I demonstrated my lesson plan on Chinese measure words for trade fair as I found the activity incorporates several concepts I learned in Curriculum Design this semester.
The class will start with inductive approach. Students will be given a number of Chinese noun phrases, such as a car, a cat, a laptop, etc. It will be easy for them to notice that in Chinese, a measure word has to be inserted in between the numeral and the object. Then I will ask students to walk around and group authentic materials using the same measure word together. For instance, book, magazine, exercise book should be grouped together as they share the measure word “běn”, usually used for book-like objects. This activity involves TPR and the use of authentic materials. In addition, students will conclude the characteristics of each measure word on their own. Some are obvious but some requires the teacher to give additional explanation. Measure word is one of the most difficult grammar points in Chinese as there are not exact rules for how measure words should be used.
After introducing measure words, the teacher will guide the students to use it into the “I have…” sentence structure that was already learned. At first, students will say “I have books”. Now, they are able to produce “I have a book” using the correct measure word. Then, students will practice with their possessions.
The last 15 minutes of the lesson, students will be engaged in an Island Survival Game, in which they will be told that they are on an isolated island and they can each choose five items that they consider to be the most necessary for survival. They may choose from bread, clothes, tents, logs, fresh water, money, passport, etc (represented by candies, origami and other crafts). Afterwards, the teacher will draw a survival situation from an envelope, for example, the next boat arrives on the third day, survivors need to have three bread (the latter part of the sentence will be in Chinese). Student who chooses three bread will announce “I have three bread…” and pick the next survival situation.
The original lesson is planned for 50 minutes. If I have extra time, I will also introduce the question form so the last activity will be more interactive. Students may ask “how many/much … do you have?” and others respond. The question form will allow the activity to take on a TPR approach. Students may walk around, ask each other questions and write the survivors’ name next to the survival conditions.
From P&P to CD, I realized that fun activities work for everyone. As teachers, we need to integrate age- & level-appropriate content into these activities in order to make them effective.
Thanks for this nice reminder of your simple yet attractive and effective booth and trifold, and for the very complete description of your lesson, which provided an excellent activity for the Trade Fair. It’s an excellent illustration of providing age-appropriate and varied activities which get students physically involved in the tasks, moving around and using their hands and manipulating authentic materials. Linguistically, this is a basic lesson, yet there is much awareness that you raise in terms of measure words, referring to “book-like items” and so on.