Maya McFadden Photo
"This is the best!": Yang with first graders at Martinez School.
Summer break could not keep Mandarin teacher Ruwen Yang out of the classroom and away from teaching young students her beloved first language.
But instead of teaching high schoolers, as she has been doing for more than a decade, Yang spent last week teaching elementary summer school students at John Martinez School some key words of Mandarin.
Most New Haven students start studying a world language in sixth grade. This year the school district World Language Supervisor Jessica Haxhi got students starting earlier: She put together a one-week summer language session for first and fourth graders to experience new languages and cultures.
Friday concluded the district’s “World Languages Week,” which was incorporated into New Haven Public Schools’ July summer programming.
The language program hired experienced NHPS middle and high school teachers to lead 30-minute immersive lessons to the classes. The Russian classes were taught by Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School student Amelia Stefanovics.
The week-long session offered the students the chance to begin learning a second — and, for some, third — language.
Throughout the week Yang, who teaches Mandarin at Cooperative Arts High School, focused on teaching a few basic cultural words in Mandarin to three first-grade classes and a class of fourth graders.
The students learned xióngmāo (panda), jiǎozi (dumpling), kuàizi (chop sticks), shànzi (fan), and dēnglóng (lantern).
Yang also taught her students to say hello (nǐ hǎo), how are you (nǐ hǎo ma), like (xǐhuān), dislike (bù xǐhuān), and goodbye (zàijiàn).
The program began July 18 and concluded Friday. Students had bags filled filled of crafts made in class, flashcards, and play-dough to practice their dumpling-making technique.
Yang traveled to each classroom with her student assistant Nolan Wazni, a rising senior at Co-op. Wazni has been taking Mandarin for the past three years.
Nolan Wazni with teacher Ruwen Yang.
Students make paper fans.
In Ms. Gonzalez’s first-grade class, she and paraprofessional Ms. Suarez took a half-hour break from their daily lessons in reading, writing, and math to engage the students in Yang’s final language lesson.
Yang gathered the class of ten students on the classroom carpet Friday morning and revealed to them five items that represented her Chinese culture. From her bag she pulled out a stuffed panda bear, a pair of chop sticks, a plastic toy dumpling, a handmade lantern, and a hand fan.
As she pulled each item out, the students named it in Mandarin. Yang kicked off the immersive class with a game for the student to practice matching the items with their names in Chinese.
Take-home bags filled with memories of Yang's lessons.
The students sat in a semi-circle and waited for Wazni to play a song. When the song started the students began passing around a blow-up globe ball to each other until the music stopped. When the music stopped the student holding the ball had to listen to the word Yang said aloud and match it with the items from her bag.
“Xióngmāo!” Yang said when the music stopped.
The students giggled at the abrupt pause of the music yet again.
Then first-grader Mikey got up and pointed to the stuffed panda bear.
“Yes! Hǎo gōngzuò,” Yang cheered, meaning “good job.”
Next the students joined Yang in counting their numbers in Mandarin:
“yī (one)”
“èr (two)”
“sān (three)”
“sì (four)”
“wǔ (five)”
For the final day of Yang’s lessons, the students made paper fans (shànzi) and lanterns (dēnglóng).
Yang provided each students with prepared sheets of construction paper for them to fold together their fans and lanterns.
As Yang stapled together the students’ lanterns, 6‑year-old Mikey chanted, “dēnglóng” in excitement.
“It’s like a octopus Lǎoshī (teacher),” he said.
Yang staples Mikey's lantern together.
First-grader Sarah matches lantern and fan to her outfit.
Next the students folded together their paper fans.
“Lǎoshī! I need help,” one student called out.
“Oh wait. I got it. I remembered to never give up,” the student said seconds later.
After a half hour the week’s final lesson concluded, and the students hugged Yang goodbye.
“This is the best,” said 6‑year-old Sarah.
“Remember the words I taught you. and you can practice at home,” Yang declared before heading off to her final session of the day.
First graders say goodbye to Yang.
Yang and Wazni head to last class of the day.
In the fourth-grade classroom, Yang started the morning off with a minute-long song on YouTube, which recited beginner Chinese greetings and numbers. The students immediately began singing along with the video.
Next Yang helped students to say complete sentences aloud identifying what they like and dislike.
Wazni started by saying, “Nolan xǐhuān jiǎozi.”
Fourth-grader Kaiden stood up from his seat and went next. “Kaiden xǐhuān xióngmāo,” he said.
Students match flash cards to words Yang recites.
Before also making their own paper fans and lanterns, the students played a game with Yang to quickly identify the five words. The students broke into pairs and listened to Yang say a word aloud. They competed to hold up the matching flash card before their opponent to get a winning point.
The winning students each got a pair of their own chopsticks.
After making a paper fan out of black and white sheets of paper, Kaiden fanned himself and his classmates. “Now I don’t have to spend money on buying a fan,” he said.
After attempting to skip their lunch break to stay with Yang to continue making lanterns, the students said their goodbyes to Yang and Wazni.
“Grab your chopsticks,” Kaiden reminded his classmates as they headed to lunch.
Amyelia and Brianna show off their shànzi.
Yang said she was impressed with her students’ motivation and ability to learn so quickly.
“I feel like a gardener, because I get to plant this seed in their hearts,” she said. “They fell in love with the language immediately.”
Yang taught elementary students in 2008 at Davis Street School for a year. She then switched to teaching high school students, and has been doing so for the past 14 years.
“It’s important to open the world to them and give them these eye-opening experiences while they’re young, so they can know more,” Yang said.
She was given the option to learn only English once she started sixth grade as a child growing up in China. “I didn’t have this opportunity at their age,” she said. “The earlier the better.”