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Chinese New Year

Elizabeth Malone, a Year 5 teacher from Leigh St. Peter’s Junior School, Wigan, reports on her work teaching Chinese language through the topic of the Chinese New Year.

你好, 我是馬大同 or as I’m usually known Elizabeth Malone, a Year 5 teacher at Leigh St. Peter’s Junior School Wigan. When I started at St. Peter’s, I was extremely excited to take over teaching French for the two Year 5 classes. The children loved the lessons! As we got to know each other better they found out that I used to teach English in Taiwan and that I also speak a little Mandarin. The children begged to learn Chinese. I hesitantly introduced the suggestion to the Head teacher and, rather than branding me ‘crazy’, she was fully supportive of the idea.

Chinese display

The unit of work was presented through the medium of the Chinese New Year. The children learned basic greetings, how to introduce themselves, numbers, colours, likes and dislikes. Teaching through a topic such as the Spring Festival enabled me to interweave language skills with cultural knowledge. It also allowed the children to learn language in a more natural way as they were not simply learning lists of lexical items but rather making connections, being creative and asking questions themselves.

Chinese display

Making our Chinese Dragon puppets linked to a cultural aspect, namely the twelve animals of the Chinese ‘zodiac’, and this in turn linked to the spoken and written language of the animals’ names. Next, we explored the symbolism of these animals and colours, then learned the names of the colours in Mandarin which were presented through Chinese opera masks. The children are especially proud of their animal characters, which have formed part of a classroom display.

Their written Mandarin has been interesting and informing for the other children and staff alike. The children have all agreed that this was their favourite lesson, especially researching how pictograms and logical aggregates evolved.

The children really love to hear stories of what their peers in Taiwan are doing, and find it fascinating to hear of my experiences as one of few Westerners who lived in rural Taiwan. This personal element acts as a hook and helps to make the experience of learning a language real for the children. The realia that the children have manipulated has also captivated their imaginations and helped the topic to come alive. The children will soon be able to put their language skills in to practise when we video conference with children in Taiwan.

I am sure that the ghost money, lucky door gods and fire crackers in our classroom have worked their magic because the children have excelled themselves - and more importantly, we have all had a lot enjoyment! So there is only one thing left to say, Happy New Year (Xīn Nián Kuài Lè) from 5M and 5A at St. Peter’s Junior School!