Essay Collection – August to October, 2017 学生作文集

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Essay Collection – August to October, 2017 学生作文集

Can media change how we learn?

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Can media change how we learn?
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Many of our Chinese teachers share the same childhood memory from their school days: Every morning, they would sit in the classroom together and recite ancient Chinese poetry with or without understanding the meaning. This poetry enriched their childhood, but as children, they didn’t have the knowledge and skills to understand the aesthetic context.
 
Those beautiful ancient Chinese poems were passed on in the oral tradition over generations, then they were written in scrolls, then printed on paper, then published in books, and now they are shared and accessible to the whole world on the internet. But after surviving four massive media revolutions that have ushered in this modern Information Age, can technology really impact how we learn and understand Chinese literature, especially ancient Chinese poetry? We decided to further explore this topic with our Lower Secondary students, getting some of their feedback. 
Our Year 7 CFL students started their new adventure of studying “Ancient Chinese poetry” with Ms. Ni and Ms. Chen in August. This week, we interviewed the teachers and several Y7 students. Here is some of what they learned “in their own words.” 

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Parent Information Evening 课程介绍会

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If you missed the PARENT INFORMATION EVENING this year, please feel free to down the introduction of Lower Secondary Chinese and Upper Secondary Chinese here.

如果您错过了今年的中学部中文课程介绍会，请下载以下文件了解初中及高中的中文课程信息：

初中部中文课程 Lower Secondary Chinese Curriculum：

Download Here: LS – Chinese

高中部中文课程 Upper Secondary Chinese Curriculum:

Download Here: US – Chinese

International Students’ Chinese Writing Competition

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At YCIS we pride ourselves on the strength of both our Chinese and Western curriculums and the ability of our students to become excellent and effective communicators in both languages, capable of expressing themselves in many different ways. In Chinese classes, our students read and write in different text types so that they can improve their written communication and appreciate the intricacies of the written language.
The International Students’ Chinese Writing Competition is an annual event organised by the Pudong New Area Education Committee. The competition is open to all international students in Pudong ages 7 to 17 years of age. Our School hosted the “Yew Chung Cup” International Students’ Chinese Writing Competition in 2014 and this year it was held by Ping He Bilingual School.In Secondary, this year we had three students submit their essays to the committee. We are proud to share their results:Yue (Elena) Yu from Y9: First Prize

Pok Yin (Bobby) Cheung from Y11: Second Prize

 – Ms. Tao, Elena, Bobby, Ms. Jiang
At the Awards Ceremony for the competition last Thursday, both Elena and Bobby were invited to perform on the stage. The item they played was composed by Elena and it is closely related to the topic of the essay she wrote about in her essay, her original piece is named Silent Words. This piece captures a pleasant, calm scene and describes a lazy afternoon, listening to the sounds of gentle soothing rain.
Guzheng and piano duet from Elena Yu and Bobby Cheung 
“Although people have different perspectives and viewpoints, the beauty of literature and music always can link us all together.”—Elena Yu

【“字源”其说 】| The origins of Chinese characters

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As humans, we share a common desire to understand our origins, our history, so that we can better understand who and what we are by understanding who and what we were. 
While studying Chinese characters, the process of tracking down the origins is also enlightening. In the first week of May, all of the Chinese classes in Lower Secondary had a series of activities about “The origins of Chinese characters”. Their engagement and creativity really impressed all the Chinese teachers:

  • CFL-Year 7: “Aeolian Bells”

Each bell indicates one important Chinese Radical.
  • CFL-Year 8: “Scrolls about Chinese names” 
  • CFL-Year 9: “Designing Postcards”
“在这次中文活动中，我们的班级选择制作“汉字”明信片。明信片的主题是“汉字之最”。我们在纸的反面画上明信片的邮票，地址格和邮政编码。接着，每一个人都挑选了各种不同“最xx”的汉字，写在自己的明信片上，并且设计和绘画了中国风的图画。从这次活动中，我们不仅锻炼了自己的绘画能力，还提高了创造力，并且学会了自己设计。中国色彩，山水，黑白水墨，各种各样的中国特色描绘出了我们自己心中的中国风。” — 黄安安 Y9
  • CAL 1&2: My Favourite Chinese Characters
  • CAL – L1: “My very first Chinese character”
  • CAL – L2: “Book marks about favourite character”
CAL 3-4: “Know my name”
“Discovering the origin of my Chinese name is really a unique experience for me. I like my Chinese name even more. I’m grateful that my former Chinese teacher gave me such a good name.”
– Song：“我们的名字”
“During the process of creating & compiling the Chinese lyrics, we not only understood the meanings of our Chinese names but also had lots of fun learning the song and making our movie of it. It’s a good experience for us to learn the culture of Chinese names and Chinese characters.

”

CAL 5: Making Movies
– Scan the QR Code and watch the movie.

  • CAL 6: “Making Brochures for Remembering Characters”
  • CAL 7: Incorporating Chinese Characters in Terms of Different Subjects
“For this Chinese Character week, we were tasked with deciding upon a method in which we would choose to represent Chinese characters in our chosen subject. I chose to incorporate Chinese characters in terms of Maths. I brainstormed and came up with severals way I could demonstrate these characters. Ultimately, I determined that I would exhibit my poster as a chalkboard where a diverse range of mathematical equations were to be written. I used characters to add, subtract, multiply, and divide by each other to come up with other existing characters. Graphs were used to show the mirror image of some characters. In order to make the poster look more aesthetically pleasing, I included separate equations and graphs to add some variety in the poster. Lastly, adding colour was essential to attracting viewer’s attention. ”—— SAW Alexandra Y9

After this Chinese activity, my students felt that although Pinyin is easy for typing and processing, Chinese characters, as kind of graphic language, still plays an important role in conveying the culture and richness Chinese history. It is an inseparable part of how we perceive Chinese socially.

Reading the Classics in Chinese

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On Monday’s assembly, Anna Chen from Y9 amazed all the attendees with her original song written after she read “Journey to the West《西游记》”.

Starting from February, our Year 9 CFL took the challenge of reading the original edition of “Journey to the West”《西游记》 during their leisure time, and they were encouraged to create their own products with reflections on this book.

Here are the reflections from some of them:

“

Being a risk-taker, this was my first time to compose a song by myself, lyrics and music. The lyrics talk about the change of Sun Wu Kong after eighty-one adventurous experiences. I thought a lot about the theme of risk-taking and adventure, title and lyrics, because there were so many things I could write about. When we were studying the novel “Journey to the west”, we learned writing techniques and the importance of cooperation. We also did a lot of analysis work for characteristics of the characters. I think this project has cultivated our creativity, imagination and thinking skills.

—Anna Chen

”

“

We had made cookies for the creative project of Journey to the West. We’ve included some of the features of Journey to the West by using food coloring to make the icing and drawing it onto the cookies. We’ve included characters and key words to make our cookies approach the topic. The process was really tough, for example, riding 6 km to buy food coloring, and while making them we found that there weren’t enough cookies so we had to bake a second batch. Together we spent four hours completing it, however, as a result, it worked really well.

—Nikita & Catherine

”

“

Journey to the West is a famous Chinese novel, and what I did was rewrite my own theme song, and filming myself acting out the main plot of the story. There was a short drama before the song, and I played the role of all the characters. I learned this technique from a YouTuber. The filming consisted of the four main characters from the novel, and the main theme that I rewrote was based on the theme song for the old TV show that was made based on the novel.

— Kevin Du

”

“

Recently in Chinese class, we read a novel called The Journey to the West. I chose to rearrange the theme song, Yun Gong Xun Yin. The beginning of the rearrangement is calm, and brings us to the start of the journey. Then, it alters into a different style with a strong sense of rhythm. While rearranging the song, I extended a main element of the story—the perseverance of the team and the spirit of not giving up.

—Elena

”

“

During Chinese class, we read a famous Chinese book called “Journey to the West”. For this project, I made The Monkey King’s clothes. I learned how hard it can be to make a set of clothes and The Monkey King’s characteristics, so I can bring it out into the set of clothes. I really enjoyed this project, because you could be really creative with it and there are no limits. It was something I have never done before, which was really exciting to do. I will love to do a similar project again.

—Mary Liu

”

“

In Chinese class, we read the book “Journey to the West”. It was a great book and we learned a lot from it. For the project, I made a trailer. I did some research about the episodes that were made in the past years and found pictures, clips to fit into the trailer. From the process of making the trailer, I learned more information and background of the book. I learned that it takes collaboration and working together to lead to success.

— Ann Huang

”

“

For this project about the traditional classic “Journey To The West”, we were required to recreate the book and its contents in any form. I chose to compose another version of the movie’s theme song, 雲宮迅音. This composition relates to the book because it’s the song that introduces the opening scene of the movie. In the process of composing my piece, I also learned a lot about music composition software (in my case, Musescore), because I don’t normally create compositions. I could test around different features in the software and this made me a more knowledgeable learner.

— Hayley Chu

”

In the end, the students all wrote poems to celebrate completing the reading of the entire book:

Our Year 9 CFL students wish more students will join them and make good use of their time, reading more Chinese literary classics outside of the classroom.

The painting above is made by LEE Wan yu (Minna).