The polite expression is one of the most popular usages during daily life themes. Those expressions are particularly important for kids at the beginning of Chinese learning. Polite expressions could be complicated sometimes. Such as, how to correctly use phrases like “sorry” or “excuse me” in a complicated environment will need to be directed properly.

French people love to use polite expressions,  as well as Chinese people. So how to use these polite words in Chinese became my topic for this week. Particularly, students should first establish their literacy skills with interests, then they will automatically know how to write. More importantly, through immersive Chinese learning, it is beneficial for kids to figure out the right situations to utilize different expressions. Therefore, the teaching content of this lesson did not involve the writing of keywords, but the expression of polite language. I asked students to practice using dialogues, such as when people say “thank you,” others should answer “ welcome” and when people say “ sorry,” others should reply “ it’s alright.”  

For adult learners, there are no secrets that there would be many different forms to use polite expressions in Chinese. What’s more, it’s not common to use “please” (请）and “thank you” (谢谢）in many scenarios which we expect to use those keywords in English. However, it is kind of hard for kids to understand the differences by communicating with them directly. Therefore, taking Chinese cartoons to create an immersive environment will help young kids to understand them directly without further explanation.

In the end, there is another useful tool that I have to share with all teachers that using the flashcard promptly is very useful because it helped me to finish all the class curriculums for this week’s lesson. I used the first level cards to teach the students in the class. The result was surprisingly good since students could recognize the meaning of Chinese words based on the picture on the cards, and not only that, they also could watch the animation on hihilulu’s app once they scanned the QR code on the backside of the words cards. Personally, I believe that the flashcards of hihilulu would have a significant benefit on students’ Chinese learning.