NWCS Fall 2013 – Week 01 – 09/14/2013
From: NWCS Principal <principal@nwcsny.org>
Date: 9/13/2013 7:29 PM
Hello everyone! Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful summer break!
Last Saturday, September 7th, our board members and teachers met to discuss and prepare for the upcoming school year. One of the main topics discussed was the need to add conversation to the curriculum.
Ms. Fei Wen Chen, our 2B and Adult Chinese Conversation class teacher, who also teaches Chinese at a regular high school during the week, has been working with the Dean and other teachers to develop a set of conversation guidelines for each class. The guidelines include conversation scenarios for each grade. This is in response to much of the feedback we have heard from you. Your input is what drives this change. I am very excited that we are going to integrate more conversation into our curriculum and I hope you are too. J
I would also like to share a story with you. My twins are moving up to the 7th grade this year, and over the summer, the Chinese homework included reading 7 short stories and answering 3 questions for each story. It was not easy for them, but they tried (constant whining) by using the dictionary to look up the words and phrases. Boy, the stories I can tell you about this experience … but not today. So one day we came across this phrase “開始 kāi shi3”. Out of habit, I said to them, “Look it up if you don’t know”. To my surprise, one of my twins said “I know, I know, it means BEGIN”. I was ecstatic and said “VERY GOOD, you remembered that from the lessons??” He said “Well, not exactly …” then he proceeds to tell me “ … our teacher always said yi1, er4, san, kāi shi3, and at first I didn’t know what she was counting, but it was always before she gives us the quizzes, so by the 6th or 7th week (almost half of the semester, I might add), I kinda figured it out all by myself (you should see the proud grin on his face) that it means one, two, three, BEGIN!” Of course then he stood up and bowed like he won the nobel prize (sadly to say, it actually felt like he did). My other twin sat there and looked at his brother like he was some kind of genius. In any case, the moral of the story is…kids will learn if we consistently “repeat” it. It is not about quantity, it is about quality … That said, let’s get ready to learn some quality Chinese … let’s learn to write Chinese, Read Chinese and SPEAK Chinese.
Parents and students, please be at the school auditorium by 8:45 for our school assembly … You will meet our new board chairman, Mr. Calvin Chin and your teachers.
New Parents, a warm welcome to you all! We will have a New Parents Orientation next week. More details to follow.
If you have any questions about the classes, please see our Dean and Registrar.
