We have been busy learning Mandarin with our Chinese friends who are learning English
First Prize in the Chinese ‘100 Word’ Competition!
We took part in the 100 Word Competition 2008. We won the first prize!
100 Words is a project to encourage young people to learn 100 sentences of a different language. The 100 words project will grow over the next five years towards the London 2012 Olympics. Thousands of plays, films, musicals and operas will be written using just 100 words.
We worked with our Chinese Partner School Harbin No 1.Harbin No 1 pupils used 100 words in English and Lambeth Academy pupils used 100 words in Mandarin Chinese.
After winning the competition, 5 of our partner pupils from Harbin No 1 and their teacher Mr Cheng came to visit us.Their visit included a workshop with our Harbin No 1 pupils and the other runner-up winner, Deyes High School and their Chinese partner schools, Shanhu Middle School.None of the young people had met each other. We started things off gently with games and a lot of exercises designed to break down barriers. Exploring our countries cultural similarities and differences was a theme we kept returning to over the three days. We showcased or work on the final evening. This included a soundscape, 10 word plays, a montage of short pieces inspired by food and two 100 word plays, all of which blended cultures and languages. The results were shown to an invited audience which included representatives from CHINA NOW, HSBC and the British Council, all organizations that supported the project.After the workshops, the Harbin No 1 pupils participated in classes in our schools for a few days.We had a wonderful week and are now eagerly planning to travel to Harbin to visit them on an exchange.
Our amazing live lesson with a school in China
We participated in a language lesson with pupils of Houhai school in Shenzhen, China learning the names of shapes in English and Mandarin via Promethean interactive whiteboards. We also discussed the big earthquake that happened this year in China.
We could see each other's interactive whiteboards and interact with the other class! How cool is that?
The lesson is important as many Chinese children learn English and many English children learn Chinese. Mandarin is spoken by more than 1,300,000,000 people in the world. That is 22 times more people than live in the UK and over four times as many people as live in the whole of America. That is a lot of people.
Shannon Naughton from class 7R said: "The lesson was really fun as it's the first time I've spoken to someone in China as we're starting to learn the language. It was really great to learn more about the Chinese pupils and their country, China is so far away but the link-up made it feel like it was just the other side of the Promethean board.”
The more we learn about each other the more we can play together and understand each other.
Do you have a Chinese partner school that you would like to write about?
Would you like your own school page on Mandarama telling the world about how you are learning about Chinese culture or Mandarin? This is what you need to do: Send an email to panda@mandarama.com with the material you would like to see made into a pandapedia School Project entry. This can include text, photos and sound file. Submissions must also include the name of an adult (parent or teacher and their contact details).
Please make sure you include your email address so we can contact you.
What the children thought about the live lesson with China
One of our teachers talking about the live lesson with China
More Information
100 words - how we created our play
• Both schools gave each other a list of what similarities and differences they were most interested to know about each other.
• The scripts were written by the Chinese pupils.
• The English was finalised by the English pupils.
• Whilst one of the directors of Lambeth Academy was visiting Harbin No.1 High School during May, she helped the Chinese pupils with their preparation for this competition and also brought back the Birthday present for “Jenny” from China.
• The English school chose the background music for the Chinese school’s video, and the Chinese school also recommended some Chinese music for the English school.
About our 100 word storyline:
Wangjia and Jenny are Penpals. Wangjia lives in Harbin and Jenny lives in London. They both have the same Birthday on the opening day of the Olympics — 8th August. They each chose a birthday present and post the parcels to each other with some help from their four friends. They receive their birthday presents. Jenny phones Wangjia on the day of their joint birthday when she finishes school at 3:30pm, Wangjia is already sleeping in bed as it is 10:30pm in China.
王佳和珍妮是笔友。王佳住在哈尔滨，珍妮住在伦敦。她们的生日是同一
天，都是8 月8 日，正是奥运会开幕式的那天。王佳和珍妮在她们各自四
位朋友的帮助下为对方挑选了一份生日礼物，并且邮寄给了对方。她们都
收到了对方寄来的礼物。生日的那天，珍妮在放学时给王佳挂了电话问候
生日快乐，由于时间差的原因，王佳那时却正在睡觉。
We created this play because it is about real stuff and we wanted to know each other’s worlds better by becoming friends. We learnt about time zones in different countries, when our schools start and finish, what there is in our classrooms, what school uniforms we wear, what our playgrounds are like, posting letters and what addresses are like in China and the UK. Schools in China are different from in the UK in some ways and the same in others.
