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Chinesemathworkbookproject Shaojunbai
Chinesemathworkbookproject Shaojunbai
I'm a Chinese Language and Culture teacher in the Rochester Community School
District. In our school district, there is a Chinese exposure program that applying to
language and culture. After teaching for 2 years, I noticed that most students have no
connections between Chinese and their daily life. In their opinion, Chinese is an
isolated class just for fun. In this situation, I want to create a connection between
Chinese class and students’ real life to encourage them to learn the Chinese language.
The second grade classroom teachers gave me the idea of making a Chinese math
workbook. Hence all second graders are using a math journal for their math
curriculum.
Name
Content
Chinese language and math skills. The reason why I chose second grade students as
the experimental group is that I am responsible for the lesson planning of second
grade with another Chinese teacher in Rochester. Students in second grade learned
numbers 1-10 in Chinese in first grade, and they are going to learn 1-100 in Chinese
this year. The Chinese math journal will be made based on students' English math
journals, but all numbers in Chinese. The reason why I use the same form of English
math journal is that students already know the math question. It saves time for both
teachers and students on explanation and comprehension. The numbers are written in
Implementation
schedule had been changed. Some situations can be predicted such as time
conflicts, some were harder to foresee, such as the unscheduled assemblies and
the earliest snow day on November 12nd. Two second grade classes missed 4
weeks Chinese classes consistently in one month and the other two missed two
classes. Meanwhile, testing spent three weeks, which is a longer time than I
expected. Therefore, my time line is not finishing one stage and going to next
anymore. Most stages' time is mixed together. For instance, I started organized
and revised the worksheet while attempting them in the classrooms. In this way,
I can receive students' feedback and revised the worksheets several times. I also
gave students a "finish up" class on Nov.26th, to finish and organize all
suggestions and feedback from students and classroom teachers. Here is the real
timeline:
Even though the timeline changed some in the middle, I still think this project meet
my need. There are several successful parts of this project. First, students' language
and posttest. Second, students have connections between math and their math lesson.
One boy who was not interested in Chinese said: I thought Chinese is boring because
I don't say Chinese at home. But I like the Chinese math journal, it makes me feel I
can speak Chinese. I showed my mom how to do it at home." At the same time, the
classroom teachers told me that students also have some improvement in their math
skills, because they practiced more. Most students are excited about the math journal
to have a connection between the Chinese language and their math class, which is a
part of their daily life, which is exactly what I want to achieve from this project.
In the process of implementation, I realized the differences between being a teacher
leader and being a teacher. As a teacher, I always focus on my own lesson planning
mind out of teaching the lesson and expand it in different schools, districts or
perspective to support other teachers and students in other schools. I need to consider
more from a wider perspective to support student’s achievement. This project helps
me to see my job in a new version by jumping out from my own classrooms and