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Introducing Yourself: Lesson Plan

This lesson plan aims to teach upper primary students basic Mandarin Chinese greetings. It involves exploring cultural differences in greetings, learning pronunciation of "ni hao" through tone exercises, watching video demonstrations of common greetings, and practicing greetings in small groups by creating flashcards with English and pinyin translations. Students will then perform a simple conversational greeting exchange using the new vocabulary.

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Ana Luiza Paiva
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231 views3 pages

Introducing Yourself: Lesson Plan

This lesson plan aims to teach upper primary students basic Mandarin Chinese greetings. It involves exploring cultural differences in greetings, learning pronunciation of "ni hao" through tone exercises, watching video demonstrations of common greetings, and practicing greetings in small groups by creating flashcards with English and pinyin translations. Students will then perform a simple conversational greeting exchange using the new vocabulary.

Uploaded by

Ana Luiza Paiva
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Lesson plan: introducing yourself

Upper primary
Aims:
To introduce the basics of tone and pronunciation in
Mandarin Chinese in the context of everyday greetings.
Objectives:
Students will demonstrate their understanding of the
nature of greetings in the context of the different
cultural backgrounds represented in their classroom.
 Students will demonstrate their ability to greet each
other in Mandarin Chinese.
Resources:
Paper/card, pens and pencils

YEAR OF THE HORSE www.britishcouncil.org/schoolsonline 16


Lesson plan: introducing yourself
Time Details

Introduction
Explore with the class the nature of greetings: why do we use them? How many different
greetings do we use in English? How many greetings in other languages do students in the
class know? What do they mean?
Explain that the basic greeting in Mandarin Chinese is n ho, which literally means you
good, and that you are going to learn how to pronounce it correctly. Highlight the tone
15 mins marks over the vowels and explain that in Mandarin the sound of a word includes, as part of
Whole class it, the rise and/or fall of the voice, which is called the tone.
Consider how we also use tone in English, not as part of the sound of individual words, but
across phrases and sentences to add emotional meaning. Take a sentence such as Chinese
is very easy to learn and ask the class to say it in different ways (angry, bored, surprised,
doubtful, excited etc.) Ask them to listen to what the tone of their voices is doing and write
down their findings.
Now look at the BBC languages pages here, and listen to the sounds:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/mini_guides/tones/

Activity (40 mins)


Listen again to the tone guide and then try the tone game here:
10 mins http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/games/tones.shtml
In pairs or
Discuss as a whole class how hard or easy it was; were some tones easier to distinguish and
small groups
others harder?
Watch the 'Common Greetings' video here:
15 mins http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/mandarin/all_about_me/videos/
Whole class
and then work through the vocabulary section here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/mandarin/all_about_me/greetings/

YEAR OF THE HORSE www.britishcouncil.org/schoolsonline 17


Lesson plan: introducing yourself
Time Details

Assign each group one of the Chinese phrases:


Hello; Good morning; How are you?; Im fine; Im not well; And you?; Goodbye; See you
15 mins tomorrow; See you later. Get them to write their phrases in English and Chinese (pinyin
Divide the with tone marks not characters) on either side of pieces of paper/card, and to practice
class into saying them. Bring the class back together, give each group a number in random order,
small groups then ask each in turn to hold up their card and say their phrase. Together with the students,
work out the number sequence for a correct conversation.

Plenary
Collect all the groups cards and lay them out on the floor or on a desk Chinese side
upwards; ask individual students to come up in turn and pick the correct card and say the
phrase to form a simple conversation using the elements you choose from:
10 mins Hello/Good Morning
Whole class How are you?
Im fine/not well
And you?
Im fine/not well
Goodbye/see you tomorrow/see you later
Differentiation
More able pupils can use this site
http://quizlet.com/6087501/mandarin-chinese-lesson-1-greetings-characters-flash-
cards/ to research some more variations and create flashcards for them to
add into the conversation.
Extension
Plan a class performance of a brief exchange of greetings to be included in a whole school
Chinese New Year assembly.

YEAR OF THE HORSE www.britishcouncil.org/schoolsonline 18

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