Chinese Class Projects

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It is fun to teach Chinese and it should be fun to learn Chinese.  Here are some projects/assignments that we have done in my class which reinforced students’ learning and showcased their creativity at the same time.

Original Raps 

 What better way to reinforce new vocabulary and grammar then having students create their own raps.  Below are 2 videos made by a 7th grade Korean American student who is in her 2nd year of Chinese.  She incorporated sports and food vocabulary  while never missing a single beat.  Enjoy!

Sports Rap

 Food Rap

Paper Cutting 剪纸

 

 Paper cutting 剪纸 is a traditional folk art that has a very long history in China dating back to the 6th century.  In class I showed my students 4 sets of 剪纸 that I collected from China.  We then made our own paper cuttings.  

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See some of my students’ 剪纸 below.

 

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Fashion Show

时装表演

 

Students became designers and models after learning Chinese vocabulary on clothing.  Students worked in groups to design a fashion catalogue using Chinese.  Students also had to model different outfits and introduce their group members using only Chinese.

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Chinese Fashion ShowFashion Catalogue in Chinese

 

Act Out Chinese Words

Learning vocabulary words purely from memorization is boring! What if we could act out the words we are learning?  Wouldn’t that be so fun?  You watch the video below and be the judge.

你叫什么名字 What’s Your Name Song?

This is an easy and fun song that I sing with my beginning level students when they first learn their Chinese name.  I sing the song at the beginning of the class for about a week so that students learn their names and their classmates’ Chinese names.  Watch the video below to see how we did it in class!

 

 

 Mother’s Day 3D flowers

母亲节立体鲜花

 

Students created beautiful 3D tissue flowers

Students created beautiful 3D tissue flowers

Different types of tissue paper flowers

Different types of tissue paper flowers

Father’s Day Cards

 

I created these cards with my weekend Chinese class at my house.  These cards say 献给世界上最伟大的爸爸, which means “for world’s greatest Dad.”  It was so fun to make these cards and I love how each student added their own version of their Dad.

 

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Very bright and colorful card!

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Annabelle made this card with me for her Dad!

 

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Lindsay said her Dad loves tennis the most

Current Events About China

It is not enough to simply learn a language.  It is also important to see the current state of the world as an ever evolving product of past events, people, and ideas. Gathering reliable information about China (and other Asian countries) and its impact in the world around us, and understanding our role in this increasingly connected world is vital to becoming a ‘global citizen’.  Every week, my students research a current event and present it to the class.  We then discuss the current event as a class.  The video below is a current event by a first year Chinese student on pollution in China.

Students love creating their own skits in Chinese.

Here is a song that my students made up by themselves after learning fruits vocabulary.

 

After learning about food and drinks vocabulary.  Each student pretended that their parents went on a vacation for a week and had to create a week’s meal plan all in Chinese.

 

Students designed meal planners

Students designed meal planners

Students Write Original Songs for Halloween

 

For Halloween, some of my Chinese classes wrote original Halloween songs.  My students are very creative, and the songs came out great.  They also sang their songs in class.  Check out some of their songs below.  This was a fun way to incorporate Halloween into Chinese class, and I will definitely  be doing this again in the future. 

Chinese Halloween Student Created Songs

 

Making Food

What better way to learn about culture than to make traditional Chinese food from scratch.

homemade moon cake

homemade moon cake

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student gives presentation on preparing Chinese food

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yummy homemade Chinese dumplings

For 春节 or Spring Festival, students pretended they were in China.  They had to create a diorama with at least 5 traditions used by the Chinese to celebrate 春节.  They presented it using as much Chinese as possible.

 

Students created special Chinese New Year dioramas

Students created special Chinese New Year dioramas

 

Students in beginning Chinese class have just learned common Chinese greetings as well as some ways to introduce each other.  Students created 3D projects to introduce themselves.  Check it out!

 

3D Self Introductions in Chinese

3D Self Introductions in Chinese

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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