Learning Languages and Cultures

Hello out there! I teach Chinese in a small country school in SW Victoria, Australia. I'd love to get my students more connected to the outside world. I would love to connect with other classrooms anywhere - (I teach all year levels from K - 10). We could teach your class some Chinese, our class could teach my kids some of whatever language is taught in your school. Imagine that - learning Chinese from a bunch of Aussie kids. :-) I don't mind how we do it - I'd love to try all sorts of things - Twitter, email, Skype, Second Life, IM (maybe GTalk).
Looking forward to it!

Tags: australia, culture, languages

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ginger Lewman on July 14, 2007 at 8:35am

Jess--

What a great idea! I see Chinese as the language so many teachers are looking to offer to their students, especially here in the US. I think you could get a lot of interest going here (I'd like to say I have first dibs)!! lol!

Have you also considered hosting some virtual field trips? I know a lot of Americans look to Australia as some sort of "enchanted, exotic place" and you'd have so many opportunities to show an archived field trip of your local area to the world! In doing so, you could then hire other schools to do virtual field trips to where you'd like to go! (that's it!! I'm setting up that database today so we can start dumping in and inviting people in!)

Ok, off to work! Hope you have lots of takers!

Permalink Reply by Jess McCulloch on July 14, 2007 at 8:50am

Bring on the Virtual Field Trips - what a fantastic idea! Oh, so many places to go...

Permalink Reply by Jared on July 14, 2007 at 12:16pm

This is a really great idea. I'm actively looking for educators that want this kind of collaboration between classrooms. I'm in contact with an early primary educator who is going to spend time focusing on foreign languages at some point during the coming school year. More than that, he wants to setup a sort of brother sister classroom so that all students will be able to see what is going on in both classrooms.

Further, I'm trying to compile a list of international educators at all levels who want to take part in a sort of global classroom collaborative. We should be in touch. This is a very real thing that's already going on.

Jared

Permalink Reply by Annie Gentithes on July 31, 2007 at 9:36am

Hi Jess! I teach fifth grade in Illinois. At the end of the school year (not until next March - June), we study China and the Chinese American immigrant experience. Students become filmmakers and use i-movie to tell the story of Chicago's Chinatown. I would love to collaborate a bit and find a way for us to get our students together. I am sure we have a lot to learn from your class! We use skype a bit, so that might be a good way to connect. I look forward to it!

Permalink Reply by JoNelle on August 9, 2007 at 9:07am

Jess, Sorry I did not catch this sooner. I would love to collaborate with you! I have a few Chinese families and was looking for this very opportunity. I have 2nd- 5th technology Lab, with scheduled classes and flexible tiimes. Flex times are for any grade kg-5th. I am adding wikis (at wikispaces), blogging, skype, and dotsub.com, voicethreads, and podcasts to my curriculum ( and open to more-ha!).
Please check out my video at dotsub- and translate into Chinese if you like. Voicethreads would present a fantastic place to collaborate.
My school is k-5 public school in a lake side community in SC , US.

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