Elementary Conferences

Today I had Parent-Teacher Conference for Jorja and Preston.  They are both doing awesome.  Jorja has already reached her end of the year benchmarks in Chinese.  Can you believe that?  I am so proud of her. Learning Chinese, especially starting a year and a half after everyone else.  No tutors.  Just pure determination.  That girl is amazing!  I wanted to write down where she is in here Chinese....feel free to skip the next several paragraphs!

Jorja's listening ability is at 'Intermediate Low' ~ Understands familiar questions, commands and statements in a limited number of content areas.  Understands questions and statements in new content areas with strong contextual support.  Follows information that is being given at a fairly normal rate.

Jorja's speaking ability is at 'Novice High' ~ Partial ability to create with language to convey personal meaning by adapting learned material in single sentences and strings of sentences.  Ask and answer questions.  Handle a simple survival situation (daily needs) in the language.  Uses vocabulary from everyday topics and subject area content to provide basic information.  Uses memorized expressions with ease and accuracy.  Can respond in intelligible sentences most of the time but does not sustain sentence -level speech.  Sentences may not always contain the proper verb formations, and other grammatical inaccuracies may be present.  May revert to the use of English when foreign language words cannot be retrieved or when dealing with unfamiliar topics.

Jorja's reading ability is at 'Novice High' ~ Can understand, fully and with relative ease, key words, as well as formulaic phrases, across a range of highly contextualized texts.  Where vocabulary has been learned, they can understand predictable language and messages such as those found in the environment.  Typically are able to derive meaning from short, non-complex texts that convey basic information for which there is contextual or extralinguistic support.

Jorja's writing ability is also at 'Novice High' ~ Partial ability to create with language to convey personal meaning by adapting learned material in single sentences and strings of sentences.  Ask and answer questions.  Meet limited practical writing needs.  Meets limited basic practical writing needs using lists, short messages, and simple notes. Writing is focused on common elements of daily school life.  Can recombine learned vocabulary and structures to create simple sentences on very familiar topics but cannot sustain sentence-level writing all the time.  Writing is often comprehensible by natives used to the writing of non-natives.  

Anyway, each of these levels is where she should be at the end of fifth grade.  So proud of her!  Below is an example of her work.  They learn science in the Chinese portion of her day.  Here is her learning about erosion & weathering etc.  One thing the Chinese kids have a hard time with in science is the end of the year tests are always in English.  They have learned the Chinese words to these concepts, but they do not always know the English words.  Crazy!

Preston is also doing fantastic.  The district is now using a new report card.  His teacher said that she was only allowed to mark 'mastery' under one item.  She said they think no one can be at the mastery level at this point in the year.  She said, "If he is not at the mastery level on everything, he is pretty darn close."  Nice job Preston.  I am so excited that he has the Chinese program to be in half the day.  His teachers said that he is the perfect candidate for the Chinese program.  Oh how I wish Maysen and Stockton would have had this opportunity!  I love this note Preston had in his folder: "Dear Mom and Dad, My favorite thing about first grade are...... I love Chineas i like to have a different Langwige than english!  i love lunch also becose the food i love it a lot!  i like reeding.  I love playing with frends.  its fun to go to scooll!  love Preston

My favorite thing about parent/teacher conferences is listening to the kids talk with their teacher in Chinese.  It is just amazing!  I actually recorded both Jorja and Preston on my phone, but I have no idea how to get the sound file on here.  It was fun to play the recording for Mike to listen to.  So cool!