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Thank you 2012!!!

I subscribe to a few blogs and a few of them sent out thank you notes to their subscribers. I have no idea why I didn’t think of that. And now that I have I wanted to send out a quick thank you for all of you that take the time to read about what’s happening with our organization.

I love PAASSC. I know what motivates me to keep it going and I know why my children continue to look forward to each event but I would love to hear more of why it works for you and your family.

Top 5 Reasons I love PAASSC!

  1. Great Kids: Most of the kids have no idea what PAASSC is – especially the younger ones. They just show up for a play date, meet the teacher and are again immersed into the Chinese language for about an hour with students from all of the bay area (from Berkeley to the Peninsula). I anticipate that PAASSC outings will continue to help our youth build their confidence and comfort in speaking Chinese in the community.
  2. Excellent Volunteers: I don’t know where we would be without our volunteers. My daughter has fallen in love with Tian Qian Laoshi (and her husband). Tian Qian brings a warm and caring presence to her instruction and has has made significant contributions to our lesson plans. An additional hats off to Lynn & Justin. They have been an amazing asset to our organization with their enthusiasm for what we are building at PAASSC. Their  commitment and support has been amazing. Xinfeng’s participation last year helped to raise the bar. She pulled out all the stops to engage the children and for that we continue to be thankful. Our Mandarin speaking volunteers are one of the most valued assets of our organization.
  3. Enthusiastic Members: While membership is lower than we had hoped we still have super excited members. I love the phone calls, texts, check ins and the “rotating” participation – you may not all show up to the same event but you do show up. In addition to members the subscribers to our site have been a wonderful inspiration to me. We average a new subscriber every other week. I always get a little smile when I receive an email confirming a new subscriber. And so far we have not had one person “unsubscribe”.
  4. Supportive Administrators: Every time I have an opportunity to speak with a school administrator I receive a significant amount of support and encouragement. It continues to be difficult to identify the specific direction that PAASSC will take over the next year because there are so many options. The feedback from administrators has been very helpful in exploring these options as we are narrowing/expanding our focus.
  5. The Hanban (Chinese Ministry of Education): There is nothing that can compare to my trip to China. A heartfelt thank you to the Hanban and the Collegeboard for sponsoring an incredibly informative and inspiring trip. While it was a very difficult time to be away from family, it was an extraordinary excursion and has widened my perspective of the Chinese culture and has definitely influenced the PAASSC planning process.

 

 

African Harvest Celebrations

I want to thank everyone that participated in our first event if the year. We had a great turn out with schools represented from Oakland, San Francisco and the Peninsula. We had students from Pre-K to 5th grade. Thank you to Tian-Qian Laoshi for an incredible job with the Mandarin Instruction.

The children learned about the Yam Festival in Ghana and Nigeria. We discussed why cultures have celebrated harvests. The children made crafts and reviewed Chinese vocabulary for corn, drums, yams, Africa and harvest.

In celebrating our culture the children all gave thanks ” Ashe” for our symbolic harvest.

The children created kente cloth patterns.

We ended the event with Alexandra (grade 5) reading to the younger children in Mandarin!!!

It was a wonderful event.

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Our next trip will be to the pumpkin patch and we are looking at ways to update our lesson plans to include what we learned from today.

A few changes you can expect
– the older children will practice reading and writing Chinese characters.
– the older children will read a story to the younger children.
– we will break into smaller age appropriate groups to encourage older youths to participate.
– we will have 60 min of Mandarin led play.

We are continuously seeking Mandarin Instructors, older youth participants, and increased parent involvement.

Thanks for such a great showing and wonderful feedback at the end. Stay posted for more information to come.

Have a great weekend.

Social Documentaries at YBCA

Documentaries by Ai Weiwei
Sun, July 8, 15, 22 & 29
Screening room
Admission per screening: $10 Regular / $8 YBCA Members

Yuba Buena Center for the Arts presents five rare films by Ai Weiwei, perhaps China’s most famous artist and loudest critic. He calls these films “social documentaries.” While two of them document large-scale art projects, the others are more akin to investigative journalism, with a deep commitment to shining light on acts of injustice.

 EVENTS
  • Fairytale
    Jul 8, 2012 2:00pm
    Screening Room

    Fairytale documents Ai Weiwei’s project of the same name for Europe’s most innovative art event, documenta 12, in Kassel, Germany in 2007. Ai Weiwei invited 1001 Chinese citizens of different ages and from various backgrounds to live in an abandoned factory for a massive-scale performance art project. It was the most sensational artwork at the exhibition. This 152-minute film documents the whole process, from the preparations for the project to the challenges the participants had to face before actually travelling to Germany as well as the artist’s ideas behind the work. (2008, 152 min, digital)

  • Disturbing the Peace
    Jul 15, 2012 2:00pm
    Screening Room

    Tan Zuoren is a civil rights advocate who investigated the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, including the deaths of 512 Wenchuan students, and the corruption which resulted in poor building construction. For his efforts, he was charged with “inciting subversion of state power.” During his trial, police violently detained witnesses, which is an obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Disturbing the Peace is a confrontational film, with Ai Weiwei directly taking on the police and other authorities, and paying a heavy price for doing so. (2009, 78 min, digital)

  • Ordos 100
    Jul 22, 2012 2:00pm
    Screening Room

    Ordos 100 is a massive construction project in inner Mongolia, curated by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, who had previously worked together on Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” stadium. One hundred architects from 27 countries were chosen to design a 1000-square-meter villa to be built in a new community. The 100 villas would be designed to fit a master plan designed by Ai Weiwei. In January 2008, the 100 architects gathered in Ordos for a first visit to the site. The film documents a total of three site visits, during which time the master plan and design of each villa was completed. As of this date, the Ordos 100 project remains unrealized. (2012, 61 min, digital)

    Double feature followed by So Sorry.

  • So Sorry
    Jul 22, 2012 2:00pm
    Screening Room

    Ai Weiwei travels to Chengdu to be a witness at the trial of the civil rights advocate Tan Zuoren, whom we first encountered in Disturbing the Peace. After being beaten by the police, Ai Weiwei traveled to Munich, Germany to prepare his exhibition at the Haus der Kunst museum. The result of his beating led to intense headaches caused by a brain hemorrhage, which was treated by emergency surgery. These events mark the beginning of Ai Weiwei’s struggle and surveillance by state police. (2012, 55 min, digital)

    Double feature preceded by Ordos 100.

  • One Recluse
    Jul 29, 2012 2:00pm
    Screening Room

    In June 2008, Yang Jia carried a knife, a hammer, a gas mask, pepper spray, gloves, and Molotov cocktails to the Zhabei Public Security Branch Bureau and killed six officers, injuring another and a guard. He was arrested on the scene and subsequently charged with intentional homicide. In the following six months, while Yang Jia was detained and trials were being held, his mother mysteriously disappeared. Ai Weiwei traces the reasons and motivations behind the tragedy and investigates a trial process filled with shady cover-ups and questionable decisions. The film provides a glimpse into the realities of a government-controlled judicial system and its impact on the lives of citizens. (2010, 180 min, digital)

Join a Mandarin Reading Circle

Du Shu Le (Happy Reading) Circle

A Mandarin Literacy Program for Bilingual Kids

Advocates for Chinese Education (ACE) is pleased to announce a new program! Du Shu Le (Happy Reading) Circle was formed this month as a public resource for San Francisco’s youngest students of Mandarin (pre-K through 5th grade).

Reading (du shu in Mandarin) is essential for language learning. Reading aloud to young children is not only one of the best activities to stimulate language and cognitive skills; it also builds motivation, curiosity and memory.

Our first gathering will be at the Potrero Hill Branch of the San Francisco Public Library with a 45-minute story time and social for pre-K to 2nd graders. Part II of the program includes small group or one-on-one reading sessions for 1st – 5th grade students.

Our first event will be March 18! RSVP is required.

Location: Potrero Hill Branch, San Francisco Public Library

Address: 1616 20th St, San Francisco, CA 94107

Date: March 18, 2012 (Sunday)

Story time: 3pm to 3:45pm,

One-to-one reading consultations:  4pm-5pm

 

Please RSVP: ming@acesf.org (Space is limited.)

Sign Your Child Up For The Mandarin Speech Contest

The 37th Mandarin Speech Contest (2012)
Chinese Language Teachers Association of California
第37届中文(普通话／国语)演讲比赛(2012)

 

Registration Deadline: March 23, 2012
Speech Contest on April 14, 2012
Lowell High School, San Francisco

The 37th CLTAC Mandarin Speech Contest will be held at Lowell High School in San Francisco on Saturday, April 14th, 2012.

The Speech Contest is an annual event hosted by the Chinese Language Teachers Association of California (CLTAC). CLTAC is a non-partisan, non-profit professional organization devoted to Chinese teaching and research, and it aims to promote the teaching of Chinese language and culture at all levels throughout the state of California. The event is now into its 37th year, and attracts more than 600 hundred contestants, with over a thousand teachers and parents participating in recent years. Seen as one of the highlights of the Chinese language teaching calendar, not only has the contest done much to promote the teaching of Chinese language in California, it is also viewed locally as a highly influential event.

The contestants will be grouped into four divisions: college, high school, middle school, and elementary school. Each division contains categories that take into account the language/dialect background of contestants. Contestants will be competing with other contestants of similar linguistic background and learning experience. In this regard, we added additional categories for bilingual and immersion students to the elementary and middle school divisions, along with an AP category in the high school division two years ago. We will continue include those categories in this year’s speech contest.

The contestants should register with their instructors. The registration deadline is March 23, 2012. The registration fee is $10 per contestant. The official rules of speech contest and registration, and the registration form are posted on CLTAC website at http://www.cltac.org/speech-contest.html. The CLTAC encourages all eligible contestants and local Chinese language instructors to take part in this annual event.

For questions on the speech contest, please contact chair of the Organizing Committee, Zhiqiang Li, at zli2@usfca.edu.

Friday Play Class @ Seesaw

Do you want to expose your child to Chinese. Beginning this month Seesaw in San Francisco will offer Friday play classes (11:00 – 12:00). The instructor, Yi Ling, invites you to come play, meet friends and learn Mandarin!

Le you you is an interactive Mandarin play class for children 1 – 4 years of age. This class presents material multi-modally through songs, books, nursery rhymes, tactile activities and movement. Mandarin language fluency is not required but will be spoken 90% of the time. Together you will explore and learn about animals, instruments, numbers, food, feelings, body parts and more!

Sign up or drop-in for a playful Mandarin class at seesaw studio! Pre-registration is recommended. Tuition for the 4-class series is $100, drop-in is $30. You may buy a 10 class card for $250.

 

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