Written by Cao Xi

It’s three months since I arrived in Fredericton on September 3rd. In the short three months, I have experienced and grown a lot.

Park Street Elementary School is my first workplace which has about 450 students. This school has started Chinese classes for two years. The principal loves Chinese culture very much and support Chinese language and culture teaching strongly. He gave me two weeks to be familiar with the school environment. So I visited all classes from kindergarten to Grade 5 in the two weeks, and learned a lot from the local teachers’ classes.

I started teaching Chinese in this school on September 23rd. I made three teaching plan for the different grades. The students in the kindergarten are more active, and have no idea about classroom discipline, so I taught them some new words with the use of stories. I told them stories at the same time show the pictures in the story books through the PowerPoint. This way could attract the children’s attention very well, and let them learn Chinese in a relaxed atmosphere. The students in Grade 1 and Grade 2 have known a little about Chinese Pinyin, so after reviewing the Chinese Pinyin, I taught them the simple greetings and the names of common things. I have also taught them how to sing <Two Tigers> in Chinese. For the students in Grade 3、4、5, I not only taught them the simple conversation, but also some Chinese culture, at the same time I also taught them how to do some art projects. 

In the Park Street Elementary School, in addition to teaching Chinese language and culture, I also have my dance club to teach them Chinese national dance on every Tuesday. Now we are preparing for the performance of Chinese New Year. After hearing we would perform in the Play House during the Chinese New Year, all the girls were excited. And I also teach some boys Chinese Kung fu on every Thursday. In fact, I didn’t learn the dance and Kung fu that I taught in my club before, just for the sake of having a perfect performance, I tried my best to learn them by myself, and then taught them. I really thank for the experience which can turn me into a versatile girl.

Nashwaaksis Middle School is my second workplace which own about 700 students. There are 27 classes in all from Grade 6 to Grade 8. Different from Park Street Elementary School, it didn’t start Chinese class before, so it’s a real challenge for me.

It took over one month to make arrangement for the courses through communicating with the principal and the teachers constantly. And at last, 14 classes would learn Chinese, 5 classes in Grade 6, 5 classes in Grade 7 and 4 classes in Grade 8. Cause just 14 classes wanted to start Chinese class and it’s also the first time for them to learn Chinese, so what I should do is not only laying a good foundation of teaching Chinese language and culture in these 14 classes, but also spreading Chinese culture in a wider range of areas.

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