From: NWCS Principal <principal@nwcsny.org>
Date: 5/30/2014 8:19 PM

From: NWCS Principal <principal@nwcsny.org>
Date: 5/16/2014 9:13 PM

From: NWCS Principal <principal@nwcsny.org>
Date: 5/9/2014 9:27 PM

From: NWCS Principal Date: 4/25/2014 9:33 PM

Welcome back! I hope that everyone enjoyed their Spring break and is ready to continue learning Chinese. I have to admit, I did enjoy a family night out on a Friday night for a change … Our twins were like “Wow! So this is what other kids feel like on a Friday night? Unlike us, always having to do Chinese homework while other kids are out having a good time…”. To that I said “Wow! So this is how other moms feel on a Friday night? Unlike me, always have to be sitting next to my two 13 year olds to help them with their Chinese homework… unlike other moms with 13 years old kids who know how to do their own homework while the moms are out having a GREAT time!”

One parent mentioned to me that the communication in our school seems to be mostly in English. She felt that since we are a Chinese School that we should communicate in Chinese. I couldn’t agree with her more, but the idea of communications is to ensure that we can share what we want with others. As we have more and more non Chinese speaking families, we tend to use English more and more … That said, her question made me start to think, … (uh oh!) these past couple of weeks. How do we strike a balance, so that we can continue to communicate in Chinese and reach the same audience at the same time. Then I remembered more than 5 years ago when I was the Secretary of our school, I used to write the weekly message in English and in CHINESE! I went through my archives to look for them … I will try in the future, to use that format again! While looking through the archives, it brought back a lot of memories of how I used to spend time looking for an appropriate proverb in Chinese to translate to English or vice versa. Ah Ha! Here comes another light bulb!

Our high school grade students are faced with the challenge of managing the busy curriculum in the regular school while still completing the Chinese School homework, not to mention all the sport activities on the weekend. And we have heard from many people that our students need the opportunity to use the language … it would be great if our kids can use the words they learned over the years in real life …

So here is an idea that I am planning to bounce off our teachers and board members … our 10th, 11th and 12th graders will be in one class…the NWCS School News Team. We will have a Chief Editor, Chief Editor Assistant … not sure what other titles there will be… from the 11th and 12th graders. Our 10th graders will have the roles of the School News Team Reporters. The NWCS School NWCS team will need to create, design and produce one Chinese School Year Book by December. And that’s not all! For each month from September to June they will produce a monthly newsletter on all topics (appropriate topics). This team will require everyone to speak, listen and write in Chinese, while showing off their creativity. Yes, there will be a teacher monitoring and guiding the class, and she or he will only speak Chinese in the class.

I really love this idea! Gotta think about it some more … but first, I need to go sit next to my twins to help them with their Chinese homework again. After all, it is Friday night!

Last but not least, due to Spring break, we are changing the contest date to either May 10th or 17th! I will confirm by mid-week next week. Too many school events and we need to make sure that it does not interfere with our activities. One correction: I kept on saying that it is a writing contest. A teacher corrected me that it is more like a word recognition contest. You need to be able to put the word in a phrase, and know the meaning. For example, on a powerpoint slide, you will see a word, “ 老” lao3, you have to say a phrase like “老虎” and translate it “tiger”. If you don’t know the word, you can pass. After the time limit, the judge will record how many phrases you answered correctly. Ok?

See you all tomorrow! Classes start at 9am sharp! Please be on time.

——————————————————-
李宜蓉 Eileen Y. Lee
北威校長 NWCS Principal, 2009-2014
——————————————————-
GO NWCS!!!! Visit www.nwcsny.org
or email LearnChinese@nwcsny.org

From: NWCS Principal Date: 4/11/2014 7:32 PM

I hope that everyone enjoyed the warmer weather this week. Although it was still a little cool in the morning, it was actually quite nice during the day … I almost forgot what a crowded street looked like … it had been empty for so long with all the snow that we had. Ahhh, it is all in past … let’s hope that the weather continues to get better and better!

I decided to give my class an open book quiz. My twins said “Man, I wish I had an open book quiz too!” I said you can open your tablet, your book, your dictionary, your whatever … but if you did not pay attention in class, it would not matter. Open book will only be easy for those who studied.

One of my 1B/Intro to Chinese Language class students, who happens to be Russian, told me she had a chance to speak Chinese during the week in her regular school. She said she had a substitute teacher in one of her classes, who was Chinese, and she went up to the teacher and said “I know how to speak Chinese!” The substitute teacher looked at her… not sure if she was kidding … My student said “Talk to me in Chinese then, if you don’t believe me!” I was getting nervous listening to her telling me the story, but at the same time so proud of her confidence. The substitute teacher said “你叫什麼名字？” I said to myself “YES YES YES, we practice that like every week in class, my student answered “我叫何娟娟”. She nailed it! I was beaming I am sure … I asked as soon as she finished saying her name in Chinese “What did your teacher say?” She did a famous Home Alone (movie) kid look, with two hands covering both cheeks, with a mouth open so wide … a shocking look … needless to say I was on cloud 9. She continued (there is more?) to tell me that the teacher then asked “你幾歲? “ and she answered “我十歲!” Now I put both hands up to my chin and did the Home Alone kid look too “Oh my goodness, I am so proud … but don’t forget to use the 2nd tone not the 4th tone for number 10, you are 10 years old, you don’t want people to think you are 4 years old”. The whole class was laughing but they understand the importance of the tones! I then asked her “Did you happen to tell her where you learned to speak Chinese?“ (I just can’t help myself) She said “Oh I forgot! I only told her that I go to Chinese school every Saturday!”. Oh well, maybe next time she will remember the name of our school.

Remember too, our Chinese Language Contest is coming soon. Originally we scheduled it for April 26, but it might conflict with some other activities, so it might be rescheduled to the following Saturday to give us all more time to practice! I will keep everyone posted. The lower grades will be a speaking contest and the higher grades will be a writing contest.

I know that some families might be traveling during the Spring break so I hope that everyone has a safe and wonderful break! As for my family, it is all about baseball! So much so, that this year my twins are both on 2 teams and my husband is the coach on both teams. Whoo hooo, I just can’t wait to go sit at game after game with all of my free time!

Speaking of sports … the Spring sports are gearing up and some parents have approached me and expressed the challenge of trying to accomplish both! This is a recurring theme every year and we, as parents, are all going through the same dilemma. Don’t worry, the school will work with you to come up with a solution that works for both. Remember, where there is a will, there is a way! So communicate with your teachers, and I am sure by working together, we can come to a workable arrangement.

See you all tomorrow! Classes started at 9am sharp. Please be on time.
——————————————————-
李宜蓉 Eileen Y. Lee
北威校長 NWCS Principal, 2009-2014
——————————————————-
GO NWCS!!!! Visit www.nwcsny.org
or email LearnChinese@nwcsny.org

From: NWCS Principal

Date: 3/21/2014 9:47 AM

Spring is here! Spring is here! The snow is finally beginning to melt, so it is no longer icy white everywhere. You can actually see some green (or almost green, more like yellowish green) coming out of the ground! I am sure all of you welcome the warmer temperatures (like above freezing would be good) and it is finally here and hopefully it will stay for a while … however, my gang is planning to go skiing this weekend.

So what do we have for this Saturday? Teacher Parent Meeting is scheduled on our calendar. Please communicate with your teachers if you, or the teacher, are not able to meet this Saturday. Communication between the teachers and parents should be ongoing, so don’t wait until the scheduled Teacher Parent Meeting day. We scheduled it as a reminder to all. If you need some private time, please reach out to the teacher. I am sure it can be arranged.

One of the mothers in my class sent me a note saying her son wants to know if he has the homework pages correctly. I was so impressed that he actually asked for the homework, as it does not happen often in the Thomas house. Then the mom said he wants to finish it so he can have his game privileges…. A light bulb went on in my head (happens a lot with me by the way) and that is we need to be POSITIVE. My husband and I have been doing the opposite, “… you don’t finish this, you are going to lose that …” when we should be saying, “… you do this, and you will earn that … and what you earn is a PRIVILEGE, so cherish it with your LIFE”. Well, maybe not the last part …

I always love to hear parents’ experiences because I learn so much from everyone. A mom told me a while ago that when they first started Chinese School, she had to fight and argue with her daughter EVERYDAY, when her daughter came home from Kindergarten during the week. After snack, she had to force her to sit at the table to do her Chinese homework for 15 minutes. (Sound familiar, parents?) After about 3 weeks … one day she was about to yell at her daughter to wrap up the snack because she thought her daughter was prolonging the snack time … when she got to the dining table, there her daughter was, already had her Chinese homework out and actually was 5 minutes into it … WITHOUT the mom’s LOUD reminder. When she was telling me the story, I thought I saw something sparkly in her eyes, or maybe it was my imagination or maybe it was actually me who had tears in my eyes. THERE IS HOPE FOR OUR CHILDREN! All kidding aside, what I learned from this story is to “be consistent” and it will work. I mean, what parents enjoy yelling and screaming at their kids (ummm … uh … sigh … never mind), but the kids fight you because they are hoping you will give in, and many of us do. However if you stick to your position for a little bit, they will understand mommy and daddy mean business! That said, parents, we need to support each other while traveling down this Chinese Learning journey. We can do it! We can do it!

Our Dean is working on our Spring speech and writing contest rules and we will share with everyone shortly. The contest is going to be at the end of April. So have your kids start practicing their pronunciations and tones (for the lower grades) and writing, grammars, sentence structures (for the higher graders)! So stay tuned!

Order your lunch here so you do not have to cook and have more time to enjoy the beautiful weather!

See you all tomorrow! Classes start at 9am sharp. Please be on time (including the Principal, wink wink)

——————————————————-
李宜蓉 Eileen Y. Lee
北威校長 NWCS Principal, 2009-2014
——————————————————-
GO NWCS!!!! Visit www.nwcsny.org
or email LearnChinese@nwcsny.org

From: NWCS Principal Date: 3/14/2014 9:59 PM

Hi Everyone,
So tomorrow is going to be a beautiful day! I hope you are ready to learn Chinese ….

Last Saturday we had our monthly board meeting. Many important topics were discussed, among them the marketing of our school was a top priority. We welcome you to share your ideas with us.

Originally we had a seminar scheduled for tomorrow but we had to cancel due to the sponsor’s travel plan. We are working to reschedule and will keep you posted.

Next Saturday, 3/22 is the Parent Teacher Conference. Come chat with your teachers and together we can work as a team to continue to make our school a great place for our kids to learn Chinese.

I always have to help my twins with their Chinese homework, especially the sentence portion. Trying to get them to use the right sentence structure is like pulling teeth. They don’t understand the importance of understanding the grammar. Recently they did their sentence homework on their own and in record speed too. I took one look at the sentences and the proud looks on their faces. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. I told them the sentences don’t make any sense. They said, “Of course they do, we wrote them in Chinese!”.

I went into my home office and wrote something and handed it to them and said, your friend called about the concert for next week. They read it and looked at me, and read the note again. I overheard one talking to the other…He said, “What the heck does it say?” I said, “What is the matter?” They said to me, “Come on Mom, what is this? It does not make any sense.” I said, “Of course it does, I wrote it in English. ” They rolled their eyes while I read the note, “I hear say music party people mountain people sea. No more seat. If you want to see, only standing see. Please tell me you want leave or standing see.”

I have to admit, I started laughing while reading half way through, which annoyed the twins even more.

I told them, knowing the words is only half of the learning process. Knowing how to use the words properly is just as important. I told them the note says “I heard the concert is going to have a huge crowd. There are no more seats available. If you still want to go, it is standing room only. So you need to decide if you still want to go.” And …. your so called sentences sound just like the note. They said they used Google translate …. I told them Google translate is to help, but not construct the whole sentence. That requires knowledge that they are learning at the Chinese School. Back to the desk they go… Sigh!

See you tomorrow! Classes start at 9am sharp. Please be on time.

——————————————————-
李宜蓉 Eileen Y. Lee
北威校長 NWCS Principal, 2009-2014
——————————————————-
GO NWCS!!!! Visit www.nwcsny.org
or email LearnChinese@nwcsny.org