In 2024 the students in our Chinese Text Creation class will complete their final year after which the Jiale Zhongwen Chinese for Families project will conclude. Many thanks and much love to everyone who has been part of this journey. For those who are interested, the blogs, photos and videos below are a brief record of and reflection on this 17 year project.
Jiale Zhongwen’s “Chinese for Families” started in 2008 with one small class of children aged 4 to 5 and an action research question: “How much can children with little or no Chinese language knowledge learn in a one lesson a week language program?” Almost immediately it became evident children with little or no Chinese language knowledge could make significant progress in engaging and structured classes run mostly in Mandarin with the teacher using many techniques to support comprehension.
Over the next years the program expanded to include 8 different levels, each with its own tailored program and methodologies suited to the students’ age group and prior learning. Hundreds of students passed through our classes with up to 60 concurrent students and many students staying with us for four or more years. Many teachers came to observe our classes with more than ten undertaking training and working with us as teachers. While methodologies varied across the levels, key components in all classes were 1) the extensive use of interactive and comprehensible spoken Chinese, 2) stories: listening to stories, reading stories and co-creating stories, and 3) an open ended approach to literacy development with a primary focus on reading comprehension. While we made many of our own resources, the Better Chinese curriculum played a central role in the Beginners to Intermediate Level 4 classes and students in the Chinese Text Creation classes greatly enjoyed Mandarin Companion readers. The number of classes were reduced in 2023 and in 2024 one class of Chinese Text Creation students will complete their final year, after which the project will conclude.
Looking back on the past 16 years, many tangible successes and highlights come to mind.
The Jiale Zhongwen “Chinese for Families” project was also very enriching to me as the main teacher and director. Through this project I met many families of a range of backgrounds who were very keen for their children to learn Mandarin. I had the opportunity to teach the same students over a period of years and watch them grow not only in language proficiency but also as young people. Many classroom moments were pure joy, gems of deep connection, learning and laughter. I started with what I thought were ambitious learning goals only to find that the students could easily exceed them. I learnt that much more is possible than I had ever imagined. Many thanks to all the parents, students and teachers who were part of this project. It has been wonderful!
Jude at the last Chinese Text Creation class in 2019
Jude and Lewis have been regular students at our Chinese for Families classes for a number of years. Many thanks to their grandfather Larry Owens Emeritus Professor of Education from Flinders University (known to us as Larry) for writing this review of our classes.
I became interested in Chinese language as a result of work commitments over many years in Beijing and Shanghai. As Australia’s biggest trading partner, China is of immense importance to us and a greater understanding of Chinese language and culture is critical to us now and in the future. My oldest grandson, Jude (now 12 years old) was being home-schooled from his reception year and he needed to study a language as a part of his approved Australian curriculum. Fortunately, we found Belinda’s “Chinese for Families” (Jiale Zhongwen) which offered Chinese after school hours and on weekends. Belinda is a highly experienced teacher of Chinese language and she marries together an advanced theoretical knowledge of language learning with highly engaging classroom methodologies. With the help of the “Better Chinese” resources, Belinda and her staff provided an attractive teaching programme so that both my grandsons (the younger one, Lewis, now 8, also joined the classes) really looked forward to the weekly lessons. In fact, both boys have thrived, continually developing their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. Jude is progressing through the Hanban official Chinese proficiency examinations, having achieved over 90% in both HSK1 and HSK2 (standardized tests of Chinese language achievement for non-native speakers). Lewis will begin these examinations in 2020. I can certainly recommend Belinda’s Chinese language programmes offered by her “Chinese for Families” classes.
Larry Owens, PhD, Emeritus Professor of Education, Flinders University
This blog post is about the learning journey of teachers. In particular it is about my learning journey at Chinese for Families , now in its twelfth year of operation. Many thanks to all who have supported me in this journey.
There is a famous Chinese idiom about a frog who lives in a well. This frog thinks the sky is only the size of the mouth of the well because that is all he has ever seen. When a passing bird tries to tell him about the vast world outside, he angrily rejects her words as rubbish. To me, this metaphor is very relevant to the field of Chinese as an additional language education.
As a practicing teacher, I see that a significant number of key players have already given up before the students even walk into the classroom. Chinese is ‘too hard’, students are ‘unmotivated’, it is ‘not possible’ or even more sadly, it is ‘not important’ or children ‘shouldn’t have to learn it’. Without belief, purpose or a sense of the importance of our work we cannot teach effectively, while without effective teaching most children will not learn.
An adapted version of this idiom “Viewing the sky from the bottom of a well” appears in AI Story Time
In fact, we do not yet fully know what is possible. The question of how best to present this very different language with a highly memory based written system to children growing up in the Western educational environment is still not fully explored or understood, although there is a small but growing body of research on the topic. To learn more, we need to be willing to try different approaches and leave the safety of the well of past practice. To have the courage to explore, we need to believe in the children’s learning potential and in the importance of our work.
I started a one lesson a week program, Chinese for Families Adelaide, in 2008 with a belief that it was possible for children to learn more than was common in once a week primary language programs and a desire to find out how to do it. I wanted them to develop a sense of the language and give them a foundation that would set them up for success in secondary school. Read more
Our parents often ask about learning outcomes: how much will my child be able to understand, speak, communicate, read and engage with the Chinese speaking world? Recently one of our students went on a family trip to China and her mother kindly agreed to share her observations with our Chinese for Families community.
“Our daughter has been learning Chinese for nearly 8 years now with “Chinese for Families” and our family recently travelled to China for a holiday. It was a wonderful trip and gave us all the opportunity to experience the food, language and culture while visiting some amazing places.
During our travels we had no particular expectations of our daughter’s level of Chinese language – she has learnt a lot during her lessons but we knew she would not have the confidence or vocabulary required to hold a fluent conversation. However despite this, we were pleasantly surprised to discover how much she actually could understand while we were travelling.
She was able to recognise various characters on signs and menus, and she could listen and understand some spoken words and phrases. At times she could assist us communicating with staff in shops and restaurants – even if only by speaking some words here and there – and even though none of this involved a full sentence or conversation it was extremely useful.
It made us realise there are many stages in learning a language before reaching the highest level of fluent conversation – and all of these stages can help in communicating. As a family we felt very thankful for the weekly classes at Chinese for Families and the opportunity it has given our daughter to broaden her language skills. Thank you Belinda!”
I like to think that in our one lesson a week program we take children a significant way along the path of genuine language acquisition. When they finish with us, they still have some way to go but they’ve gone far enough to see the peak and to know that they can there. They have a solid foundation in and engagement with the spoken and written language. They ‘get’ Chinese and they are ready to race ahead on their journey to the mountain top!
“Modern Chinese is without doubt the best set of Chinese texts I have used over the past 16 years teaching Chinese as a Second Language at Australian universities. It is one of the few texts which explain Chinese grammar from a functional perspective in such a way that makes sense to English speaking learners. The text shows a clear progression in terms of vocabulary and grammar learning. The language used in the dialogues is up to date, natural and colloquial. The topics are interesting, making it easy to create additional materials and classroom activities around them. The online resources are helpful and engaging. I would highly recommend Modern Chinese to any institution which teaches Chinese as a Second Language. We will definitely continue to use Modern Chinese and I hope to see more and more Australian universities using it.”
Alexander Spriggs, Second Year student Adelaide University
“I love these books for the following reasons:
-The books are well laid out.
-They have colourful comics that are inviting and fun.
-The grammar is very well explained and user friendly. It makes me want to study Chinese grammar.
-It is easy for teachers to use as they don’t have to set extra homework outside the books as with other text books. Students can simply open up the book and start studying.
-The books gradually get more difficult and don’t introduce things too quickly. They cleverly build on previously learnt grammar structures and vocabulary allowing students to be reminded of things previously learnt.
I wish they would make third year books for this series because they are the best books I have used.”
Bradley Wall, Second Year Adelaide University
“I like using the Modern Chinese book series because it helps me to assimilate with the Chinese language discourse. The books are easy to use with clear and simple explanations on the structure of the language and they provide a decent and practical selection of vocabulary to learn. The book series started by introducing me to expressing myself in the Chinese language, but now as I approach the end of Modern Chinese 1B, I see that I have slowly been learning more and more about how to think and create meaning within Chinese, much to the standard of a native speaker of Modern Chinese.”
Modern Chinese has been the First Year and Second Year Chinese core text at the Centre for Asian Studies at Adelaide University since 2013.
This April I visited Better Chinese at their Palo Alto office in Silicon Valley, California. It was great to meet everyone in person and find out more about some exciting product developments. Better Chinese currently supports over 55% of Chinese language immersion programs in the United States so they organised some school visits for me. While I was there, we also discussed developments and programs in the Australia/New Zealand region.
Some exciting developments with Better Chinese include
Immersion Programs
There are currently around 126 Chinese immersion schools in the US. While I was in Palo Alto Better Chinese arranged for me to visit two elementary schools with outstanding Chinese immersion programs. I went with Li-Hsiang Yu Shen, the founder of Better Chinese who visited Sydney in 2011.
The first school we visited was the International School of the Peninsula (www.istp.org ), a private kindergarten to Grade 8 school offering both Chinese and French language immersion programs. We first met with Head of School Philippe Dietz and Assistant Head of School Kate Lussen who gave me a general overview of the program. In kindergarten 80% of the classroom time is in Mandarin. By Grade 4/5 50% of instruction time is in Mandarin, with Maths and Science taught in English at the higher year levels. In the early years, immersion students on average slightly underperform on standardised testing on English and Maths but by Grade 8 they are consistently outperforming their monolingual peers. Communicating and working with parents is essential so that non-Chinese speaking parents in particular know what is happening with their child’s education and can support at home in English. ISTP students are also expected to do between 2-4 hours of homework a night depending on the year level.
We visited a kindergarten and Grade 1 classroom and I also got the chance to speak with the Grade 3 teacher. Li-Hsiang Yu Shen had played a central role in setting up the program and training the teachers and was warmly welcomed in all the classrooms and offices we visited. In the kindergarten classroom it was mat time. It was amazing to see the teachers fully explaining the upcoming activities in Chinese with the children fully comprehending and responding in Chinese or mixed Chinese/English. In the Grade 1 class the children were doing addition and subtraction using an abacus in the full Chinese immersion environment. The teacher went around the room checking and asking students about their work in Chinese with language no impediment to the children’s mathematical learning. The Grade 1 students use adjacent Chinese and English classrooms. When they are with their Chinese teacher in the Chinese classroom they learn pinyin pronunciation and when they are with their English teacher in the English classroom they learn the English alphabet. Li-Hsiang Yu Shen and the teachers assured me that the children manage this easily with no problems.
I was particularly impressed with how effectively the students learn to read and write characters in the immersion environment. In the kindergarten the teachers use My First Chinese Words to develop students literacy. In the Grade 1 classroom all the information displayed such as the classroom rules, poster on tooth health and so on were all in characters. At ISTP students learn traditional characters until Grade 4/5 when they switch to simplified. The Grade 3 teacher showed me how she taught character analysis and also an example of student composition on an iPad. On the wall were also posters on the science topics of geometrical formations and bacteria.
The second school we visited was Ohlone Elementary School www.ohlone.pausd.org, a public Kindergarten to Grade 5 elementary school offering non-traditional community and student centred education with a strong emphasis on parental involvement. Ohlone also offers a Mandarin immersion program with Mandarin instruction time of 80% in Kindergarten/Grade 1, 60% in Grades 2/3 and 50% in Grades 4/5. As both the school itself and the immersion program are very popular, enrolment by students not living in the school zone is by lottery (with one lottery for the school and one for the immersion program in particular). The school deliberately chooses 35-50% of the students in the program to be native Chinese speakers to act as role models with the rest being non-native speakers.
Ohlone has a farm with not only gardens but many animals. On one morning that I was there, the kindergarten/Grade 1 class had Farm lesson where the Farm teacher taught the children (in English) about chickens. The students then returned to the main classroom where all instruction is in Chinese. There were beautiful farm displays fully labelled in Chinese characters and farm models the students had been making. On the whiteboard there was a chart with questions and answers about farm animals and the teacher told me 80% of the children could read all of the characters used. I also got the chance to observe mat time, where the teacher taught and gave instructions fully in Chinese with the students showing full comprehension and mostly responding in Chinese.
I also got the chance to observe a Grade 4/5 class. The teacher was talking to the students about Earth Day discussing topics such as the Earth Day founder and environmental problems at native speaker speed and vocabulary level with no language modification. From what I witnessed, the listening comprehension of the students was significantly higher than a typical Year 12 second language learner.
I was deeply impressed by the commitment to Mandarin language education at the two schools I visited and the skill of the teachers. I was amazed by the fluency and literacy level of the students, many of whom clearly had no Chinese heritage. I would like to thank the International School of the Peninsula and Ohlone Elementary School for allowing me to visit their schools and also Better Chinese for arranging these visits for me.
Independent learning means shifting the responsibility for the learning process from the teacher to the students. The teacher’s role becomes that of coach and facilitator. Students can make learning choices and progress at different paces but this all occurs within the framework set up by the teacher.
In the flipped classroom students can learn content online and class time can be spent on more challenging activities developing deeper understanding and proficiency. The teacher can spend more time giving personalised help to individual students. As active participants in the learning process, students can also influence the learning direction (with the teacher’s guidance) and teachers can set up tasks which connect with students’ lives.
Discovering Chinese Pro is ideal for promoting learner independence and a flipped classroom model. The core content for each topic is clearly presented in each unit and students can interact with the program to hear, read, write and record themselves, while the teacher can monitor their progress online and respond to each student individually. The program provides immediate feedback for listening and reading tasks which makes it much more practical for teachers to provide genuine differentiated instruction both in and out of the classroom.
Jiongzhou Ford is keenly interested in innovative teaching practice and has a particular interest in independent learning. She adopted Discovering Chinese Pro as the core resource for her students because of the greatly increased opportunities it offers for students to take ownership of their own learning. It also opened up many new and exciting teaching possibilities.
When nearing the end of a unit on days dates (on both the lunar and Gregorian calendars), Jiongzhou moved the focus to Chinese New Year. Even though the students were at beginner level, with Discovering Chinese Pro school accounts, they could still access materials in the higher volumes and Jiongzhou selected and adapted the language from Festivals unit to suit their needs. As one of the students in the class was from an aboriginal community, she made the cross cultural focus between Chinese New Year and NAIDOC Week (Aboriginal Australia’s major festival). The students and teachers worked as a group to adapt the language learnt to describe Chinese New Year to describe NAIDOC Week activities. Students were all highly engaged in the process and produced written work of a high level for beginner students.
DC Pro can be accessed on iPad or online
Li-Hsiang Yu Shen, founder and chief editor of publishing company Better Chinese, visited Sydney from 7 to 11 July this year. She gave half day and full day workshops to interested Chinese teachers on the 7th and 8th and also presented at the national conference on the 10th. It was my first time to meet Yu Laoshi or in fact anyone from Better Chinese and during the time we spent together in Sydney I gained a much deeper understanding of both the company and the pedagogy behind the teaching materials.
Better Chinese was founded by Yu Laoshi and her husband CK Shen after they retired from their careers as diplomats. During their years living abroad they found repeatedly that their daughters had no interest in learning Chinese and could not help but notice how dull the Chinese teaching materials looked in comparison to those from European and English speaking countries. The aim of Better Chinese is to change this – to develop a wide range of materials which make learning Chinese fun and meaningful for students. Better Chinese started with a story book club and language centre in Hong Kong. Yu Laoshi and CK Shen retired from comfortable jobs in the diplomatic service and, along with their son-in-law James who is the CEO, threw all their energies into developing the company. While all this was already known to me, what struck me from talking to Yu Laoshi were both the strong sense of mission and also the challenges involved in their second careers in publishing – it certainly has been a meaningful but not an easy option.
Yu Laoshi covered many areas in her presentations in Sydney. I was impressed the strong emphasis not only on pedagogy but also on educational philosophy and child development. Usually in our Chinese teaching professional development in Australia we restrict ourselves to very specific discussions of Chinese language classroom teaching and tend not to take a wider perspective or engage with the broader philosophies behind children’s mainstream classroom education. Many teachers who have started to use ‘My First Chinese Words’ in the classroom have noticed how well children respond and I think this is because these simple story books connect so well with what is meaningful and engaging to children. Yu Laoshi spent a lot of time discussing both the importance of play and storytelling in children’s lives and pointed to the ideas of educational thinkers such as Howard Gardner (multiple intelligences) and Reggio Emilia (emphasizing the child’s capability and potential).
Yu Laoshi also gave some interesting insights into Chinese language teaching in the US. Interest in learning Chinese has increased exponentially over the last few years so much so that there is a well-known slogan ‘Chinese is the new French’ and Chinese teachers now dominate the national modern language teachers association. As an example of the level of interest, a local San Francisco elementary (primary) school‘Starr King Elementary’, which had low student numbers and was on the verge of closure, introduced a Mandarin immersion program in an effort to boost enrolments. The parent community saw this as a sign that Starr King was a high quality academic school and student numbers increased dramatically. Yu Laoshi also showed slide shows of some best practice examples of Chinese language teaching in the US which included an elementary school where 80% of the mainstream classroom instruction was in Chinese. Immersion is a very popular form of language learning in the US and Yu Laoshi told me that there are many schools setting up Chinese language immersion programs now, particularly in Utah.
Better Chinese is based in Palo Alto which is in the San Francisco Bay Area in California and home to many famous Silicon Valley internet and technology companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google. It’s not surprising then that Better Chinese is a leader in the field of Chinese language instruction and online learning. The Better Chinese online curriculum gives students interactive listening, speaking, reading and writing practice and is fully integrated with the core curriculum. A successful trial project has already been run using Better Chinese apps for Ipads and this will be generally available soon.
In Australia we do face some different circumstances which make some lofty goals seem out of reach. For example you can’t achieve in one lesson a week what can be achieved in a full immersion program. Nonetheless we can still aim high and try to achieve as much as is possible in the time which is available to us. Teaching skills development and high quality resources are critical to achieving this. I believe that being a teacher involves life-long learning and one of the best ways to learn is from others which is why having a vibrant and dedicated professional association is so important. For me it was a wonderfully refreshing and eye opening experience to listen to Yu Laoshi’s presentations, not only for the depth of thought and creativity behind her pedagogy, but also just for the surprisingly different perspective of Chinese language learning in the US.
Belinda Dello-Iacovo
For more information about Better Chinese please email me at [email protected]
