Anyhow, fast forward to this semester, where I have a new batch of students to teach (I teach half of the Lower School -- PK3 - 5th grade--students the first semester, and the other half the second semester, which began at the beginning of January). I had spent about three weeks last semester teaching Pinyin to my students at the beginning of the class, but realized that it was a mostly wasted effort, because there was almost no retention, and students didn't ever use their pinyin initials sheet and pinyin finals sheet as pronunciation guides again.
This semester, I decided not to use precious class time to focus on learning proper Pinyin. It's not that I think it's not important (it is important) but that I think it can be learned without spending a lot of classtime on it. However, the videos provide a perfect way for students to still learn...from someone else...and thus expanding the class beyond the walls of the classroom! I assigned videos from Chinese With Mike as part of my classes! I have given my 4th and 5th graders homework – to watch his Chapter 2 (pinyin initials) video, and fill out a pinyin initials pronunciation guide. I asked my fourth graders for feedback—and they said you Mike Laoshi was very entertaining, really enjoyed watching his video! In fact, several students asked if they would be assigned more of your videos to watch for homework. When I said “yes,” I saw several fistpumps followed by “YES!” I played Chapter 2 in the class for the students that didn’t have a chance to see his video yet, and the class began repeating the pinyin sounds along with the video, and even said it louder when Mike Laoshi said “I can’t hear you…” ;-) (though one of them commented that there’s no way you’d be able to hear them anyhow…LOL)
The fifth graders who watched the video really enjoyed it too! ! I only got pushback from one student last week who complained that a 10 minute video was too long. <sigh> The video game generation…attention spans that have a hard time lasting 10 minutes…Funny though--he might have complained, but then did admit that he had watched the video after all! So he was able to sit through a WHOLE 10 minutes and watch Mike Laoshi's video after all! I think 10 minutes is a perfect length for video lessons, by the way. And…I’ve shown his video to the 3rd grade class as well. We’ll see how they respond to my pinyin assignment. I’m anticipating a few “I don’t get it…what am I supposed to do?” questions. We’ll see… Later on in the semester, I will plan on showing some of my photos from China—and now that my 4th and 5th graders know Mike Laoshi's videos, I’ll show them the photos I had taken with Mike Laoshi in China! The students think he's kind of a celebrity now. Not quite rock star status…yet but give it time! ;-)