I teach Chinese as a foreign language at a small high school in an extremely high-need community in New York. All of my students are African American and Latino, and they are very excited to have a chance to learn Chinese. Learning Chinese well gives them more confidence in themselves and motivates them more to further their study in college.
In the past three years more students in our school have chosen to learn Chinese as a foreign language than Spanish, and some students remain in my class even though they have enough foreign language credits. They say that learning Chinese opens doors for them to see the beauty of the Chinese language and culture, and improves the chances they will have in their careers. Many students want to study more Chinese when they go to college.
Teaching the Chinese language in a school where most students are African American and Latino is quite a challenge because Chinese, which has no alphabet at all, is a totally different language than English. My students find it very hard to learn the pronunciation and to write and memorize the characters. The biggest obstacle is how to “draw”(write) the characters.
My students need a lap top computer and some software in the classroom. My laptop broke recently. Writing characters becomes so much easier if you know how to use a computer to input them by typing their pronunciation, which has only 26 letters. I have been using a computer with LCD projector in my class every day so that my students can see the characters while they are learning to say them. They can also see the process of change from pictures to characters, they can use software to match the characters while listening. They can watch the real situation conversations with their body language, and they can also see some videos about the topics they are learning. I hope to have at least one computer in the room for the students to use in looking up the characters, some names, the pronunciation, and some questions they may have while doing their class work.
Your help will make it possible for my students to learn Chinese in a more effective and interesting way with the help of modern technology. A laptop will help them to take advantage of web sites to practice Chinese, and get help in class or at home. Thus, they will be more successful in learning Chinese, which will also make them more confident in planning their college educations and their careers.
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