MELLFIN AWARD for ENGLISH SPEAKING PARTNER LUNCH SERIES

Lisa Chertok from Coastal Sunbelt and I received the first MELLFIN Award for our ENGLISH SPEAKING LUNCH SERIES! We had the honor to meet and speak with Alberto Retana, director of community outreach, U.S. Department of Education. He will be coming to the plant to observe this wonderful and unique program!

Touring Kunming

Teaching at the Kunming New Oriental School

Kunming New Oriental School
2号 Danxia Road, Xishan,

Kunming, China

Kunming is a multi-ethnic capital city of Yunnan Province, there are some ethnic minorities in Kunming including Sani People of Yi Minority, Huis,Bais,Miaos,Lisus,Zhuangs,Dais and Hanis.It is about 4.6 million ethnic people in Kunming which is 12.6% of the total population.

Among there ethnic minorities, Sani People of Yi minority in Shilin County is the most popular one.

As a branch of Yi, they are mainly distributed in Shilin County, Luxi County, Mile County, Qiubei County, Yiliang County and Luliang County.Sani People call themselves “Ni”, meaning happy people. They are diligent, brave and good at singing and dancing. Sani People have deep feeling for almost every hill and stone. There is a touching story concerning every scenic spot and the most popular is The Story of Ashima.

As a branch of Yi, Sani People enjoy some common cultural features such as similar character, religion and customs with the other branches of Yi. But they have their own features in religion, costumes and buildings.Yi People boast a long history. Their ancestors admired tigers and regarded tigers as their totem. But besides tigers, the totems of Sani also include spiders.

Learn English With Your Children!

http://www.spellingcity.com/spelling-games-vocabulary-games.html?listId=4420816

Bridging Cultures and Building Community

As a devoted teacher and an active member of the community, I am inviting you to become a supporter and a friend of this very important organization. FIRN’s mission is to ensure equal access to community resources and opportunities for all of our foreign-born families. It takes a community to teach our neighbors! Thank you for joining... me in bridging cultures and building community. ~Laurel

Thank you for your support, please click here:
http://firn.kintera.org/faf/donorR...

A Butterfly Love Story of Shanbo Liang & Yingtai Zhu

 

…Connecting to what your students already know!

Shanbo Liang and  Yingtai Zhu

"My Asian students loved the story of Shanbo Liang and Yingtai Zhu. I rewrote this short story to the students language proficiency level. I showed them these two pictures. The students and I read the story together. After we discussed the story, we listened to the music (link below). As the students listened to the story, they drew their interpretation of Shanbo Liang and Yingtai Zhu. Lastly, we did a shared writing and rewrote the end of the story." ~Laurel

 

A Chinese instrument, Gu zheng

The link to the "Butterfly Love Story"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nVRy86umeMY

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In China, the Butterfly is beautiful, tender, romantic, brave and elegant.

Hua Die(化蝶)
(Becoming Butterflies--Chinese translation)

A Butterfly Love Story of Shanbo Liang &; Yingtai Zhu

“A long, long time ago, there was a smart little girl named Yingtai Zhu. She pretended to be a boy so she could study in school. (In ancient time girls weren’t allowed to study in school).

She met a boy named Shanbo Liang. The boy was very different because he liked art, he liked to write poems, and he liked the sea, mountains and all the original beauty of nature. Yingtai and Shanbo had a lot in common but the boy didn't know that Yingtai was a girl.

One day, Yingtai told Shanbo she was a girl. And then, they fell in love. Later, Yingtai's parents asked her to go back home to marry a boy that she didn't love.

But Yingtai and Shanbo were engaged and they did not tell their parents. Yingtai went back home and spoke to her parents about the boy she loved. But her parents were very angry with her and they locked her away at home. They wanted to have the wedding for her and the boy they chose for her.

Shanbo heard this terrible news at school and he was so sad and all he could think about was meeting Yingtai again. But his parents would not allow him to go see her at her house.

Shanbo stayed at home and became very sick…and one half month later, he died in sorrow of love. When Yingtai received this terrible news, she was so sad and ran to Shanbo's grave. She cried and cried and cried...

Suddenly, the grave opened and a beautiful butterfly flew out. At the same time, Yingtai became a beautiful butterfly too. They were happy and flew into the sky together. All the people were shocked about their precious love and that God changed them into butterflies.”

So now, when we talk about butterflies and love, we will think of this story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nVRy86umeMY


This beautiful butterfly love story has been played in many theaters in China for a long time. There is also a song for their story. It was played by a traditional Chinese instrument named, “Gu zheng.”

Student's interpretation of the Butterfly Love Story. She drew the Gu zheng.

This student drew the transformation of the characters becoming butterflies.

This student drew the butterflies flying away together!