I taught my students this song for the Mid-Autumn day. I was really surprised how much they enjoyed learning and singing this song. Because most of them are big Jay Chou fans or Korean music fans, I was worried that this is an old song, it might not seem cool enough to them. Once again it proves this is a truly classic song. Most of my students loved it, especially the girls, I explained the meaning of the song, and they think it's very sweet. The lyric is really simple; there is no complicated grammar or complicated words. The whole song has only four short paragraphs, each paragraph starts with "You ask me how deep I love you, how much I love you", and ends with "The moon represents my heart". The music is rather simple and catchy as well. I wish all my students could remember the characters as fast as they remember the song. I did an experiment with one of my higher level class. I divided them into two groups with four each and asked them to make a love story using the song. It was really interesting to see that they went completely opposite ways. One is very realistic; the other is more fairy tale style. Both of them are pretty cool.
The realistic one: 月亮代表我的心 之一 The moon represents my heart 1
三年前，爱林和力波在火车站认识。力波要回家参加（过）圣诞节，爱林去旅行。他们一见钟情，他们约定圣诞节以后再见面。 Ailin and Libo met 3 years ago at train station. Libo was going home for Christmas, Ailin was travelling. They fell in love at first sight. They promised to see each other again after Christmas( this part reminds me of the movie "before the sun rise", very romantic)
一个月前，爱林知道力波有小三，她很不高兴，跟力波说话，她要知道力波爱她有多深。 A month ago, Ailin found out Libo was having an affair. She was very unhappy, talked to Libo, she wanted to know how deep he loves her.
力波告诉她：“我的情也真，我的爱也真，我的情不移，我的爱不变。” Libo told her:" my emotion is real, my love is real, my emotion won't move, my love won't change."
“我不信你。” I don't trust you.
“你知不知道你轻轻的一个吻已经打动我的心，我真对不起，但是我很爱你。” Do you know that your soft kiss already touched my heart, I'm really sorry, but I love you very much.
“但是你还有小三吗？” Are you still having an affair?
“以前我有，现在我没有，你信我吧！月亮代表我的心，你去想一想，你去看一看。” I had before, but I don't have it anymore, trust me, the moon represents my heart, you go to think about it, you go to have a look.
“真的吗？” Really? “真的，爱林，我很爱你。”力波吻爱林。 "Yes, it's real, Ailin, I love you very much." Libo kissed Ailin. ( A good story always ended by a kiss)
月亮代表我的心 之二 The moon represents my heart 2
在中国，丁力波是英国人。两年前，他去了商场买东西。小云是山上的小鸟，她（在）商场飞飞。丁力波看一个小鸟，他说：“这个小鸟应该很好吃。”他拿小云回家。 Dinglibo is an English man in China. ( You wonder why the male character both named Libo, because he is the main character in our Mandarin book, same is Xiaoyun, faint!!) He went shopping in the shopping mall ( we just learned shopping mall, faint!!!). Xiaoyun is a bird living on the mountain, she flied in the shopping mall ( great imagination). Dinglibo saw a bird, he said:” this bird must be delicious!" ( I'm totally lost my mind here!!!) He took Xiaoyun back home.
小云说：“我是天上的人（神仙），你不可以吃我。小云很漂亮，他们一起住力波的家。她唱歌唱得很好，她（他）们常常唱。一天，她回家，问力波：“你爱我有多少？”力波喜欢小云，他说：“我的情和爱也真。” Xiaoyun said: " I'm a human live on the sky( they were trying to say fairy), you can't eat me. " They lived together at Libo's home. She sang very well. They often sang together. One day, she went back home ( I didn't know she has a job ^_^) asked Libo:" How much you love me?" Libo likes Xiaoyun, he said:" My emotion and love are real."
“真的吗？”她给力波一个吻。他很高兴。 " Really? " She gave Libo a kiss, he was very happy. “我还是不信你。” "I still don't believe you" (Girls are so mean!)
力波说：“你去想一想，你去看一看，今天月亮代表我的心。” Libo said:" You go to think about it, you go to have a look, today's moon represents my heart." (They were very smart to catch the weak point in the song, only the moon on Mid-autumn festival is the biggest and fullest)
他们生活得很高兴。They lived happily. ( What a nice fairy tale!)
I'm not a big festival person, but Mid-Autumn festival is one of the biggest traditional festivals in China as well as in many other Asian countries, like Vietnam! We don't have a day off for this holiday, but you do see there are a lot of moon cake stands everywhere on the streets of HCMC. Our cleaning lady was really happy when we gave her a box of moon cakes.
Well, you can't escape from this topic if you are a Mandarin teacher. I copied some stories, poems and gave them to my Mandarin 3 kids one week before the Mid-autumn day, the worst thing ever can happen is when kids yelling out:" Our teacher gave them to us last year!" Bummer~~~~~~~~~~ So what can I do? Change plans. "Well, in that case, I will ask you to remember that poem! In addition, you need to learn a song and make a lantern!" I wasn't very confident, I should have asked their last year teacher what they did, I learned my lesson, but I still need to do my job as best as I can. I picked the famous poem 静夜思, and the song 月亮代表我的心，I have taught my mandarin 2 kids this song, they loved it, it's simple and sweet. Make a lantern is not as hard as it sounds( see the pictures above). I divided the kids into groups with 4, the assignment was a team performance on Mid- autumn day, they have to work together.
I have to say, my kids rocked! Their performance were awesome, I regret I didn't have my camera that day, it would be great if I filmed the whole performance. Thankfully I got all the lanterns hung up in my room, they looked awesome! This is the best mid-autumn day I ever had!
Ps: my colleague Mei asked her students to interview other teachers about Mid-autumn festival. It's really interesting, because teachers in our school come from many different countries, the original story had a lot of crazy and amazing versions in the west, which we have never heard of. It will be interesting to collect them one day.
这个数字代表我最喜欢的团体。这个团体有13个人。13 represents the group I like, there are 13 members in this group.
我很喜欢这个数字因为这是我的特别的日子。I like this number because this is my special date.
我喜欢9号因为9是永远。今天8号，明天是9号，我希望明天来。和明天是我和我男朋友一个星期纪念日。 I like number 9 because 9 is forever. Today is 8th, tomorrow is 9th, I wish tomorrow come(soon). Tomorrow is one week anniversary day of me and my boyfriend.
9月3号是星期五。我很喜欢星期五，因为我没有课第二天。三号还是我的喜欢号。我常常有幸运事儿。September 3rd is Friday, I like Friday, because I don't have school the next dat. Number 3 is also my favorite number. I always have lucky things.
Dates are very confusing, especially when you ask what's the date( 今天几号？）and what's the day of the week today( 今天星期几？）It's hard because there are a lot of numbers involved as well.I used our school calendar to introduce different days and dates, it didn't work very well, and students got a bit lost in the end with information overwelmed. I saw a woman did an amazing calendar online; she draws beautiful pictures for individual dates. I decided to use similar ideas in class, make it simple, clear and fun. I prepared a bunch of half A4 size papers with different colors. I asked students to pick a date and a piece of color paper they like. They have to draw the date big and clear, then they need to write something special about it in Mandarin, ex: Sep 22nd this year is mid-autumn day, so kid who picked the date needs to write that on her paper. Most of them wrote something like: this is my lucky number, this is my birthday number, etc. Some kids really surprised me with their ideas. Kids built a strong feeling about different dates while they do the art work; the dates start to become meaningful to them. I asked them to put all the dates in order by the white board. I used it a lot during and after that unit by simply ask them questions like: What's the date today（今天几号）? Whose date is it today（今天是谁的）? Who has Mondays（谁有星期一）? This Tuesday is whose（这个星期二是谁）? etc.
I have to say there are many girls in these two mandarin 2 classes, they love doing art work, I'm not very sure whether it will apply to boys as much as it does to girls.
There are things that you think weren't important, they are the things which make big differences. A month after the school year started, I realized why it's so important to set up classroom rules and what I will do differently next year. Ex: 1 I should have asked students to prepare 2 notebooks for homework, they are still handing a piece of paper to me once a while :( 2, Dictation on every Monday, quiz every two or three weeks, depends on how long each lesson takes (by the way I'm using the new practical Chinese reader), students should learn to manage their study efficiently by given a clear schedule. 3, Students need to get used to record their readings or other oral assignments. I'm studying how to apply Voki or some other ICT programs into classroom. 4, No homework or other classes’ work during the class period. 5, Always correct homework, dictation and quizzes.
I'm sure the list will be getting longer in the end of the year……
First week is always hard, especially for the new teachers. This year is my first year teaching overseas, and my first year teaching high school kids. I had no idea about who they are, how their Chinese is, the first week is for them to decide whether they like you or not. It was tough, I did a lot of research online, but how to emerge other teachers' experience into my classroom, there is no right answer. I did a PowerPoint about myself, showed some of my pictures, and had a short story about myself on the first day; I think it's a good way to introduce you as a new teacher. From the second day on, I started this newspaper project with my students. I don't know the person, who originally came up with this idea, but this is an awesome project, my husband uses it for his Grade2 kids every year. But it's also good for language classes. The newspaper includes five different parts: The inside scoop: some basic information about yourself, like name, age, likes and dislikes, etc, My exclusive story: I gave students some topics to choose from, like their birthday parties, travel stories, experience of going to see a doctor, I chose from the lesson they have studied last year, Meet my hero: describe a person they like and admire, most of them chose their dad or mom. An awesome ad for a movie & a book review: this is simple, just write one or two short sentences about the book and movie they like. It is a big project for them in the first week back to school, they think it's too hard at the beginning. I divided the whole assignment into four days. Pre-work is really important, give the examples, ideas and your expection clearly, check their work and provide your help while they are doing it. They were proud to show me their work at the end of the week. I was proud of them too. My kids put their work on the wall after I marked them. They looked awesome.
But this is not the only reason I'm doing it. You learned a lot about your students, their family and their personality. You should be able to tell which level they are at by this stage as well. I changed my original plan and decided to review last year's book with my Mandarin 2 class after this, my kids are happy with this decision.
