My capstone project is composed of three parts. The first is entitled the 'Foreign Languages Hour' which is part of a school project launched by the school for the purpose of teaching Arabic and Spanish for all students at school.
February 2022
The project will be made of two parts. First before the festival, students will learn about the tradition of Spring Festival and how Chinese people celebrate it. They will make crafts in preparation of the festival, like paper-cutting, lanterns and couplets, to decorate the classroom and a Chinese culture bulletin board. They will also learn about Chinese food and practice how to use chopsticks. Then on Chinese New Year, the students and parents will make a fieldtrip by bus to the Chinatown in downtown Chicago.
The students are going to be pen pals between my host school in Chicago, Illinois and my home school in China. In order to experience Chinese culture, the students who participate in the pen pal activity in America are going to Chinatown in downtown Chicago in April as a field trip.
The project took place in Seventy First High School, Fayetteville, NC. Most people in my community have a very limited exposure to the Arabic culture. Many families in my local community have at least one member in the army or planning to join the army at some point in their life.
My capstone project is the Chinese New Year Guard Rally. The purpose of this event is to enable students to experience Chinese traditional culture more deeply and be interested in learning Chinese. The event is arranged on the day before the Chinese New Year, which is New Year ’s Eve. We performed three times during the day so that all the teachers and students of the school have the chance to take part in this event. The first is for pre-k to second grade students, the second is for third to fifth grades, and the third is for sixth to ninth grades.
A grand Chinese New Year celebration was held in Plantation Middle School during Chinese New Year. The students and staff in our school and feeder schools and the officials from our county were invited to spend the wonderful afternoon with my Chinese students who well performed the Chinese-styled programs and showed their projects about Chinese culture. Some students from feeder schools also sang Chinese songs which I taught them during outreach. This capstone raises people's interest in China and Chinese culture and establishes mutual understanding among different peoples.
As Chicago is a city with diversity, our students also come from different cultural backgrounds. One of our traditions is to immerse students into a diverse world. With the coming of Chinese New Year, the students who are majoring in Chinese practice dragon dance themselves, and they will have a big show in our campus!
Moos Elementary has a Spring Festival showcase which involves around 100 parents and students from Pre-K to K6. The school is an IB school so lots of students are from different backgrounds. Our Spring Festival showcase helps spread the impact of the program and increase interest in Mandarin. After the showcase, the students will be proud of what they have done in Mandarin class. The students will have gotten to know more culture about Chinese New Year Celebration traditions. All the Chinese learners in Moos will have also gotten a chance to show their improvement in Chinese.
Most People in the valley do not know anything about the TCLP or the Arabic class.
I had a year long plan to showcase the program and the Arabic language and culture to everyone in the valley. Accordingly, I followed a plan that included many actions and events:
First, I created collaborative classes with other teachers to raise awareness for students at my school. So, I planned different outreaches:
1- An outreach with Cosmetology teacher in which I introduced the history of cosmetics in Egypt.
