Status of Students

State Standards / ACTFL Standards

Ohio Early education Standard:

http://education.ohio.gov/getattachment/Topics/Early-Learning/Early-Learning-Content-Standards/Ohios-Kindergarten-Through-Grade-3-Learning-and-D/K-3-Standards.pdf.aspx

Domain: Social Emotional Development

• Demonstrate increased awareness of other’s feelings and perspectives.
• Demonstrate an understanding that another person’s feelings differ from one’s own thoughts.

Domain: Approaches Toward Learning

• Offers explanations about topics of interest.
• Begin to organize information or ideas into categories as a first step in reaching a goal or solving a problem.

Strand: Engagement and persistence

• Carry out tasks, activities, projects or experiences that are increasingly challenging.

Strand: Creativity

• Identify differences between problem types and adapt strategies based on the type of problem.

Content and Learning Objectives

Grammatical structure(s): 吗 Questions, 谁乖？为什么？因为……

Cultural perspectives: popular Chinese kid song; increased awareness of others feelings and perspective.

Objectives—As a result of this lesson/unit, students will be able to:

1. Performing the song of 小兔子乖乖
2. Understand the main concepts everyone has their own culture background. How do we be aware of others feelings. When facing bully or someone makes wrong choice what should we do?
3. Properly ask and answer 吗 questions, 谁乖？为什么？因为......; inquire and express  opinion.
4. Create own picture story of “小兔子乖乖” with the main characters labeled in Chinese pinyin and 3 simple Chinese sentences in pinyin (乖, 不乖, 因为 are used in the sentences.)

Materials Needed

Stuffed animals: wolf, bunny; candy, fake Chinese money

Pictures as visual signs: to show well-behaved, and misbehaved

Procedure

Activity and pre-assessment

(5m)

essential question

• Give an oral instruction about the objectives and activities
• Play the video clip of 小兔子乖乖 on YouTube
• Take a note to check around to see if students can sing and acting out the song
• Ask students to sing and act out the song while watching
• Ask: 如果狼不乖，我们怎么办？

Student behavior:

• Think about the answer to the essential question.

Group discussion led with teacher’s questions

(5-7m)

higher order thinking,

culture understanding,

teacher modeling inquire and express opinion.

Start the questions for ELL and beginner students:

1. Teacher holds the stuff animal of little rabbit to ask question: 这是小兔子吗？Pick a student from this group.  If this student gives an answer, then teacher will ask the whole class对吗？Teacher will pick another student who rises the hand to answer teacher’s吗 question. Give a thumb up and a fake Chinese penny as an award to the student who can answer the question correctly. Finish Mom rabbit and wolf with the same procedure.
2. Teacher holds the stuff animal of little rabbit and wolf to ask a question: 谁是小兔子? Same question pattern to other animals. Reward the students who gave a right answer with a fake Chinese penny.

The question is mainly for the students at Middle Performance level, but also open to the students at the beginner level and high performance level.

Teacher will ask:  In this story, 谁乖?

The questions for the students at the middle and high performance level

1. 谁不乖？
2. 为什么

The question for the students at high performance level:

如果（if） 狼不乖，怎么办？为什么？

Teacher will ask this essential question then pick a few students to give their answers.

Everyone comes from a very different culture background. How should we be aware of the culture differences and respect the others?

Student behavior:

• Students raise hands and answer questions.

To answer the question “谁不乖?” the student needs to make inference based on his or her own understanding.

Answer in various. If one student says, “狼不乖，因为它要吃小兔子。”. Teacher responds to student with the nature behavior of the animal.

If another student says, “狼走了，因为它 goes away and leaves 小兔子 alone”. Teacher will tell students how the bunny uses its problem solving skills to make the wolf go away.

When answering “为什么？”, the student needs to begin with 因为, but he/she can use English to reason at this proficiency level.

The principle is to apply the question: 如果狼不乖，我们怎么办？ (If you meet someone who bullies or misbehaves, what should you do?)

Try using the following phrases or structures:

可以/不可以。因为......

Interview

(5m)

inquire and express opinion.

• Demonstrates how to use the interview form
• Dives each student an interview form

Student behavior:

Circle time

(3m)

Apply to the school life

Demo: classify the classroom behaviors into 乖 and 不乖 groups.

• Teacher will write down a list of classroom behaviors on the whiteboard in the circle area before the class begins.
• Teacher will point to one item at the time on the list, and ask question. For example, Teacher points to the item “move around without permission” then ask “In the class, move around without any permission, 乖吗？” Pick the student who raises hand to give an answer. The right answer is “不乖。”. If this student answers correctly, he/she will be awarded a fake penny and teacher will put a mark of X as “不乖” in front of “Move around.” If the teacher points to “Raise hand before talking.”, the student should say “乖。”. The mark of √ for “乖”. Finish all the items of classroom behaviors.

Demo: ask and answer the question:

Teacher: 今天, 你乖吗？

Volunteer: 乖。

Teacher: 为什么？

Volunteer: 因为我注意听。

Student behavior:

• Participate in the activity, make own judgement, raise hand, and answer the questions.

Pair and individual work

(5m)

Students’ teamwork

Individual work

Pair work for inquiring and expression through categorizing class behaviors.

Individual work: self-reflection to assess each student’s own learning.

(5m)

Exit questions: 今天你乖吗？为什么？

Give candy to the student who has answered the question.

Find anything you did wrong before and provide reasons:

我乖 or 我不乖, 因为......。

Post Assessment/Evaluation

Homework

1. Perform the song of 小兔子乖乖 in front of the family members or friends.
2. Create own picture story of “小兔子乖乖” with the main characters labeled in Chinese pinyin and at least 3 simple Chinese sentences in pinyin (乖, 不乖, and 因为 are needed).

Lesson Plan Analysis

CULTURES STANDARD: Gain and use knowledge and understanding of other cultures. In this lesson, the students will understand the main concepts of culture awareness and enjoy the popular Chinese kids’ song, 小兔子乖乖.

To align to the school’s English Language Learners (ELL) student’s learning plan, the Chinese teacher uses a special individual instruction strategy for teaching. Incorporated tools include: video, music, picture, sign language, stuff animals, fake money/candy award, pair up with a buddy, short assignment, after class tutoring and use the parent/teacher as extra resource.

Philosophy and/or Rationale

Each student has the ability to learn Chinese, but his/her learning needs and ways might be very different. As a Chinese teacher, the primary teaching goal is to effectively teach all the students by using appropriate teaching methods, to instill in them a love of learning Chinese, to help them become life-long learners and successful members of society.

In this lesson, the teacher uses more student centered communicative instructions to meet a range of students’ needs and learning styles.

Teaching Methodology and Strategies

In the opening video clip of 小兔子乖乖 is used to catch students’ attention; through students’ singing with body movements, the students can effectively review the words and story. Teacher can do pre-assessment and use essential questions to engage the students into group discussion: the provocative question: “如果狼不乖，我们怎么办?” A well started lesson will help the class reach the goal.

Whole class discussion is led by the teacher’s questions. In this part, teacher focuses on inquiring and expression opinion. Teacher models how to ask the questions and answer the questions. Teacher’s questions start from 吗-questions to 谁-questions, then move to “为什么” questions. This strategy helps the students at different performance levels feel comfortable while communicating. Teacher also needs to inspire a higher order of thinking, and provide strong concepts of culture awareness.

The purpose of the interview activity is to give each student a chance to practice asking and answering the questions through the interview task.

Teacher uses Circle Time to:

1. Model the class on working together and classifying the classroom behaviors into 乖and 不乖 groups;
2. Give instructions to the students on how complete the worksheet individually and in pairs.

The purpose of Pair Work and Individual Work is to provide the students additional chances to apply what they have learned into their daily lives.

Use an exit question to check students understanding and provide candy as an award for passing.

Fake money/candy award is used as a positive incentive strategy to encourage participation, effort, and achievement. Each student can use the money to buy stuff from the class treasure box.

Special Focus and Features of the Plan

1. Embedding culture in language teaching is very important. Chinese culture is a part of language itself.
2. Asking the provocative question: “ 如果狼不乖，我们怎么办?” The provocative question challenges students to use higher order thinking skills to express their own opinions. The students make judgements based on their understanding of culture differences.
3. Authentic experiences: students watching video, singing/acting/performing the song, tasting candy, drawing pictures, getting money, holding/touching the stuff animals etc.
4. Differentiate instruction: Teacher asks questions targeted at the level of the student. To ensure ELL students to understand the concept the teacher should follow: (1) beginner level students: answer simple question first and give more time or clue if needed. (2) For the middle level: practice with application in new situations. (3) For higher level: teacher should give challenge questions, and let them lead discussion of “如果狼不乖，我们怎么办?” Also the teacher can give them chances to help others, like working with beginning/middle level students during the practice.
5. The best way to engage students is to find out their interests. It is much easier to work with students when they hold an interest in the subject being taught. Teacher should interact with students to see if they like cartoons, drawing, animal friends, food/candy and other activities. It is best to match instruction to students’ experiences.
6. Technology integration is another feature.

Suggestions for Users

Before this lesson, learn the song of 小兔子乖乖 with body movements. Also learn the basic words of the song through the game of charades. Also prepare two illustration papers for the new words. One for the word 怎么办, another for 如果 (if thumb up gets candy; if thumb down no candy).

During teaching, teacher is better to write down the questions in Pinyin on the board, to write the character 如果 (if) and 怎么办 (what to do?) with Pinyin and English meaning on the board. To show the illustration/sign language each time teacher should mention the word 如果 or 怎么办. For better understanding main concepts in culture differences, teacher might consider using English.

Teacher should be open-minded to understand there will be different level of performances in each group/class.

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