Project-Based Language Learning for Chinese II (Streamlined)

Instructions

Step 1

Make a book with Book Creator. All the text should be in Chinese characters.

Project content

There are several broad topics you will be able to explore in your book: social values/practices, the education system, and immigration, which are related to our learning materials. You can choose any one topic to focus on if your interviewee and/or you are particularly interested in it.

Below, you will find suggestions for broad topics.

• Social values and practices: Any social value, such as ideas of family relationships or personal relationships, or what Chinese people value in relationships, and how these values reflect on social practices.
  • Social value: 
    • How important is it for this family member to maintain the Chinese language and culture? 
    • What do they want their children to know? 
    • What is done in the family to support the language and culture? 
  • Social practice: Gift giving, holidays. 
  • Music: Chinese pop music.
• The education system: You can focus on comparing one of the levels (elementary, junior high, high school, or college) of the education system in the US to China’s. 
  • What do they remember about being a school student, a university student? 
  • What subjects did they like? 
  • What were entrance exams to the university like? 
  • What do they remember about student life? 
  • How/why did they choose this profession? 
  • What was their first job (where? how did they get it?)? 
  • What difficulties/challenges did they have at work? 
  • What are their professional achievements?
• Chinese immigrants: Your family or friends’ experiences on immigration. 
  • When and why did they emigrate/immigrate? 
  • What personal and/or historical events influenced their decision to come to the US? 
  • What was their first impression of and experience in the US? And so on.

In your book, you should include the following elements:: 

1. A cover with the title of your story (in Chinese).
2. Photographs or other illustrations/pictures.
3. A voice recording of your interview and a written version of your interview. The recording of the interview does not have to be long. You should prepare your interview questions ahead of time. You don’t need to reveal the name of your interviewee. 
4. A narration of your story in Chinese and your conclusion of your explored issue in Chinese. The narration of your story should include the reason for your choice of this topic, the process of exploring the topic, and how this process helps you understand the topic better and bridge the generation and cultural gap in Chinese immigrant families.
5. A list of vocabulary you think that your reader might not know.

All the text should be in Chinese, no less than 400 characters. Once you are done, follow the steps in the following image to publish your book online so you can get a link to share with everyone.

 

Project stages

The project work will proceed in cycles, each consisting of creating a list of questions for the interview as a group, conducting interviews as individuals, summarizing the interviews in writing, reflecting on the experience, and receiving language and content feedback from your classmates and the instructor. The calendar section will inform you ahead of time when each task is due and how to prepare.

Step 2

You will do an oral presentation based on your book.

The slides should not contain grammatical, lexical, or orthographic errors. Also, they should not consist of an entire text that you will be reading out loud; you should choose the words/phrases you include on the slides wisely so that they can help your narration and support your listeners. Slides should contain proper nouns (e.g., names of places, last names, names of companies, etc.) and a list of new or difficult words with translations that will help your classmates understand the story. As a rule of thumb, if a particular word was new to you when you interviewed, and you had to look it up, it will be new to others in your group.

This project will be graded using a rubric. You will not receive a completed grade unless you complete every requirement, including responding to your classmates.