Chinese Curriculum & Class Managements

Text:
MeiZhou Chinese 美洲華語 - Chinese curriculum includes 10 lessons incorporating different types
of genres such as poems, narratives, expository texts and so on. There are supplementary reading passages in
the back of the book for additional reading.

Conversation Text:
A Thousand Words to learn Chinese 一千字說華語 – this text includes 100 mini lessons to help
students to practice reading and speaking Chinese.

Tool Book:
Students will bring a “tool book” including a list of words on particular topics.
Students can use the tool book as a reference when they write their journals or other
assignments.

Dragon Master Challenge:

Students can achieve "above and beyond" the normal classroom expectations. All they
have to do is learn all about the topics in the dragon master challenge list. They can become
a 1 star member, all the way up to a 90 star member! Learning never ends - thank goodness!
Once they become a 20 star member, their names can stay in “Dragon Master” hall of fame
FOREVER.

Language Skills:
Phonetic symbols:
• I will continue exposing students to Pinyin.
• Students will quickly look up words in the dictionary
• They distinguish similar sounds and words with multiple pronunciations

Listening:
• Students will listen attentively while taking notes
• Students will summarize key points and increase listening vocabulary
• They will understand different media and remember details

Speaking:
• Students will feel comfortable to ask questions
• They will be able to summarize major key points
• They will discuss questions and voice their own opinions
• They will use public speaking skills
Word identification and writing words
• Students will familiarize themselves with different methods of looking up words in a
dictionary
• They will use vocabulary across curriculum
• Identify incorrect words and correct them

Reading
• Students will understand meaningful phrases and complicated sentences
• They will be able to use different types of reading strategies to help reading
comprehension
• They will understand the relationship between sentences, paragraphs, and the whole
essay

Writing
• Students will stay focused, follow writing procedures and rich content
• Students’ work will be based on the requirement to write different types of genre in an
organized manner
• They will be able to write what they observe

Social Studies

Text: History/Social Science for California Our Nation

In Social Studies class, students will learn American History from pre-Columbus to
1850. For some of the assignments students will complete them in the class while for other
assignments students will do them at home, such as completing assigned readings, doing
research, and preparing presentations.

Teach California Content Standards and Chinese Language Learning

Standards
 Communication: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information,
express feelings and emotion, and exchange opinions.
 Culture: Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the
practices and perspective of the cultures of the Chinese-speaking world
 Connections: Students reinforce and further their knowledge of other discipline
through the Chinese language
 Comparison: Students demonstrate understanding of the nature of language through
comparison of the Chinese language with their own
  Communities: Students use the Chinese language both within and beyond the school
setting
Assessment:
At the beginning of the school, I conducted a running record and collect a student’s in-
class writing sample. I will use both assessment to set students goal with you during Parents
and Teacher Conference. Assessment will be an ongoing process throughout the year and
keep check of students’ process. The result of assessment gave me a deeper understanding of
how I would modify my instruction to teach California content standards and CLIP standards
in order to meet students’ needs.

How do I meet every student’s need?

Each student learns in a different way and at a different rate so if I can take each
student’s current level as a consideration, I can help students to reach their potential. For
high achievers, I will not give more work but give assignments that require higher level
thinking skill and are more challenging as for lower achievers, I will use guided small group
instruction or one on one teacher and student conference to give students’ individual
assistance. For all students, I believe students learn more efficiently by doing it. According
to research students could retain 90 percent of what they learn by constructing the meaning
by themselves as compared to 30 percent by listening to the instruction.

Homework
The purpose of the homework is to reinforce what students have learned in the class rather
than learning new materials. Therefore, homework for the Mandarin class should not be over
thirty minutes a day excluding journals and daily readings. If students have problems
completing the assignment within thirty minutes, parents and students should contact me to
discuss alternate solutions.

• Due Date: Students will be assigned homework Monday through Friday. Generally,
the homework will be due the next day after the homework is assigned except for
lengthy projects. For major projects, it is the students’ responsibility to allocate their
time wisely to complete them on time.
1. Weekly Journal and Reading Log: is due on every Tuesday.
2. Other assignments will be further specify
Weekly Journal and Reading Log: One weekly interactive journal and two entries of thirty
minutes Reading Logs will be due on Tuesday. (Journal writing should only spend thirty
minutes at the maximum, so students should stop their journal writing, even if they did not
finish. Students sometimes will be given topics to write or free topic and sometimes students
will write response to literature as their journals. There are only three thousands commonly
used Chinese characters. However, knowing three thousand Chinese characters will not be a
challenge for our students, but whether they can apply them in their reading, writing, and
conversation will be a challenge. We learn how to read by reading and how to write by
writing regularly. Therefore, both assignments will be beneficial for students’ Chinese
language development.
• Book Report: Students will do a every the other month book report based on their
weekly reading.
• Recording: After I taught every lesson in MeiZhou Chinese textbook, students will
record the lesson and the story in a digital format, example wma file, CD or Cassette.
• Record Keeping: Through students’ Agenda and classroom homepage. Before
students leave for another classroom or home, students will copy their homework on
their homework agendas and checked by their group captain. I will go over a couple of
questions with students, so students should ask any further questions. Also, students
can check their classroom homepage for any homework, announcement, and special
events.
• Excuse: If students will not be able to complete their homework on time due to an
emergency or sickness, (attending a birthday party is not acceptable), a note from
parents is required.
• Pass due: If students hand in homework late three times, parents will be notified and it
will affect their grade.
• If they turn in their homework everyday, they can play homeworknopoly every Friday.

Test
Social Studies: After each Unit has been taught, students will be given Social Studies
Unit test except Unit 9. For the Unit 9, students will take their fifth states and capital tests by
the end of the first trimester around November 15th.

Chinese: The Character and Chapter tests are given after they are taught.

Discipline and Expectation

The Meyerholz School rules and system of warnings, as stated in the School
Handbook, will be followed. Additionally, both morning and afternoon classed have chosen
their own class rules and consequences during the first week of class meeting. All students
have signed a contract to show that they are willing to comply with the rules and accept the
consequences. In addition to holding students accountable for their own behavior, I believe
by making my lessons more engaging and interesting I can greatly reduce the discipline
problems and by giving positive reinforcement I can ease the undesired behavior.
Class Rules:
Room 11: 講中文 speak Chinese,尊重自己和別人 respect self and other, 安全第一 be safe
and 公平對待 be fair

Room 14: Mr. Garrison and students came up with 10 rules on the first day of school.

Of all the class rules, I capitalized the importance of the following two rules which are
essential for students’ learning.

• Do not disrupt teacher: This can be anything that interfere my instructions. For
example, after I give a signal for their attention, I expect students to freeze and stop
whatever they were doing and pay immediately attention. Or it can be like students are
not supposed to do what they are doing and it takes my time to redirect their behavior.

• Always does their best: Each student has his or her own special talents and interests.
My responsibility is helping students to make progress from where they are to
eventually achieve our grade level standards. If students can write a three paragraphs
essay, I do expect them to write a three paragraphs essay. In contrast, if students have
limited characters and skills to write a three paragraphs essay, I will recognize his or
her effort as long as they do their best. However, doing his or her best do not mean
that students will get a 4 on their report card; whereas it just means that I accept their
work habit.

Consequences:
Room 11: Color coded cards for behavior (red, green, blue, black). Red is good, green is
warning, blue is losing recess time, and black is office/principal/calls to parents. If they
missed to turn in the homework, they do it during recess. Forgetting to bring it to school is
considering missing homework. They will have to stay during the recess to redo it, too.
After 2 warnings for speaking English in Chinese class, they will have to pay $100 class
money to Ms. Lin.

Room 14: Mr. Garrison

How to extend learning from school to home?

“Good beginning is half the success.” You can help your child to establish his or her good
study habit and feel a sense of success by doing the following:
“Recognize any efforts and accomplishments that your child make”

• Help your child to organize his or her own school work until they can do it
independently. (There is a misconception that you do not need to help your child when
they become a fifth grader. As a matter of fact, a lot of students still need some
assistance to establish their good study habit and organization skills.)
• Listen to your child read even if you don’t speak Chinese
• Ask your child about what he or she learned at school
• Remind your child about the upcoming events or homework
• Please read carefully and help your child to sign anything that is required by the school
and class. (Please sign your child Thursday Folder and Weekly Reading Log)

Scoring
All scoring will follow the district’s rubric, as explained below:

6. Exceptional Proficiency: The student consistently exceeds grade level standards. The student, with
relative ease, grasps, applies, and extends the key concepts, process, processes, and skills above the grade
level standard.

5. Advanced Proficiency: The student consistently meets and often exceeds grade level standards. The
student, with relative ease, grasps, applies, and extends the key concepts, processes, and skills for the grade
level standard.

4. Proficient: The student regularly meets and demonstrates proficiency in grade level standards. The
student, with limited errors, grasps, and applies the key concepts, processes and skills for the grade level.
The student is on target for meeting the end of the year standard.

3. Developing Proficiency: The student is beginning to, and often does, meet and demonstrate proficiency in
the grade level standards. The student, with limited errors, grasps and applies the key concepts, processes,
and skills for the grade level standard.

2. Limited Proficiency: The student is beginning to, and occasionally does, meet and demonstrate proficiency
in the grade level standards. The student is beginning to grasp the key concepts, process, and skills for the
grade level standard but produces work that contains many errors. The student’s work indicates that the
students may be retained.

1. Minimal Proficiency: The student is not meeting or demonstrating proficiency in the grade levels
standards. The student is working on key concepts, processes, and skills that are one or more years below
grade level. The student’s work indicates that the student may be retained.

For daily work, number grades 9/10 nine out of ten possible are correct) and symbol grades ( + Excellent, √
Average, - Unacceptable) are also given.
 • Please understand that while we would like all children to receive 5’s and 6’s, a score of 4 means the
child is at grade level. Scores of 5 and 6 are rare, as the child will have to not only meet, but also
exceed grade level standards in order to earn such a high score.

• Curriculum is developed following the State and District Standards. These standards will be
discussed in class and will be addressed in the comments section of the Report Card.

• All assignments will be checked for completion, but some work may not be scored nor commented
on.

Special Thanks

“All together we can make a difference!”

I just want to thank parents who came and help me our before school started. Without
you, I could’ve have make it this far. Xie Xie!
 Parent Volunteer Sign-Up Sheet
Student Name__________________ Parent Name_______________

TEL: Home________________ Work________________

Cell__________________

Please put a check mark on the days of week available and also indicate the time of the day

The day of the Check Time The day of the Check Time
week (x) week (x)
Monday Thursday
Tuesday Friday
Wednesday Weekends

Please put a check mark on the types of job you would like to volunteer.

Types of Job Check Check

(x) (x)
Written work checker field trip coordinator
Word Processor Parent coordinator
Listen to students read Teacher assistant
Instructional material preparer others

Would you be willing to demonstrate your special talents? If so, please

describe__________________________________________________

If you would like to volunteer in the classroom as a teacher assistant, Chinese is required.