Avenues World School Chinese Immersion Program

Angela Xu - Chinese Immersion CoordinatorYibo Lu - Chinese Literacy SpecialistJenny Guo - Head Teacher Grade 1Ying Tso - Head Teacher Grade 2

Yingwen Chen - Head Teacher Grade 3

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1st grade daily schedule 3rd grade daily schedule

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● 世界课

食物

房子

水

中餐

西餐

中国菜和美国菜有什么一样，又有什么不一样？

食物从哪里来？

动植物

地方

餐具

地理 I（五大洋、七大洲）

地理 II（旅游、各地文化）

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10+0

Assessment & Book Project

- Assessment: Listening & Speaking, Reading, Writing: 3 times a year (except for writing: twice a year) Listening & Speaking: Answer questions (interview)● Level 1 - 6: k - 5th grade (124 questions)● Difficulties spiral up Reading: (1) Read books aloud and answer comprehension questions (2) Character recognition (high frequency words) ● Read two books with an accuracy above 95%, comprehension 4 and fluency 2● Level 1 - 6: k - 5th grade (500 words)● Difficulties spiral up

Assessment

Assessment

Listening & Speaking Samples

Assessment

Character Recognition Samples

Book Project

Why did we start to create books?

- lack of resources designed for immersion setting and books with levels, especially for assessment

How does it work?- Combine existing western system (F&P) + the uniqueness of Chinese language

What makes our book project unique?

- Writing, Illustrating & Editing team: composed of teachers ALL from Avenues

Book Project

What makes our book project unique?

Writing: - Genres/topics: fiction, nonfiction and world course topics

- Difficulties spiral up

- Culture awareness

- Extra support for more target learners

Book Project

What makes our book project unique?

Illustrating: - various ways to present images

● Photos 《我喜欢动物》

● Watercolor 《看和听》

● Computer 《我的玩具》

● Paper cutting & crayons 《天气》

● White-out 《星星》

Book Project

What makes our book project unique?

Editing:

- In-design

- Running records: adding taking-note part

Students’ Improvement

First Grade Pinyin Project

Why did we decide to have the pinyin project?

- lack of data to show when it is the best time to introduce pinyin in Chinese immersion programs- no research has shown if learning pinyin will delay students’ progress in learning Chinese characters-no research has shown if learning pinyin will confuse students in terms of English letters learning

Database: 4 classes in 1st grade, 73 students

Pinyin groups VS Non-pinyin groups

4 phases (pinyin groups): Phase 1: introduce pinyin letters Phase 2: introduce vocabulary in pinyin Phase 3: read sentences and stories Phase 4: Chinese characters + pinyin

How does it work?

Learning Pinyin will

● Increase the accuracy of tones

● Increase the accuracy of reading

● Increase the fluency of writing

Hypothesis

pinyin VS characters

Assessments

● Listening & Speaking

● Reading & writing

Results & Future research

● We will continue this pinyin project next school year (2017-2018) in order to increase our database.

http://www.avenues.org/en/careers/

Chinese Opening Positions:● Head Teacher - Chinese (Grades 1-5) ● Associate Teacher - Kindergarten ● Avenues Interim Masters - Chinese

Wechat: Avenues2012

Q & A

Thank you !