Talbot HookChinese MethodsProfessor O’BrienSummer 2015

Unit Plan

Unit Rationale:

The purpose of this unit is to familiarize students with calendar and date systems within Mandarin Chinese, and to reinforce students’ ability to use numbers and event sequencing while creating culturally and linguistically appropriate language both to express themselves and understand others. I chose this beginning unit—which would take place a few weeks into the semester (after numbers, counting, and a few other things addressing hobbies), as students are building more familiarity and understanding of Chinese—because dates and times are critical for nearly everything in life; meetings, classes within school, extracurricular activities, lunch dates, and many more activities depend upon being able to negotiate timing and schedules with others, so this unit is highly applicable for students.

Lesson Plan – Day 1

Date: TBDClass: Chinese 1 – Middle/High SchoolLesson: Numbers Review, Dates, and Calendar

Unit Goals:

1) Communication: students will communicate in Chinese through the four different domains of language—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—in order to communicate appropriately concerning time, dates, and sequencing.

2) Culture: students will learn about both Chinese culture, and their own culture, especially concerning calendars, time, punctuality, and history.

3) Connections: students will learn about time systems through their understanding of Chinese, and recognize how culture can impact viewpoint.

4) Comparisons: students will make comparisons (both linguistic and cultural) concerning grammar, sentence structure, and culture when it comes to expressing time and date between their native language and Mandarin Chinese.

5) Communities: students will form an in-class community of learners by exchanging information, centered around schedules and birthdays.

Lesson Objectives:

1) Students will review numbers and basic characters concerning dates and times.

2) Students will learn and use basic unit vocabulary in the target language.

3) Students will practice asking about dates with partners, using a calendar.

ACTFL Standards:

1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.1

Materials:

Whiteboard, markers, notecards, newspaper in Chinese with dates, writing utensils, empty calendars (one example calendar, and blank ones on a worksheet) info-gap calendar.

Procedure:

Purpose & Time: Procedure and Notes:

Greeting/Prior Knowledge

5 minutes

1. Arrive at classroom order.2. Take attendance.3. Greet students (你好，早上

好，等)and have them greet you in return.

4. Have students pair up and count as high as they can, based on the previous lessons on counting.

Counting Review

15 minutes

1. Teacher models counting one through ten with Chinese hand gestures, and students repeat with their partners.

2. Teacher asks for someone

to count from 11-20, then from 21-30, etc., reviewing Chinese structure (二十一being 20 + 1).

3. Teacher asks how this counting system compares to that of other languages—do our counting systems need to be based on tens? (Historical examples just for student thought.)

4. Counting game: Students must count from 1-50 (within time limits, a lower number could be chosen), saying one number at a time, at random. The numbers must be correctly said, and if they are incorrectly said, or two students say the same number at the same time, then the count goes back to one.

5. Formative Assessment: teacher will write ten numbers on the board 1-1000, in varying difficulties, and students will write them in Chinese on a notecard; these will be given to the teacher before the end of class.

Explicit Instruction/Exposition with Student Practice

20 minutes

1. Teacher reviews the word 天 (今天，昨天，明天), and introduces 星期 (一到天、日).

2. Teacher asks students what the simplest names for weekdays would be (guiding them to: day one, day two, etc.), and showing them that this is exactly what the modern Chinese system is. 老师要介绍星期一到星期天,

both orally and with the written components of these words.

3. Teacher gives out info-gap calendar with certain weekdays (Monday, Wednesday, etc.) missing, and has students fill them in based upon what they just learned.

4. Then, teach the structure: 今天是星期几?，今天是星期一，什么的。Go over a few examples using the current month’s calendar by modeling the statement and its correct answer, and then have students practice asking others about what tomorrow/yesterday/today is using the calendar to help visualization.

Student Practice

5-10 minutes

1. Students are given a blank calendar, which is their homework, and their first objective with this calendar is to fill in the days of the week within each box, according to whatever month it is. Then, they will need to include at least five activities/hobbies that they are involved with (in Chinese – they may look up the words if they haven’t yet learned those they need) to write in on the calendar for next class. Teacher will explain the activity, the reason for it, and then a few minutes will be given for students to work on it, while teacher monitors and takes individual questions.

Review and Debrief/Homework:

Whatever time remains; if running out of time, save the review for tomorrow, and just issue homework.

1. Ask students for a brief review of what was reviewed, learned, and practiced. (Partners.)

2. Tell students where we will go tomorrow – days of the week review.

3. Tell students that the calendar is their homework—that they must fill it in using Chinese, using 星期一 、天。

4. 老实说：‘再见’，学生回答：‘谢谢老师’或者‘明天见’or some permutation of those words and a good-bye.

Lesson Plan – Day 2

Date: TBDClass: Chinese 1 – Middle/High SchoolLesson: Days of the Week Review/Dates

Unit Goals:

1) Communication: students will communicate in Chinese through the four different domains of language—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—in order to communicate appropriately concerning time, dates, and sequencing.

2) Culture: students will learn about both Chinese culture, and their own culture, especially concerning calendars, time, punctuality, and history.

3) Connections: students will learn about time systems through their understanding of Chinese, and recognize how culture can impact viewpoint.

4) Comparisons: students will make comparisons (both linguistic and cultural) concerning grammar, sentence structure, and culture when it comes to expressing time and date between their native language and Mandarin Chinese.

5) Communities: students will form an in-class community of learners by exchanging information, centered around schedules and birthdays.

Lesson Objectives:

1) Students will review how to state and ask days of the week.2) Students will learn and use basic unit vocabulary in the target

language.3) Students will practice asking about dates with partners, using a

calendar.

ACTFL Standards:

1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.1

Materials:

Whiteboard, markers, writing utensils, student-created calendars, normal calendar.

Procedure:

Greeting & Concept Review

5 minutes

1. Arrive at classroom order.2. Take attendance.3. Greet students (你好，早上

好，等) and have them greet you in return.

4. Ask students for concepts covered last class. Students should hopefully remember all the weekdays, as well as how to ask/answer about a day of the week.

Language Practice & Review

10 minutes

1. Teacher should briefly review the days of the week with students. Spoken modeling and repetition.

2. Teacher should then ask some basic questions to students based on what was taught yesterday (今天是星期几？明天是星期几？), as a formative assessment.

3. Have students take out their calendars and choose a few days to ask a partner about, using the grammatical structure learned yesterday and

others previously learned: 明天是星期几？ 明天是星期四吗？ This activity will be like the teacher-modeled activity above, and the teacher should monitor and correct student language use during this review activity.

Cultural Teaching

<5 minutes

1. Explain to students that, in writing, sometimes they will see Sunday written as 星期日, and that this means the same, yet is more formal and used for writing. Much the same, and leading into today’s learning, is that this is the same for a date: it can be written as 31 号 or 三十一号. 日 is more formal, so it is saved for writing, while 号 is more common for everyday speech.

Explicit Teaching

20 minutes

1. Teacher introduces 号, meaning date, and how it can be placed after any number of the month to create a date 三十号，十二号，等。Teacher reviews a few dates on the calendar, asking for student input and help, before pointing at a date and asking for students to create the date in Chinese. Students can take a moment to write down the date on scratch paper, before attempting an answer to the teacher. Teacher will go slowly, correcting as needed, and reviewing and practicing the structure with students

enough as is necessary.2. Depending on time and

student understanding, the teacher can introduce dates within the structure: 今天是三十号，昨天是二十九号，which would refresh students’ memory as to older vocabulary while building new vocabulary into the lesson in a coherent manner.

Student Practice

10 minutes

1. Students will then practice creating dates in Chinese with a partner: one student will say a date in English, or using a calendar, and the other student will write it down in Chinese before speaking, or simply state it, based upon student preferences. Teacher will be monitoring during this activity.

Review, Homework, & Where We’re Going

Last few minutes

2. Teacher explains homework: students will take the calendar they filled in with the days of the week, and fill in each date with its date in Chinese.

3. Teacher asks for a run-down of what was learned during the lesson, asking students for specific information, not generalities.

4. Teacher briefly touches upon tomorrow’s lesson.

Lesson Plan – Day 3

Date: TBDClass: Chinese 1 – Middle/High SchoolLesson: Review and Practice of Dates/Months

Unit Goals:

1) Communication: students will communicate in Chinese through the four different domains of language—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—in order to communicate appropriately concerning time, dates, and sequencing.

2) Culture: students will learn about both Chinese culture, and their own culture, especially concerning calendars, time, punctuality, and history.

3) Connections: students will learn about time systems through their understanding of Chinese, and recognize how culture can impact viewpoint.

4) Comparisons: students will make comparisons (both linguistic and cultural) concerning grammar, sentence structure, and culture when it comes to expressing time and date between their native language and Mandarin Chinese.

5) Communities: students will form an in-class community of learners by exchanging information, centered around schedules and birthdays.

Lesson Objectives:

1. Students will learn/review how to state dates with days of the week.

2. Students will learn and use basic unit vocabulary in the target language.

3. Students will practice asking about dates with partners, using a calendar, and plugging dates into the 今天是。。。吗？是/不是，今天是。。。

4. Students will learn and practice months in Chinese.

ACTFL Standards:

1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.1

Materials:

Whiteboard, markers, writing utensils, worksheet with questions in Chinese, a calendar, online newspaper article from Xinhua or another Chinese news website.

Procedure:

Brief Greeting 1. Teacher/Student greetings.2. Teacher asks for what was learned during

and Review

5 minutes

the last class, eliciting as much information about forming dates in Chinese that can be given.

Language Practice/Review

15 minutes

1. First, teacher reviews what was learned yesterday, going over (briefly) the formation of dates in Chinese, and modeling the sentence structure 今天是十二号, etc., using real dates from the calendar, and reading some from a newspaper article found online.

2. Teacher reviews the structures:是不是，是。。。吗？，不是。。。是。。。

3. Teacher gives several examples of each sentence structure concerning dates and time. 今天是星期四吗？不是，今天是星期三。明天是不是 21 号？对，明天是 21 号。

4. Teacher gives students a list of questions like those above, and has them pair up and ask their partners the questions, recording the answers in Chinese. These are then turned in. These questions will be simple, and a review of earlier-learned sentence structures, but with more recently-learned information like the days of the week and dates. As always, teacher will be carefully monitoring and redressing issues—addressing more common errors as a class at the end.

Mixed Direct Instruction/Student Learning

15 minutes

1. If teacher finds that the last two lessons have been successful, and that students have an adequate grasp of the days of the week and dates, the teacher will introduce the very simple concept of Chinese months.

2. As with the cultural activity in lesson one, where students were asked to create the most simple weekday system that they could, they are asked to once again do so (individually or with partners) with the twelve-month system. Hopefully students will arrive at the Chinese system within a short time, and the teacher will ask several student groups to briefly talk about the month system they designed.

3. Teacher will then introduce the Chinese

month system: 一月到十二月. Teacher will focus briefly on the word 月, telling students that it is the character for moon, and that the real Chinese calendar uses a lunar system based on the phases of the moon, though they also use the international solar calendar. (This will be addressed in more detail later.)

Student Practice

10 minutes

1. Game: Students will be assigned a month in Chinese at random (some students will have the same month), and the goal of the game is to order themselves properly from 一月到十二月. The teacher will explain that this goal, and that students will need to speak only in Chinese to do so, asking other students: “你是六月吗？不是，我是五月。” This way, students are practicing sequencing and oral Mandarin, while also learning about the month system in a more physically-memorable way.

Homework and Lesson Review

5 minutes

1. Once again, students will use their previously-used calendar, and fill in the month at the top, which is overly simple. This will be the last thing they do with the calendar before presentations tomorrow. Teacher will hand out criteria for this short presentation and explain it briefly.

2. Teacher will hand out assignment sheet for a brief one-page writing assignment (in English) that will ask students to research the lunar calendar and compare it with the solar calendar that they are familiar with. Criteria and questions to think about will be listed.

3. If time is left, review the lesson.

Lesson Plan 4

Date: TBDClass: Chinese 1 – Middle/High SchoolLesson: Review of Months, Cultural Piece, Calendar Presentations

Unit Goals:

1. Communication: students will communicate in Chinese through the four different domains of language—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—in order to communicate appropriately concerning time, dates, and sequencing.

2. Culture: students will learn about both Chinese culture, and their own culture, especially concerning calendars, time, punctuality, and history.

3. Connections: students will learn about time systems through their understanding of Chinese, and recognize how culture can impact viewpoint.

4. Comparisons: students will make comparisons (both linguistic and cultural) concerning grammar, sentence structure, and culture when it comes to expressing time and date between their native language and Mandarin Chinese.

5. Communities: students will form an in-class community of learners by exchanging information, centered around schedules and birthdays.

Lesson Objectives:

1. Students will review months in Chinese.2. Students will learn and use basic unit vocabulary in the target

language.3. Students will practice/review the structure: 三十号是星期几？4. Students will discuss the lunar calendar, in comparison to the

international solar calendar.

ACTFL Standards:

1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.1

Materials:

Whiteboard, markers, individual whiteboards for students, writing utensils, student calendars and written assignments, video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOaBd266xbc.

Procedure:

Brief Greeting and Review

10 minutes

1. Teacher/Student greetings.

2. Teacher asks for what was learned during the

last class, eliciting as much information about months in Chinese.

3. Teacher reviews the names of the months in Chinese, having students practice writing them on individual white boards.

Discussion on lunar/solar calendars

10 minutes

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOaBd266xbc – an alternative introduction and expansion of the lunar calendar. Teacher will play in this section where it would fit best given student discussion.

1. Ask students to share what they learned in groups, and to record five facts or interesting pieces of information that they uncovered during their writing assignment.

2. Students discuss in groups, and then share out as a class, while teacher keeps notes on whiteboard.

3. Teacher leads a brief discussion on why calendars might be formed in different ways, or if one form of calendar is better than another.

4. Brief review of the discussion—specifically student findings—and then students will hand in work.

Calendar Presentations

20 minutes

1. Teacher models the presentation with a sample calendar made by the teacher (it is important that the teacher creates it using things from his/her real life), reminding students of the criteria on their assignment sheet: an introduction of the month, five different dates, the current day of the week and date, and the date and weekday of tomorrow and yesterday. Example: 这个月是三月，这是：五号，十一号，

二十三号， 等，今天是星期三今天十三号，明天。。。昨天。。。.

2. Teacher will hand out graphic organizer to each students, and explain that, while one person presents, the others will need to note what the speaker had said—this then becomes a true listening exercise that demands listening and recognition (as while as writing) instead of just casual listening.

3. After teacher modeling and explanation of each student’s responsibility (both presenter and listener), teacher will take questions, and then divide students into groups of three or four. Teacher will monitor as students present in groups of three-to-four students.

4. Teacher collects calendar and graphic organizers from students for assessing.

Explanation of Assessment for Tomorrow(With brief review, if time allows.)

5-10 minutes, given the length of the previous activity.

1. Teacher will explain the assessment for tomorrow, reminding students that anything gone over in class is fair game, though they will need to be fully familiar with the days of the week, dates, and months, in Chinese, being able to write characters, recognize characters, understand the grammatical structures learned, and be able to talk about these things.

2. Teacher will then explain in

more detail the format of the assessment.

3. Review, if time, and say good-bye to students.

Lesson Plan 5

Date: TBDClass: Chinese 1 – Middle/High SchoolLesson: Assessment and Birthdays

Unit Goals:

1. Communication: students will communicate in Chinese through the four different domains of language—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—in order to communicate appropriately concerning time, dates, and sequencing.

2. Culture: students will learn about both Chinese culture, and their own culture, especially concerning calendars, time, punctuality, and history.

3. Connections: students will learn about time systems through their understanding of Chinese, and recognize how culture can impact viewpoint.

4. Comparisons: students will make comparisons (both linguistic and cultural) concerning grammar, sentence structure, and culture when it comes to expressing time and date between their native language and Mandarin Chinese.

5. Communities: students will form an in-class community of learners by exchanging information, centered around schedules and birthdays.

Lesson Objectives:

1. Students will take an assessment.2. Students will learn the birthday song and learn to state and ask

about birthdays.

ACTFL Standards:

1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.1

Materials:

Assessment, video link to birthday song listed below, writing utensils.

Procedure:

Greeting, brief overview of assessment, and students test.

30-45 minutes, but giving enough time for each student to finish.

1. Teacher/student greetings.2. Teacher will give an overview of the

assessment, and take questions before handing it out to students.

3. Teacher monitors classroom, and helps facilitate the speaking/listening aspect of the test.

Birthdays (IF TIME ALLOWS. If students are still testing, this section can be pushed off until the first day of the next unit, or maybe as a transition between units.)

5-10 minutes

4. Teach the word 生日, and analyze the words as a class. (Lit. birth-day) Students should realize that it is the same in both English and Chinese.

5. Model for students the phrase: 你的生日是几月几号？And the response: 我的生日是三月四号。Teacher should then ask random students this question, and gather student responses, addressing errors and pronunciation as needed.

6. Students will then mingle, asking each other their birthdays, recording the names and birthdays of five other students in full Chinese sentences on a piece of paper to be turned in.

Learning the Birthday Song

10 minutes

1. Now is a good a time as any to learn the birthday song in Chinese. It’s a cute way to show parents that students learn cute and practical things. First, pre-teach the lyrics.

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=gSAWEFXMwIAShow them this video, which is really funny, and very Chinese. Play it once, and the second time students can sing along. It’s only six characters, and is quite simple to learn.

Formative Assessment Rationale:

At some point, even after several lessons on counting, I would need written proof of student understanding of counting. So, after several review and teaching activities concerning numbers, I would write ten

numbers on the board of increasing difficulty (5, 13, 37, 156, 496, etc.), and students would attempt to write these numbers in Chinese characters on a notecard. While this activity is not exhaustive of all numbers (any activity in which students were asked to write numbers 1-1000 is simply not feasible), it is a sampling of different numbers, and is meant to give the teacher an idea of where students are having difficulties in counting and in character writing. Based on student performance, the teacher would redress issues as needed, and review problematic areas in writing and counting.

Numbers Rubric 3 2 1

Character Formation: Characters were written clearly, correctly, and in the proper order.

Student characters were all (or nearly all) correct, clear, and orderly.

Student characters showed several mistakes, or were not clear/in order.

Student characters were mostly incorrect or absent. No clarity or order.

Understanding of Numbering System: numbers were all written correctly.

Student wrote all (or nearly all – with few mistakes) characters correctly.

Student wrote roughly half of the numbers correctly.

Student showed no knowledge of numbering system- no numbers, or incorrectly-written.

Summative Assessment:

Basic Overview:

Listening/Writing will be the first part of the test, and every student begins here at the same time. The first page of the test will include several questions and blank spaces, where the teacher will speak and the students will need to interpret what was said, recording the correct answer on the test. After this is completed, students continue on in the test at their own pace.

Teacher: (All questions repeated multiple times. And, this is a brief sampling.)

今天几月几号？ 今天几月几号？

今天四月十五号。今天四月十五号。

那明天呢？明天几月几号？明天四月十六号。

昨天几月几号？昨天四月十四号。

今天是星期四吗？是的，今天是星期四。

昨天是不是星期六？不是，昨天是星期天。

今天三十号吗？不是，今天二十九号。

星期二几月几号？星期二七月九号。

二十一号是星期一吗？对，二十一号是星期一。

Student Tests:

今天几月几号？

____________________________ (Space for student answer.)

明天几月几号？

____________________________ (Space for student answer.)

昨天几月几号

____________________________ (Space for student answer.)

今天是星期四吗？

____________________________ (Space for student answer.)

昨天是不是星期六？

____________________________ (Space for student answer.)

今天三十号吗？

____________________________ (Space for student answer.)

星期二几月几号？

____________________________ (Space for student answer.)

二十一号是星期一吗？

____________________________ (Space for student answer.)

Reading, Writing: Students will be given several calendars that are missing various pieces of information, and they will fill in whatever is missing: this can include days of the week, dates, and months. There will also be questions based on the calendars given, such as the questions above, but in written form, without the listening component, which would test students’ reading comprehension and meaning-making ability in Mandarin.

Rough Example:______月

一号星期一

二号星期二

____星期三

八号________ 星期二

十号________

十五号星期一

上课Etc.

Questions like above: Again, a brief list of examples. (You said this unit plan is not focused on assessment, so I’m just giving a few

examples like your project explanation asks for. I hope that is adequate.)

这是几月？ ______________________ Answers: 这是三月

二号是星期几？ ______________________ 二号是星期二

十号是星期三吗？______________________ 对，十号是星期三

三十号是星期几？______________________ 三十号是星期二

几号上课？______________________ 十五号上课。

Speaking Component:

Rubric and Answer Key:

The answers to the example questions given above are either given next to the blank spaces following each question, or are present in the listening activity in the answer of the teacher’s spoken part. The Listening, Reading, and Writing aspects of the test are all graded without a rubric, as they all only have one correct answer, and the answers to all questions are above.

The rubric here is for the spoken part of the test, wherein each student would give a five-minute presentation to the teacher based on the calendar they made over the course of the unit. The teacher would, at the end of the class, have students sign up for a time after/before/during school to take the spoken part of their test, which would only take five minutes. Once the student arrived, the teacher would hand back each student’s calendar, and remind of them of the presentation criteria. The student would be required to introduce the month, five dates, the activities they wrote in, as well as telling the teacher the date and day of the week of today, tomorrow, and yesterday.

Spoken Assessment

3 2 1

All information required of student was presented:

Student presented all information required.

Student presented some of the information required.

Student presented little-to-no information required.

Checklist:

__ Month__ 5 Dates__ 5 Activities__ Today’s Date__ Tomorrow__ Yesterday

Spoken Chinese:

Student spoke using correct grammar, with good pronunciation of Chinese words.

Student spoke using correct grammar and pronunciation.

Student spoke using correct grammar some or most of the time, with a few mistakes in grammar or pronunciation.

Student spoke incorrectly, omitting words, or not knowing how to express themselves in Chinese, with poor pronunciation.

Additional Material:

If time permits, or if students gain mastery more quickly than anticipated, teacher can begin lesson on how to create the year in Chinese:

1. Teacher introduces 年，今年，明年，去年.2. Teacher shows students how to create the year in Chinese. Four

numbers + 年 （2014 年，1995 年，1045 年）, where each number is simply said by itself (er-ling-yi-si-nian, etc.). Also tell them that it can be written more traditionally in Chinese 二零一四年，等等。

3. Teacher writes several random years on the board, and then teaches each one in Chinese.

4. Teacher then writes several different years on the board, and asks for student answers in Chinese.

5. Teacher then has students partner up, with one student picking random English dates, and the other responds in Chinese; the students switch, and repeat. Teacher needs to monitor carefully.

6. Based on the year, teacher shows students the structure: 今年是2015 年，明年是 2016 年，去年是 2014 年。Teacher asks for students to use this structure in a whole group until some

degree of mastery is attained, and then students should then practice saying these with a partner.

7. Finally, the full date and short date formats will be taught/reviewed: March 4 = 三月四号、3 月 4 号

March 4, 2015 = 2015 年三月四号, 2015 年 3 月 4 号。

Students should be reminded that there are many ways to structure the date using Chinese numerals and Arabic numerals and hyphens, slashes, and periods, but that the year always comes first, followed by the month, and then the date.

Teacher will write several full dates on the board in English, and students will write them in Chinese on a spare sheet of paper, to be turned in to the teacher.