This is the second day reading Anna Mei Banfa with the Chinese 1’s, and we also had a visit from our superintendent (I really ought to keep my calendar more organized so I’d realize these folks are going to stop in!) Of course we often have people around as Chinese is a new course this year and people are curious about what the heck we’re doing in there. 😉
We did the silent reading with a write-down-the-words-you-don’t-know sheet, then I translated slowly and deliberately, sometimes into semi-pidgin English (Chinese doesn’t work as nicely as French for these things). I was pleased at how well the kids picked up on their list of unknown words. We discussed the content, although I’ve never seen a class of kids where — amazingly — not a single mother yells at them, not a kid doesn’t prefer fruit to hamburgers…hmmm…
At the end, I had three minutes, so I grabbed a pile of little paper squares I keep around, and said, “Grab one of these, cross out anything that’s on it (there were previous Spanish and Chinese quizzes on some of them) and write a problem that Anna has with someone.”
The answers were interesting. Many — really a lot — of the kids incorporated new vocab from today’s reading. I was seeing compound sentences — lots of “because” and “doesn’t like her to do such-and-such”. A brief sampling of answers (I let them write in Pinyin, I’m a softie and there were only 3 minutes):
“Anna de* MAMA Ma TA YINweI Anna CHI qiaoKeLi.”
“Ana de* MAMA SHENGQi.”
“Anna de MAMA Bu xiHUAN TA CHI qiaoKeLi!”
“Anna you Keds DanShi Baba* Bu gei qiaN “for” Nikes.”
“Anna de Didi* hen mAfaN. Anna de MAMA Ma TA YINweI Anna Bu CHI shuiguo.”
“Anna meIyou qiaN. Baba* Bu gei qiaN.”
“Anna de* MAMA Bu xiHUAN Ana ba Keben FangZai Diban Shang.”
I’m really looking forward to seeing the development of the language as we get to read more.
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