Activity 5: Why Chinese?
Elective or compulsory
Teaching and learning goal: Students describe whether a subject is compulsory or not and to apply their knowledge of the sentence structure 'Is it ___ or ___?'
Dimension(s): Listening, reading and speaking
Teacher notes: Introduce students to two new words: 必修 (elective) and 选修 (compulsory). Students should note these words down in their notebook or glossary.
In the interactive provided, students listen to the example sentences (e.g. 'Art is an elective' etc) and drag and drop the subject into the correct column. They press Submit to check if they have the answered correctly.
Students look at their own timetable and write down in their notebooks whether each of their subjects is elective or compulsory. They then work with a partner and looking at each other's timetable in Chinese, they ask the question 这门课是必修还是选修? (Is this subject compulsory or elective?) in relation to each subject that their partner studies. Students take turns to ask and respond to the questions.
Why do you study Chinese?
Teaching and learning goal: Students are introduced to the sentence structure for asking 'Why?' and responding with 'Because...'.
Dimension(s): Listening, writing and speaking.
Teacher notes: Students watch the tutorial to learn how to ask 'Why do you study_____? and to give a reason using 'Because....'
Students then write the question 你为什么上中文课?in their workbooks and write a response that explains why they study Chinese.
Adjectives revision
Teaching and learning goal: Students to revise some useful adjectives for explaining why they study a particular subject.
Dimension(s): Reading and listening
Teacher notes: In this activity, students independently explore the following Quizlet learning games to learn a range of adjectives which could be used to describe school subjects.
Adjectives Flashcards – Students read and listen to the adjectives vocabulary in Chinese. They will need to click the 'Enable Audio' button to listen to the vocabulary.
Learn Adjectives – Students match the English and Chinese words. They can choose 'Prompt with English' to work from English to Chinese or choose 'Speak it' to hear the Chinese word and type the English meaning.
Adjectives Scatter Game – Students drag the adjectives in Chinese onto their corresponding English meaning to make them disappear.
Adjectives Speller Game – Students listen to the adjective in Chinese and then type in the correct English meaning.
Reasons why I study my subjects
Teaching and learning goal: Students practise using the sentence structure explained above to explain why they study particular subjects.
Dimension(s): Listening and writing
Teacher notes: Students listen to the dialogue in the cartoon story between two students. They then transcribe it in Chinese into their notebooks and translate it into English in their notebooks. A transcript is provided to enable students to correct their work.
Then, looking at the timetable of the same partner they worked with previously, students write down how they will ask their partner why they study each subject in their timetable. They leave space to write the response to each question once they ask their classmate. Students should also prepare the reasons they will give for studying their own subjects.
Students then interview their partner and note down their reasons for studying each subject in their timetable.