Chinese Math Workbook Project

The need of Chinese program

I'm a Chinese Language and Culture teacher in the Rochester Community School

District. In our school district, there is a Chinese exposure program that applying to

all the elementary schools to give students an opportunity to experience Chinese

language and culture. After teaching for 2 years, I noticed that most students have no

connections between Chinese and their daily life. In their opinion, Chinese is an

isolated class just for fun. In this situation, I want to create a connection between

Chinese class and students’ real life to encourage them to learn the Chinese language.

The second grade classroom teachers gave me the idea of making a Chinese math

workbook. Hence all second graders are using a math journal for their math

curriculum.

Description of the project

Name

“Chinese Math Journal”

Content

I planned to make a Chinese workbook to second grade students to enhance their

Chinese language and math skills. The reason why I chose second grade students as

the experimental group is that I am responsible for the lesson planning of second

grade with another Chinese teacher in Rochester. Students in second grade learned

numbers 1-10 in Chinese in first grade, and they are going to learn 1-100 in Chinese
this year. The Chinese math journal will be made based on students' English math

journals, but all numbers in Chinese. The reason why I use the same form of English

math journal is that students already know the math question. It saves time for both

teachers and students on explanation and comprehension. The numbers are written in

both Pinyin and the characters.

Implementation

My original timeline for the project is:

Stages Timeline Purpose To do list

Stage 1 9.16-9.30 Preparation First, read second grade math standards in
SSCC.
Second, talk with second grade classroom
teachers, listen to their suggestions.
Third, borrow a math workbook that students use
daily to see the form and difficulty level of
American math questions.
Stage 2 10.1-10.18 Pre-test Pre-test: test second grade students on counting
& from 1-100 in Chinese. Record and collect the
Review data sets for cooperation at the end of the
project.
Review: review numbers in Chinese and teach
the character of numbers. Prepare students to be
ready for the Chinese math book.
Stage 3 10.19-11.15 Attempt Pass paper worksheets once every two weeks.
Collect feedback from students and teachers for
revising the worksheet.
I hope students have concrete experience in
applying the Chinese language in real life
situations instead of only in Chinese class.
Stage 4 11.16-11.24 Organization Organize and improve the revised worksheets.
Then create and decorate the Chinese math
workbook.
Because of the time limit, the organized Chinese
math book may not have time to be applied in
the winter semester. I hope it can be used and
developed in the future.
Stage 5 11.24-12.01 Test Test second grade students on counting from
& 1-100 in Chinese and compare with the data of
Summary pre-test. Do a summary for further analysis and
adjustment.

However, there were some unexpected situations happened so parts of my

schedule had been changed. Some situations can be predicted such as time

conflicts, some were harder to foresee, such as the unscheduled assemblies and

the earliest snow day on November 12nd. Two second grade classes missed 4

weeks Chinese classes consistently in one month and the other two missed two

classes. Meanwhile, testing spent three weeks, which is a longer time than I

expected. Therefore, my time line is not finishing one stage and going to next

anymore. Most stages' time is mixed together. For instance, I started organized

and revised the worksheet while attempting them in the classrooms. In this way,

I can receive students' feedback and revised the worksheets several times. I also

gave students a "finish up" class on Nov.26th, to finish and organize all

worksheets they have. I made these changes is because of the positive

suggestions and feedback from students and classroom teachers. Here is the real

timeline:

Stages Timeline Purpose To do list

Stage 1 9.16-9.30 Preparation First, read second grade math standards in
SSCC.
Second, talk with second grade classroom
teachers, listen to their suggestions.
Third, borrow a math workbook that students use
daily to see the form and difficulty level of
American math questions.
Stage 2 10.1-10.18 Pre-test Pre-test: test second grade students on counting
& from 1-100 in Chinese. Record and collect the
Review data sets for cooperation at the end of the
project.
 Review: review numbers in Chinese and teach
the character of numbers. Prepare students to be
ready for the Chinese math book.
Stage 3 10.19-11.20 Attempt Worksheets: Pass paper worksheets once every
three weeks. Collect feedback from students and
teachers for revising the worksheet. All the
worksheets will be in different forms.
Stage 4 11.1-12.2 Organization Organize and improve the revised worksheets.
Then create and decorate the Chinese math
workbook.
Because of the time limit, the organized Chinese
math book may not have time to be applied in
the winter semester. I hope it can be used and
developed in the future.
Stage 5 11.11-11.24 Test Test second grade students on counting from
& 1-100 in Chinese and compare with the data of
Summary pre-test. Do a summary for further analysis and
adjustment.
Give students a “finish up” class for organized
all their worksheets.

Even though the timeline changed some in the middle, I still think this project meet

my need. There are several successful parts of this project. First, students' language

skills in counting in Chinese is improved a lot. It is an obvious result of the pretest

and posttest. Second, students have connections between math and their math lesson.

One boy who was not interested in Chinese said: I thought Chinese is boring because

I don't say Chinese at home. But I like the Chinese math journal, it makes me feel I

can speak Chinese. I showed my mom how to do it at home." At the same time, the

classroom teachers told me that students also have some improvement in their math

skills, because they practiced more. Most students are excited about the math journal

to have a connection between the Chinese language and their math class, which is a

part of their daily life, which is exactly what I want to achieve from this project.
In the process of implementation, I realized the differences between being a teacher

leader and being a teacher. As a teacher, I always focus on my own lesson planning

and concentrate on teaching. The goal of my work is helping students to be achieved

in Chinese language and culture. However, as a teacher leader, I have to explore my

mind out of teaching the lesson and expand it in different schools, districts or

communities. My focus cannot just be limited in my own building but in a wider

perspective to support other teachers and students in other schools. I need to consider

more from a wider perspective to support student’s achievement. This project helps

me to see my job in a new version by jumping out from my own classrooms and

thinking in a broader way.