Chinese New Year

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

This forum’s getting active!

Alright, so how the fark do you teach ‘Chinese New Year’ to (low english ability) kindy kids for 2 or 3 lessons. Haven’t had much time and have got til Monday to think of something. So far all I’ve come up with is ‘Happy New Year’, ‘red envelope’ and singing Abba. I can’t even think of a good English way of saying those red ‘good fortune sayings’ things you stick on the doors.

Any brilliant (or at least halfway workable) ideas?

Two stars and an ice-cream cone for the best suggestion.

Bri

2

I asked my partner to write an appropriate English greeting, for me to write on the Chinese New Year greeting cards. He suggested

“Happy Black Horse New Year”

As for the rest, I am in the same boat as BuLaiEnl

3

Try a task-based lesson.
Even if they’re low or pre-beginners, they should have a good time brainstorming ideas and you should have no trouble eliciting words associated with Chinese New Year.

ie>
candy, money, red, horse (year of), firecracker, family, sing songs “gongxi gongxi gongxi ni”, happy time, holiday, fun, fish, rice, soup, etc etc…then you could, after getting the words on the board (draw pictures if they can’t read),
sort the words.

1.what do you eat for chinese new year? (prosody or ‘body language’ helps if they don’t understand ‘eat’)

chicken, duck, fish, rice, new year cake, candy…

2.what do you do?

i get money! i watch tv! i visit my grandma! i play computer games! i go to SOGO! i watch my mommy and daddy play mahjongg!

  1. who do you see? i see my auntie! i see my big uncle!..

  2. where do you go? i go to hsin chu! i go to the countryside! …

  3. what do you LIKE? i like the money! i like the candy!

yadiyadiya…

then maybe as a participatory activity, you could get them to make a story together about something that happens during chinese new year. ie> the crazy auntie comes to visit>what happens? get them to tell the story together, if possible.

or

get them to talk/write about what they want to buy with their hong baos. if they can’t talk well, or write, get them to draw pictures.

then…put the pictures/stories around the classroom for show and tell time.

ya know?

4

oh, and the red banner idea you mentioned could be fun to do too.

If they write, get them to write something nice and lucky in English. Just go out and buy the red strips of paper (cheap!) and then you could put those around the class afterwards and have them talk about them too.

you could preteach them some words/lexis like lucky, good luck to…, wishing you…, may your new year…, spring has sprung, joy and happiness always…etc. again, if they can’t read, have them draw pics on the red banners.

Here’s wishing you and yours the happiest of New Years!

5

Thanks Alien. I did a little thinking aboiut it and managed to come up with a bit too.

The ‘what do you do at Chinese New Year?’ idea is good. I did that for Moon Festival and it worked well.

I also thought of going through all the 12 animals.

I thought about getting some red envelopes with fake money and teaching them to count in hundreds, but I’m not sure I wanto
to teach them to be so greedy I’m sure they’d love it though.

Bri

6
quote:
I'm not sure I wanto to teach them to be so greedy

Do you think a thing like ‘greed’ can be taught in one class? I used to love Monopoly, but I wouldn’t say I’m materialistic, unless it comes to plastic water bottles. hoard hoard hoard…