the fastest to grab the object on the ground wins.

• Wu Yi-Ting (Mandarin Immersion Magnet School, TX) celebrates the Lunar New Year with students by practicing Mandarin riddles and teaching students how to make red envelopes with a special gold embossing using heat.

• Yuan Zhen (Butler Academy, SC) teaches students about zodiac animals for the Lunar New Year. The students listen to the teacher call out vocabulary words, and they jump to the area on the mat that has the correct zodiac vocabulary.

In this video:

• Xiang Keyuan (Bellows Free Academy Fairfax, VT) helps her students practice food-related vocabulary using a board game. Students throw dice to determine how many spaces they can move forward on the board. If they land on a space with food, they must say the name of the food. If they land on the other spaces, they either move ahead, move backward, or go all the way back to the beginning!

• Larbi Hachard (Advanced Learning Academy, TX) leads his students in a game of “Simon Says” so that they can practice their vocabulary. Students hear either an action word, such as “stand up” or “sit down,” or a vocabulary word. They must then do the action or identify the vocabulary word from the pictures on their desks.

• Cheng Yu-Chen (German International School, OR) gets her students involved in a game of charades to practice job-related vocabulary. Two students are shown a picture of a person working and then act out that job. For example, students act out a police officer or construction worker. Meanwhile, a third student must guess what job they are portraying in Mandarin. Once the student correctly guesses what job the others were acting out, the two students must act out another one.

• Yuan Zhen (Butler Academy, SC) leads his students in practicing their recently learned vocabulary for family members. After learning the vocabulary for different members of the family and how to say “I love my ___” in Mandarin, students each share one person in their family that they love.

In this Video:

Laila Taik (Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy Charter School, NY) introduces the Arabic currency and how to negotiate prices when buying groceries in a Bazaar. Students practice how to communicate with each other by playing the roles of a buyer and a seller.

Li Lin (Wildwood High School, NJ) focuses on numbers and time with middle and high school students! Ms. Lin leads middle school students in a game of “Ji dian le?” that has the students ask and answer the questions “What time is it?” Depending on the time response, students have that many steps to make it as far as they can across the courtyard. Ms. Lin’s high school students create a clock out of paper and learn how to write and read a clock in Mandarin.

Chiang Wei-Shin (Vista Heritage Global Academy, CA) teaches her fifth-grade students how to say numbers and dates in Mandarin. Afterward, students are divided into groups to practice and compete to correctly say a random date given to them.

Hossam Ahmed (Step Academy Charter School, MN) plays a spinning wheel game for the students to listen to and answer questions that are randomly chosen and shown on the screen. The purpose of this game is to improve students' reading, listening and speaking skills.

Luo Qiumei (OB Gates Elementary, VA) and her students played a bingo game. Students listened to Ms. Luo say a sentence that includes public space vocabulary. Students will repeat the word once they identify the vocabulary on their bingo card. This activity focuses on their listening and speaking comprehension!

In this video:

Wu Yi-Ting (Mandarin Immersion Magnet School, TX) teaches students the meaning and pronunciation of the Mandarin poem “Quiet Night Thought” and its characters. Students practice character recognition by putting their Mandarin characters in correct order so they can practice reading the poem.

Liu Hai (Haven Elementary School, GA) supports students tell the story of a caterpillar eating fruits on different days of the week. Students practice their numbers, days of the week, sentence patterns, and other common vocabulary throughout the story.

Larbi Hachard (Advanced Learning Academy, TX) guides 7th grade novice students to learn colors in Arabic by practicing pronunciation of the words first and then playing a guessing game between two students to find the correct colors mentioned by the teacher.

Lo Yu-Ting (Sauk Prairie High School, WI) uses a game called “Hot Seat” to test students' knowledge of Mandarin vocabulary. In this activity students are competing in two groups and then a student representing one of the groups will have their back to the screen and will guess the word that is shown on the screen by getting a description of the word from their team members.

In this video:

Ezzat Belal (Maple Street Magnet School for the Arts, MI) helps students practice introducing themselves and to say goodbye in Arabic in pairs. Students line up and take turns practicing their introduction script and say goodbye.

Chi Jiu-Ching (Vanguard Van Gogh Elementary & Secondary, TX) has students learn fruits names in Mandarin by using Realia. The students practice fruit names and talk about whether or not they like them.

Xiang Keyuan (Bellows Free Academy Fairfax, VT) leads students in a card game to learn Mandarin numbers 1 to 10. Students say the number of the card being put down. If the number matches the leader's card, they will win the pile of cards. Whoever has the most cards at the end are the winner.

Luo Qiumei (OB Gates Elementary, VA) teaches elementary school students about the vocabulary related to the story of Mid Autmn Festival. The students practice the festival terms by playing a competitive matching game.

In this video:

Moulay Tahar Kettani (Maple Street Magnet School for the Arts, MI) and his students play Tetris together to strengthen their memory of Arabic direction words “up”, “down”, “left”, and “right”.

Cheng Hsian-Lan (Bellows Free Academy Fairfax, VT) organizes an activity for students to make plans and familiarize vocabulary and grammar patterns that will help them name different natural views and scheduling weekend activities.

Chang Ying-Yi (Haven Elementary, GA) teaches students the names of food in Mandarin by playing a guessing game in which they guess the names of food based on their photos.

Tsai Yueh-Wen (District of Columbia International School, DC) organizes group work activities to support students remember words and sentence structures and patterns efficiently.