I realized tha I needed to start the school year with all of my students with the immersion classroom. I needed to set the expectations at the outset. I also needed to be creative and not "cave in" and revert to English whenever I had a challenge, like explaining a task or more complicated concept.
Enter the beginning of school! I teach every grade level in the Lower (PreK & Elementary) School. My first class was teaching PreK 3s. None of these students have had Chinese before...and they are only 3 years old. I knew I had to use a lot of body language and very simple commands in order for them to understand. By the end of class, I was out of breath, and felt as if I had been in an aerobics class for the last half hour. However, I felt as if I had succeeded in staying in the target language about 90% of the time. The only time I talked in English was to encourage a particularly stubborn young lady to participate. I taught classroom rules with a song, from a book called "Let's sing Mandarin, Book 1" by Xiong Huali. It is a great song to teach 3 basic classroom rules--sit properly (坐好 zuo hao), be quiet (安靜 an jing), and raise your hand(舉手 ju shou). We sang the song and practiced doing and saying the movements. By the way, you can purchase your own copies of "Let's Learn Mandarin" from www.Childbook.com.
After the class of 3 year old students, I since have taught every grade level one time this week. I was particularly impressed with my kindergarten and 1st grade classes. They listened, observed, and followed directions. I had taught most of the students last year, but there were new students in every class, who were quick to pick up on what they needed to say and do! I think I was pretty successful in teaching both of these classes with up to 90% target language (目標語 --mu biao yu).
My 2nd and 3rd grade classes were also quite successful with using Chinese in for about 80-90% of the time. My essential question for all my classes 2nd grade and up was: "Why are we speaking only Chinese in Chinese class?". They all cincluded that it made sense to speak
Chinese in Chinese class, and that they would learn more and faster of they heard and spoke only Chinese in class.
I was even able to teach my 5th grade class using probably 75% of the time, including classroom rules and explaining how to do a Visible Thinking routine. (my daughter, who is in this class, however, thinks I used close to 90% Chinese and that the class went really well). I love that I can get feedback from her...and she does tell me if things don't go well too! My most challenging class for staying in Chinese was a 4th grade class. All of these students are returning students from previous years, some of whom I am now teaching for the 4th year! They are so used to my teaching in English that they approached the Chinese I was speaking to them like a big game of Charades. They called out what they thought I was doing, but they weren't always understanding what I was REALLY trying to convey. Part of the challenge is that these students have grown accustomed to my speaking English to them. Also, I didn't do a very good job of keeping the topics on track. For example, one student asked something about the Great Wall. Something then got mentioned about a castle, which led to a comment and questions about the Forbidden City, which somehow morphed into a conversation about the Old Fort in St. Augustine. These discussions, by the way, were all in English. I think I was only able to teach this class with about 50% Chinese, but it is much better than the 20% Chinese which was my average last year!
I know I have my work cut out for me this year, and I know I will need to work hard to keep the topics focused and maintain my own resolve to stay in Chinese, when it would be so easy to just slip into English or even "Chinglish". Well, I know I will be doing a lot of reflecting on my teaching this year, which promises to be an exciting year, full of learning and fun for the students (I hope) and the 老師 (lao shi) as well!