A nice report from Diane:
Hi all,
Just wanted to share how happy I am with the trip I just took with my 8th graders (oldest students in their fourth year with me in Chinese). We traveled to San Francisco Feb. 24-28, 2014. We’d go to China if there was more time and a bigger budget – SF is the most Chinese city in North America in a lot of ways. It’s a good first immersion-like experience for them. We do a lot of great activities in Chinatown, myself & another Mandarin-speaking chaperone essentially only speak in Mandarin with them, and they are encouraged to speak as much as they will in Chinese. No English allowed at meal times (no requirement to speak). We also hit the big sites all tourists go to SF for – Fisherman’s Wharf, Lombard Street, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge.
This is with a class that has, more so last school year, been difficult to manage and was quite hard to transition to CI instruction. Boy, they did a great job on the whole, and enjoyed themselves thoroughly along the way. I could see and hear their language improvement – just having lots more time to hear Chinese from me & the other Mandarin-speaking chaperone – and their willingness to speak and respond in Chinese. Comparing them to the previous year’s group, which had about one year plus of CI teaching, and these kids with two years plus of CI teaching, I can sense a difference, especially for the kids who bought into CI right away last school year. The ones who didn’t want to play the game lag behind them.
I’m really looking forward to next year’s group on this trip – enthusiastic kids who will have had over 3 years of CI teaching by then. They’ve already mostly exceeded the kids I’ve taught for 4 years as it is now.
