Chinese lesson
Teacher Randi Hacker, outreach coordinator for Kansas University's Center for East Asian Studies, teaches children how to say some basic words in Mandarin Chinese. Enlarge video
Group of Lawrence children learning Chinese
It's a far cry from simple phonics or ABC's. But a group of Lawrence kids have a vocabulary that's greater than most adults'. 6News reporter George Diepenbrock shows us one local program where English takes a back-seat. Enlarge video
On the street
What do you wish you had been taught as a young child?
I wish I had learned a second language earlier. Just because it’s supposed to be easier when you’re younger, and I had a pretty hard time with it when I got older.
Randi Hacker can put her young students through a workout.
But it's the fun kind: touch your toes, hands on your knees, spread out your arms.
And it's unusual because the Lawrence children - preschool age to third grade - are taking their commands in Mandarin Chinese.
It's part of a six-week introductory course to the language taught by Hacker, the outreach coordinator for Kansas University's Center for East Asian Studies.
"If you move around while you're learning a language, you remember it better," said Hacker, also an accomplished children's author. "I try to make it as active as possible, as interactive as possible."
The class meets Monday evenings, and this week marked the third class. A federal grant funds the center's outreach efforts, and the staff of New York School, 936 N.Y., allowed Hacker to use a classroom.
"It's a nice, low-pressure, fun introduction to foreign language, using music, which I think is a really effective learning tool," parent Nancy Cayton Myers said.
Her daughters, Emily and Natalie Myers, have participated.
"It's becoming ever more important for our children to be aware of Chinese culture and language," said another parent, Dawn Hawkins.
She was watching her daughter, Jasper Hawkins, a New York School third-grader, take part Monday. Even though it's in a New York classroom, children from across Lawrence are taking the class.
"All we're trying to do is get them familiar with the tones (of speaking Mandarin Chinese). Once it's in there, they'll never forget it," Hacker said.
She also hopes the class can be a jumping-off point for the young students and make them want to learn more Chinese when they get older.
The class includes mostly American children but also Chinese children who live with adoptive families here. Hacker herself began to learn Chinese when she adopted from China her daughter Juliana, who now is 12. Juliana has helped her mother teach some of the classes.
The 6 p.m. Monday class allows the Center for East Asian Studies to fulfill part of its mission for community outreach, Hacker said. Once the first six weeks wrap up later this month, parents can decide whether to continue their children's education, she said.
Comments
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oldvet (anonymous) says…
Man, this article did the job to whet my appetite for Chinese... Plum Garden here I come!!!
Barracuda (anonymous) says…
I wish I could learn a language as those kids!
Lawrence Chinese School has various level classes at KU Fraser Hall at 1:00 pm every Sunday.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool,
Chinese, as a language, is different from the Chinese Communist Party. There are over 300 million Chinese residing outside China, just as many Europeans residing outside Europe. The concept of integrating Chinese as a language with Chinese as a race, and Chinese as a communist, has brought a lot of stereotyping and racism, that even the 2nd and more generation Chinese are suffering till today: Not being accepted as Americans.
China is not supporting the genocide in Darfur, Chinese Communist Party is adopting a non-interference policy to any country. They can do whatever they like withing the perimeter of world order. Of course, the United States will not see eye to eye with China. But again, China didn't support the invasion of Iraq. At least they're stable in their policy on non-interference.
Tibet? If you're American, I think you should keep quiet about this. Why? Mexico could use that argument to take back California, Texas, New Mexico etc!!! Tibetans lost their war (yes, they didn't have the large army) to the Manchurians during the Qing Dynasty. Tibet has been part of China since the Qing Dynasty, and so has the Formosa Island. Free Tibet? Then, the world history in many countries should have been rewritten... including Siberia for Russia, North and South Korea, Israel... that is what I call double standard... this is what causes the lack of respect to America recently!
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
Ok class. Today we are going to learn how to say the following phrases.
There is no lead in our products.
OK. Maybe a little.
OK. More than a lead soldier.
We are recalling this toy.
Please accept this replacement toy.
There may be lead in that one too.
These sandals are burning my feet.
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
You now owe me a new acorn.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
Raging Bear,
Not sure you watched a recent CNN program. There is one family who was so worried about lead poisoning in toys that they sent all to the test lab and guess what, none of their toys had lead in them and all are Made-in-China. Then, they went to the doctor to test their children's blood, both of their kids had lead in their bodies! Guess where the lead come from?
Read this: http://www.inspect-ny.com/hazmat/lead...
http://www.nsc.org/library/facts/lead...
Remember, only less than 0.01% of the toys are affected by the recall. E-Coli and lead in buildings kill more kids than lead paint in Made-in-China toys. I thought we might want to self-correct before complaining. Why the fault has to be someone else... we're really teaching out kids the wrong way of blaming others even when the fault lies within oneself. I find that in all my kids I teach today in my class.... what a sad thing.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
What I'm saying: Diverting one's attention away from the real lead source is a problem. Trying so hard to not buy toys with lead, but then miss out that the wall we had at home has lead! Preventing our kids eating toys but never try to stop them eating the wall? That's terribly irresponsible by the politicians and people who try to divert the attention.
Ragingbear (anonymous) says…
The big problem that we are having is that there have been such widespread recalls of Chinese toy products lately. All of them for the same reason, except for the sandals that give you chemical burns. Any idiot could tell you that lead in a product designed for children is a bad thing, so why are we finding metal beads being sold in vending machines that are almost entirely lead? I will tell you why, some people are trying to save a buck, because making 99 cents on the dollar because you operate a sweat shop isn't good enough, so you got to cheat. Reminds me of the story about a flour mill that had some large pit holes in their grinding wheels, so they filled them with lead and proceeded to grind flour for people.
We have to deal with lead paint still, lead in drinking water, and in a few other products. However, most lead is no longer used in such a manner that we would be exposed to it. Yet finding vinyl lunch boxes with astronomical levels of lead in them just makes you wonder if the people in charge of making them hadn't had severe lead poisoning well before they ever made the decision.
You now owe me a new acorn.
Tychoman (anonymous) says…
So people should be opposed to learning a fascinating new language because you object to policies in the country in which that language is spoken? It's understandable that you're trying to raise awareness, cool, but boycotting a language is overkill.
Unless you're not saying that Chinese shouldn't be taught in the first place, in which I would be misunderstanding your posts.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool,
"That's a REAL stretch of ignorance to compare TIBET to Mexico or for that matter the
southern United States of California & New Mexico. North American Native tribes had these lands and meso-American native peoples had Mexico and points south down toward South America. Meso Americans and descendants of New Spain became of mixed ancestry."
Darfur? Hmmmm..... Zimbabwe? South Africa during the apartheid period? Siberia? Israel versus Palestine? Hey, if you want focus on China, that's the problem. You gotta look at the entire world and then you will be drawn into all sorts of conflict that if you get involved in one, you gotta be invovled in the other, if not, you'll be labeled biased!
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool,
You're highlighting the problem of the Chinese Community Party. So why should you ban Chinese when it's the Communist's fault? Chinese didn't kill the Tibetans? And the politics in that region is so complicated, why can't we leave them alone and do our own business? Darfur? Let it be solved by the African and Arab Nations.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
Ragingbear,
Not forgetting that banning lead in paint in the USA alone is only a recent event, not very long ago. And also, the lead affected toys are not in a huge quantities, you may see the recall in Millions, but a million toys is not equivalent to a million SUVs. There are zillions of toys out there. Yes, thanks goodness they're all recalled. Then, there is the problem of design flaws and then specification flaws.
When you look at these things, you really have to ask: Did Mattel tell the manufacturers that they cannot use lead paint? Was it in the specifications? On the magnet, was it a design by Mattel and China only complies with it? If it's a Mattel problem, then, the same specifications used everywhere will be the same, you will still get lead paint and faulty toys. So why did Mattel apologize to China if China is at fault?
And then you start to see all the "Made-In-China" propaganda.... which is very funny. There are only a few factories in China that use lead paint and of course, the manager had committed suicide and his friend might have been caught and soon to be hanged. But we're not talking about all the factories (probably nearing the millions) using lead paint. Why? And why only Mattel? That'd be funny.
Of course, there are the bad tooth paste.... the cheap toothpaste, of course, are manufactured by the bad factories. But how about those that were produced in the good factories?
Sometimes, we have to cool down to think where the problems are. It's a commercial dealing between the factories and owners, and it's clearly written in the specifications. The enforcement, though, is the problem for the host country, but should be paid for by the owners. Mattel is setting up inspection facilities to conduct lead-paint investigation. Not forgetting, it's only 0.01% of the toys.
I find it very irresponsible that we don't even know that millions of house in this country has lead paint. Diverting the attentions away from the real problem is the real problem.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
Cool,
"so livingstone, the NAZI's were at fault but not the german people. should we have more
agressively opposed the holocaust ? certainment."
Sure. So you want every German to die for the crime of Nazi? How can you compare Nazi's torture to China's?
1. Chinese Communist basically tortured the entire country, not just Tibet. Millions of Chinese died during the same period of Tibetans oppression. There wasn't any particular group being targeted. It's not fair being compared to Nazi, as the Chinese Communist wasn't racist or targeting any races. They went after everyone. Sort of like Stalin.
So did anyone claim responsibility for Stalin's crimes? You know the answer. History is history. Moveon.
2. How many Tibetans died? Hey, 6 millions died under Nazi discrimination program, multi-millions died under Stalin. China and Tibetans? Less than 200,000. Yes, it is a crime, but it's not comparable to Nazi and not even close to Stalin.
"CHINA has provided a corrupt pertri dish for agressive post-industrial corporate america to launder money and put this country into a lifetime of debt with the cooperation of the Chinese
goverment which is more totalitarian than Communist in a Marxist-Lenist sense. Mao is long gone - a corporate elite of corporate swindlers would be a more accurate description than communist."
Claim and assumption have no value in this world. What you've said is capitalism at work. China and Chinese are two different thing. So do you mean that overseas Chinese should be responsible too? And because of that Chinese should not be learned by any foreigners? I thought that was a little out of the argument. We're just targeting the communist government but not Chinese as a race. I can see you're trying to target Chinese as a race. Beware.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
Cool,
Dalai Lama has already forgiven China, and he's willing to take an autonomous role in Tibet. Someone has to take responsibility, but how? When? Who? Unless one loses a war.... if not.....
livingstone (anonymous) says…
Cool,
This would be more appropriate for a posting on China Communism. Tell me, how is it related to Chinese as a language?
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool (Anonymous) says:
"it is related to the promotion of CHINA as a 'world society' it has nothing to do with
communism - but with getting them up to world ethical standards as a country."
What is so unethical about China that you need to bring it up to world ethical standard? Teach me.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool (Anonymous) says:
"Tychoman (Anonymous) says:
So people should be opposed to learning a fascinating new language because you object to policies in the country in which that language is spoken? It's understandable that you're trying to raise awareness, cool, but boycotting a language is overkill.
Unless you're not saying that Chinese shouldn't be taught in the first place, in which I would be misunderstanding your posts.
cool"
Cool, chinese is also spoken in USA, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and those countries with Chinese population. I still cannot see the link between Chinese as a race, Chinese as a language, and China as a country?
i am simply saying that the 'confucian institute' and other vehicles to promote 'acceptance' of
CHINA as a popular new field ground for capitalism should also be required to report an
ongoing genocide of tibetans ! now in its 56th year.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool (Anonymous) says:
"please note that the center for east asian studies is a grant based organization
under the control of the Chancellor or university but from ? CHINA:.can you say propaganda"
So? The Wahabi School in the middle of New York and several Islamic schools are funded by the Saudis. Many schools that promote languages are funded by countries with oppressive regimes. Are we going to kill all of them and stop all of them like what we did to Iraq? Stop telling us jokes here..... you try to draw that map, and you will realize as many as 50% of the countries in the world are ruled by irrational leaders that are involved in some killings and tortures. Our media runs propaganda everyday... so does FoxNews.... so does many media monguls around the world.... are we going to close all of them down? You must be joking....
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool (Anonymous) says:
"they will teach anything as long as their grant checks come in the mail."
I thought that you're over-reacting and over-generalizing, and definitely, over-reacted. You stereotype Chinese a little too much. You associate China with German Nazi... which is overkill. China killed more of its own citizens than Tibetans (can you imagine!!). The teachers in those schools are teaching languages and not propagandas. Languages have no propaganda in them. If you'd like to know what are these "propagandas", you might want to enroll in one of the courses as a "spy"... then you can write things out here to teach us what are they... cheers... hahahahaahahahah, a Sino-phobia at work.....
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool (Anonymous) says:
"it is related to the promotion of CHINA as a 'world society' it has nothing to do with
communism - but with getting them up to world ethical standards as a country."
What is "World ethical standards" as a country? Which countries in the world has reached "World ethical standards" and where have you got that terminology from? China is a world society, ain't it? Why not? It is part of the world. Soviet Union was part of the World Society.... what is the meaning of world society? In a society, you accept anyone without discrimination. It's very hard to define "World ethical standard" and even human rights infringement. If you say women being ill-treated in China, I thought women in many Islamic societies and even India were far lesser than the women in China. Poorer countries normally have "lower ethical standards"... of course.
If it has nothing to do with Communism, then what has it got to do? With Chinese in China? So you're discriminating the Chinese and call them unethical? So you're very ethical? How ethical are you? So why are the Chinese unethical? How do you determine that Chinese are unethical?
You mean they have to be Christians, worship one God and not commies, they have to behave like you... to be ethical? How about Africans? How about Indonesians? How about Saudis? What do you mean?
You're very very funny.....
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool (Anonymous) says:
"56 years now of genocide in TIBET is patently unethical !"
You say that it's not the Communist government's fault and you said that it's the fault of China's ethics. So what kind of ethics you are talking about if it's not the communist government? Are you tying to the ethics of the Chinese? I think you cannot differentiate between the China Communist government, China, and Chinese. For example, is Nazi unethical for the genocide of the Jews or is German unethical for the genocide of the Jews? Is Saddam Hussein unethical for the genocide of the Kurds or are the Iraqis unethical for the genocide of the Kurds? You get yourself pretty blur about your stand and point of view. That by itself, make you a joke.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
Captain_Obvious,
The China Communist government wants a strangle hold on the power. Their "campaign" against Tibet has not been focused in Tibet alone. Millions of Chinese died during the cultural revolution. Xinjiang, another province in China also faced the same prosecution. The Communist government targeted insurgents and guerillas, those who were trying to gain independence. The casualties in Tibet were far less than 200,000, the highest estimates... far lower than Durfur or even Iraqi's Kurds casualties. The persecution was not conducted against a race but against the rebels. Those who sided with the Communist government were kept alive. Remember, the Communists were against all religions.... even the Christians, Buddhists etc... all got prosecuted. It ain't just Tibet. When Dalai Lama left and situation cooled down in Tibet, the killings stopped for a long time. After 1960s, the casualties were very insignificant.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool,
Thought you didn't listen properly and didn't want to answer my questions.
1. What is wrong with China's ethics? You're claiming that China (not the government) is responsible for the genocide. So who or what? When you go to the court, you gotta have a defendent and a prosecuted. Who is that?
2. You said Tibet was long ago a country. Sure, "long ago"! Let's revive the Mayan Empire, dude!
livingstone (anonymous) says…
Cool,
Listen up. I've already stated it very clearly. The Nazi was responsible for the genocide of the Jews and not Germans. Hitler and his gang were prosecuted. So, if you are given the chance to prosecute someone for the genocide of Tibetan monks, who would you sue? China? You gotta make some sense.
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool (Anonymous) says:
You said: "you would sue or seek damages against the current Chinese government. guess who is promoting the language ?"
My reply: "So, if YOU are given the chance to prosecute someone for the genocide of Tibetan monks, who would YOU sue?"
livingstone (anonymous) says…
cool,
You said: "you would sue or seek damages against the current Chinese government. guess who is promoting the language ?"
I replied you previously: "The China Communist government wants a strangle hold on the power."
I claim the communist government is at fault.
But you replied: "i do not understand why you are resistant to hear about Chinese Genocide/torture in TIBET, and at the same time you list the atrocities elsewhere in CHINA, and then say it is all the communists fault ?"
Chinese.... you mean Chinese killed Tibetans? So you mean not the Nazi killed Jews but Germans killed Jews?