Materials
Character recognition activities
These matching activities help build a toolkit of characters you recognize, from numbers, to pictograms (characters based on pictures of things–the sun, moon, etc.), ideograms (characters depicting abstract ideas–up, down, middle, etc.), ideogrammic compounds (characters made up of ideas matched together, a person leaning against a tree = “to rest”), and phono-semantic compounds (these are the majority of Chinese characters, in which a meaning component combines with a sound component).
Stories to support instruction (all texts are by Cyndy Ning, and the illustrations were found online, unless otherwise attributed)
Alternate version with new illustrations provided by Anita Phillips and Huanxiaoge Wang
Stories for free-reading
Level 1
Illustrated by Luohan Hung,
text by Cynthia Ning
Illustrated by Robyn Yee Ebisui, text by Cynthia Ning
Illustrated by anonymous,
text by Cynthia Ning
Illustrations & text
by Stephen Tschudi
by Katharine Wong,
UHM Chinese 101,
using found illustrations
by Sven Bradley,
UHM Chinese 101,
using found illustrations
by Sven Bradley
using found illustrations
UHM Chinese 102
by Nathan Graves,
UHM Chinese 101,
using found illustrations
Level 2
Text by Han WeiLi, with CC images.
by Jessica Ciufo
UHM Chinese 102
Text by Tianqi Yang, Yahui Guo, and Fang Wang. Illustrated by Cyndy Ning using found images.
using found illustrations
UHM Chinese 102
Level 3
Text by Mai ZheRui, with CC images.
llustrations and Text
by Beverly Pang
UHM Chinese 101
using found illustrations
UHM Chinese 102
by Stevie Suan,
UHM Chinese 101,
using found illustrations
by
UHM Chinese 105
AUTHENTIC MATERIALS
• Hawai‘i for Chinese visitors website that offers descriptions, photos, and suggestions.
• Car ad distributed to an e-mail listserv.
• Photograph of a man seeking work as a cook.
• Message from an American working in Beijing seeking sick leave, with an attached hospital report.