Chinese Day at Nodehill

When I discovered that my colleague Gill Bushell was planning a Chinese Day for Year 6 pupils at Nodehill, I got in contact with Jess McCulloch to see if she and her pupils could help. Well Jess came up trumps by producing three short video lessons to help our pupils learn how to say "Hello", "Goodbye", "What is your name?" and My name is ..." in Chinese.

As you'll see, the video is excellent and I'm indebted to Jess for her time and effort in doing such a lovely job. Our pupils really enjoyed the instructions too and you can hear their appreciation below. The local paper even turned up and took some pictures (you can hear the sound of the camera flashing on the recording!)

So thank you Jess again for making this such a memorable day or Xiè Xiè as you'd say in Chinese.

Download Feedback_on_learning_Chinese.mp3

Here is the story again in full:

Bitey and Bear

This is the story of Bitey and Bear.
Not a likely pair, you would see anywhere.
Someone suggested they learnt some Chinese
and their answer was
"Oh, oh ... yes please!"

So here we are for our lesson today.
we'd better get started right away

Bitey already knew how to say "Ni hao"
and Bear thought he was pretty good at "Wo jiao"
But neither of them knew how to say "How are you?"
And they thought they might need a lesson or two.
They were told by their teacher whose name is Miss Hua
to say "How are you?" you just say Ni hao ma?"
"Ma" means it's a question and add it to the end of "Ni Hao" and then you say to a friend
"Ni hao ma?", "How are you?". I hope you are well
"Wo hen hao xie xie", I'm feeling just swell

"Wo hen hao?" means I'm very good and you already know "Wo" and "Hao" and so it should be easy to add "hen" in the middle
It all sounds a bit funny so it's OK to giggle.

"Xie xie" is what you say when you want to say "Thank you"
and it goes on the end when someone has asked you.
"How are you? by saying "Ni hao ma?"
"Wo hen hao xie xie". Now try for a gold star.
So Bear thought he would give it the first go

"Ni hao ma?" he said to Bitey and wouldn't you know that
Bitey knew just what to say in return
"Wo hen hao xie xie". Check out what I've just learnt!

It was then up to Bitey to see how Bear was.
So he asked him "Ni hao ma?" and really because
he said it so well Bear knew just what to say
to tell Bitey he'd felt he'd had a good day
"Wo hen hao xie xie". I'm so very good.
But thank you for asking though I knew you would.

Bitey and Bear knew they had to try to say it again and then say goodbye.
"Ni hao ma?" said one friend to the other.
"Wo hen hao xie xie" and just for another
quick practice at saying something in Chinese again.
They both took deep breaths and said "Zai jian"

Comments

[Mrs Bushell]

What a fantastic audio of the pupils learning Chinese! We had such fun during the lessons and took some super photos and videos. Thank you to Joe for arranging the video link with Jess in Australia - what a cultural day!

[Jess McCulloch]

Woo hoo! I'm glad you all liked the video! I just LOVED listening to that feedback. The students have done so well with their pronunciation, and it's great to hear that they liked playing Monkey King! Seriously, you have just made my week! :-)