7 徐晓霞

A (a). CONTEXT:

Editing an Article for the Ecological Anthropology Magazine

(For this issue’s magazine, there will be article to introduce a photograph book-China’s 56 Ethnic Minority Groups, Cheng Haiwen (2008) and further discuss the relationship between human life and nature. However, there have been some technology problems; the original article has lost some important data. The students will investigate the four minority groups in the picture and recover the report.)

B. CULTURE LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. Students will be able to identify the four ethnic minority groups and exchange the information;

2. Students will be able to hypothesize the geographic information of the regions these four

minority groups resident in and present their hypothesis and provide supporting evidences;

3. Students will able to locate the residential regions for the four minority groups on the

map;

4. Students will be able to work out the increase rate of the ethnic population and present it and interpret the information related in the written form;

5. Students will able to conduct an oral report including the information about the ethnic

minority population.

6. Student will be able to understand how nature environment has impact every aspect of human

lives and society;

7. Students will be able to illustrate the relationship between human and nature;

C. LANGUAGE LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1. Students will be able to use the inverted sentence pattern “我之所以认为……是因为……”to explain reasons or providing supporting points for the statement.

2. Students will be able to recognize and use the vocabulary 地形 (landforms), 地势

(topography), 海拔 (altitude), 气候 (climate), 降水量 (rainfall precipitation) and 生产生活方式 (means of livelihood) to exchange the information related to the photos;

3. Student will be able to recognize and use the words related to lifestyle/ livelihood, such as

raise livestock, fishing, farming, hunting and handcrafting.

4. Students will be able to appreciate the diversity of China through the diversity ethnic

minority groups.

2. Map of China

3. Photograph book-China’s 56 ethnic Minority Groups, Cheng Haiwen (2008)

4. Imagines of ethnic group: Tai, Jing, Tibetan and Mengol

5. Magic box

6. YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP84aBvNrOk

7. Attached Supplementary Materials

1. Class beginning routine:

The teacher will say “上课” (class begins), and students will stand up and say “老师好” (hello teacher). The teacher responds to the students and both of them bow to salute to each other.

2. Intro Game: Picture Puzzle (Attached supplementary material 1- Picture Puzzle)

The class will be divided into four groups and each group will be working on solve one picture puzzle. The pictures used in this activity are adapted from the photograph book China’s 56 Ethnic Minority Groups. The puzzle game will be a group competition; students will be displaying their picture on the board when it’s done.

(The four pictures will be used for the latter activities and the ethnic groups in those four pictures are from north, south, east and west part of China.)

B. INPUT/ENGAGING LEARNERS:

1. 10000 Words for One Picture- Brainstorm the Clues of the Pictures

Based on the previous group tasks, each group will have one picture to work with for the further investigation. Each group will get an investigation worksheet, and students will brainstorm the key words for each categories.

1) The teacher will use supporting visuals to conduct the comprehensive input for the following category title words: 地形 (landforms), 地势 (topography), 海拔 (altitude), 气候 (climate), 降水量 (rainfall precipitation) and 生产生活方式 (means of livelihood).

2) Students will work in groups to discuss the clues of picture (clothes, tools, housing/dwelling) and fill the keywords into each category in Chinese. For the new words students don’t know, students need to use the dictionary to find out. And these new words will be introduced in the following phase.

2. Learning the new vocabulary related to the investigation in the group

The students in each group will use the dictionary to find out the unknown Chinese words. Each student will be responsible to work out at least 2 words and introduce them to the group. The teacher will float around the classroom and facilitate the groups’ investigation and provide language help for each group.

3. Sharing the hypothesis with class and conduct an investigation profile for class

Students in each group will share their hypothesis of their investigation orally in class, and teacher will record their answers on the big chart in the classroom as the investigation profile for the whole class. At this time, the whole class will learn the new vocabulary from other groups and add it to the word list.

C. GUIDED PRACTICE:

1. Answer to the Magic Box- Explain your hypothesis and provide supporting evidences

The teacher will prepare questions related to the investigations and put the questions on the magic box. Then each group will take turns to draw one question out of jar and respond to it.

1) The teacher will present the questions to the class before put them in the magic box and present the large image in class as well. The students will preview the questions they are going to encounter later.

The questions are:

a. 你认为该民族的居住地形是什么？为什么？

What landforms do you think it’s common in the residential regions of this minority group? Why?

b. 你认为该民族聚居地的气候特点是什么？为什么？

What are the climate features in the residential regions of this minority group? Why?

c. 你认为该民族聚居地的降水特征是什么？ 为什么？

What are the features of the rainfall precipitation in the residential regions of this minority group? Why?

d. 你认为该民族聚居地的地势特征是什么？

What are the features of the topography in the residential regions of this minority group? Why?

e. 你认为该民族的住房特点是什么？为什么？

What are the features of the housing/dwelling of this minority group? Why?

f. 你认为该民族的服装特点是什么？为什么?

What are the features of the clothing of this minority group? Why?

g. 你认为该民族的主要生产生活特点是什么？为什么？

What are the possible means of livelihood of this minority group? Why?

2) The teacher will provide modeling first. The teacher will draw a question out of the magic box and use the inverted sentence pattern “我之所以认为……是因为……” (The reason why…… is because ……).

3) The groups will take turns to respond to teacher’s questions based on their investigation and the evidence from the picture.

2. Recovering the geographic information for the photographs

Students will work on the worksheet attached to match the title and background information with the photos. Then students will locate the residential regions of these 4 ethnic minority groups on the map.

D. INDEPENDENT PRACTICE:

1. Jigsaw Activity- Mystery Minority Group

Students will be divided into different home groups; each of the members is responsible to bring back one piece of important information about the mystery minority group their group got. Based on the information gather by each group member, students will work in groups to figure out what minority groups they have got.

1) The class (12 students) will be divided into 3 home groups; each group will get a Mystery Minority Group in the envelope (See Attachment 4);

2) The groups will assign task for each member: one member will be responsible to find out the geographic information of the Mystery Minority Group’s residential regions; one member will be responsible to find out the climate information of the Mystery Minority Group residential regions; one member will be responsible to find out the livelihood information of the Mystery Minority Group’s residential regions; and one member will be responsible to find out the clothing/housing information of the Mystery Minority Group’s residential regions.

3) Each member goes to the expert station to find out information about their assigned tasks. There are 4 expert stations-geographic, climate, livelihood and clothing/housing. The information will be presented in the written form (both in Pinyin and character), students need to read the information and take notes for the key information.

4) Students go back to the home group and share the information they got;

5) Each group takes notes for the information of the Mystery Minority Group;

6) Each group comprehensively analysis all the information and elicit the Mystery Minority Group they got.

2. Report on the Mystery Minority Group

Students will report their Mystery Minority Group to the class orally; the report should include the following information: geographic features, climate, livelihood, clothing and housing.

E. CLOSURE:

1. The teacher will give out the homework (please see the details below);

2. The class will watch the video for the photograph book- China’s 56 Ethnic Minority Groups, Cheng Haiwen (2008).Students will have opportunity to explore other ethnic minority groups in China.

F. HOMEWORK:

For the homework, students will choose one ethnic minority group they are interested in and write a report about it. The report should include the information as follows:

1) The residential areas of this ethnic minority group;

2) The geographic information in the region;

3) The climate in the region;

4) The livelihood of the ethnic minority group;

5) The feature of their clothing and housing.

1. Answer to the Magic Box

This task is designed to assess if students have grasped the new vocabulary and are able to explain their hypothesis and provide supporting evidences.

2. Worksheet-Recovering the geographic information for the photographs

The worksheet is designed to assess if students are able to synthesize the geographic information of minority groups and apply it to locate their residential regions.

3. Jigsaw Activity- Mystery Minority Group

This activity is designed to assess if students can interpret the information from the expect station and present it to others in the home group.

B. SUMMATIVE: The Report on Mystery Minority Group

This task integrates all the new language functions and content in this lesson. In order to conduct the report, students need to know and be able to present the information as follows: the residential areas of ethnic minority group, the geographic information in the region, the climate in the region, the livelihood of the ethnic minority group and the feature of their clothing and housing.

The related language background:

1) Students have the basic knowledge of ethnic minority groups in China and its diversity;

2) Students are able to identify 7 main regions of China on the map;

3) Students are able to exchange information related to clothing, weather and housing.

Learner Description

This lesson plan is structured for high school Chinese III students (Grade 9, 10). The class size is twelve students with two years’ experience of learning Chinese. The class meets four times a week for 50 minutes.

According to the ACTFL proficiency guideline, students’ proficiency levels range from Novice High to Intermediate Low.

The related language background:

1) Students are able to inquire and respond to the information related to what, how many, where, why and how; 2) Students have learned the numbers below 10,000, ordinal numbers, expression of degree; 3) Students understand the geographic feature of China and are able to identify seven main regions of China on the map; 4) Students are able to exchange information related to clothing, weather and housing.

Rationale

This unit is meant to explore the diverse ethnic minority in China:

First, it is important to introduce the diversity of ethnic groups that reside in China. This will help prevent the stereotyping of the majority Han culture among students. Han culture has been the dominate focus of Chinese student learning up to this point. However, as a nation which includes 56 different ethnic minority groups, students do not develop a comprehensive understanding of Chinese culture. It is important for them to explore the diverse culture of the other 56 ethnic minority groups.

Secondly, the current textbooks draw little attention to this topic. However, the ethnic minority groups as a topic is mentioned in the media from time to time. Students and parents find this very interesting and often raise questions on this topic. Interests and curiosities are an important driver in the development of this unit.

Thirdly, as a teacher it is wonderful to introduce our diverse culture to students of different backgrounds. Especially in today’s fast paced world where many traditions and ancient culture has become a second thought. Many ethnic minorities need support to keep their traditional culture alive.

In the this unit, students will explore diverse ethnic minority groups in China including the population proportion, inhabited regions, geographic features, lifestyles/livelihood, dwelling environments, clothes/customs , music and ethnic cultures. Four ethnic minority groups (Mongol, Dai, Tibetan and Jing) will be the main focus.

The unit is designed to connect with the following content areas: Math, Social Study (Geography and Anthropology), Language Arts, Science, Music and Art. Each content area is interrelated and co-developed with students’ language competence. As a sustainable topic, this unit could be further developed corresponding to students’ language proficiency and cognitive development. Some possible areas to be further developed are: the impact of modernization to the ethnic minority cultures, the history of ethnic minority groups and the changes of government policy towards ethnic minority groups.

Post Assessment/Evaluation

Stage 1 What students should know and be able to do

Post Assessment/Evaluation

Stage 2 How students will demonstrate what they know and can do: Performance-based Assessment