Dear all, 

Megan from our 6th grade class traveled with her family to China during summer vacation. She wrote down her travel notes and shared with us in the attached essay. Her Chinese character writing is excellent. All 5th graders and above should be able to read her essay so I am not attaching an English translation. However, if you cannot, please come to me or any teacher and we will be happy to read out for you. Then we will give you more homework to make sure you catch up!

Great job, Megan! Please keep writing. All others who wish to share their journals and essays with the school, please send them to me for publishing. 

Your Principal,
Yuan-Chi Chang 張元極

Here is the introduction from Megan’s dad, Mr. Calvin Chin. 

We know how important to learn Chinese well in a rigorous and encouraging environment which our school, NWCS, clearly is.  For 5 years we have seen how our girls have taken this responsibility seriously for five grades and also adding traditional dance with Wen Lin Murray.  The girls did a good job of speaking Chinese in Beijing and strangers commented how nice the girls’ pronunciations were.  Beforehand, we were excited and anxious about the trip not knowing how well prepared we were as a family.  We got by and enjoyed seeing the girls speak Chinese on many occasions.  It is small steps to making the girls feel comfortable speaking although most people don’t have to travel so far to practice.  I know that being in China, we were all forced to communicate in zhong wen which helps us all achieve our common goal – to speak Chinese well.

http://www.nwcsny.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/MeganChinaEssay.pdf