Activities to teach Chinese:

The following are some activities designed to help younger children (e.g. Elementary School age) to learn to speak, understand, and read Chinese. Many of these activities will also work well with older children and adults. Each activity is described and then a list of topic areas appropriate to the activity is provided.

Speaking and Understanding:

A. Dialogues: Dialogues of child-centric language are extremely helpful to children. The dialogues should contain phrases children say to each other or with other family members. For example, to learn the names of animals, discuss a trip to the zoo. To learn the names of foods, have two children ask each other what they have for lunch. Dialogues should be prepared in advance and should provide Chinese characters, pinyin romanization, and English translation.

Topics: All

B. Vocabulary Drill: Each new word introduced in a lesson should be practiced on its own, preferably with an illustration to help fix the meaning. This helps get pronunciation right, especially tone.

Topics: All

C. Card Games: Card games like “Go Fish and “Uno” are good for practicing numbers and colors. For simplicity, remove the face cards from the deck. Children should give the Chinese number for each card as it is played. “Go Fish” is especially good for practicing the “you mei you” phrase and numbers. “Uno” also allows players to practice colors. An “Yi Zhi” deck is available from Elizabeth with Chinese characters and pinyin for the numbers and colors.

Topics: Numbers, Colors

D. Concentration memory game: pairs of cards are prepared with the same picture on two cards. The cards are shuffled and dealt face down. Players take turns turning over one card, then another. If the cards match, and the player can give the Chinese word that matches the picture, they can keep the pair of cards and go again. When all the cards have been collected, the player with the most pairs wins.

Topics: Any topic for which images are clear and easy to recognize. Especially good for animals, foods, parts of the body, etc. For family members, allow students to bring in their own pictures.

E. Wu Ge (Bingo): Any set of 24 words can be practiced using this game, as long as images are available for each word. (English words under the images can help if the students can read English.) Print the images on stickers and let students place them on their own 5x5 grid to randomize the images. (Alternatively, flashcards for the words may be dealt out in a 5x5 grid.) Leave the center square free. Then use a deck of flashcards or another random way to call out each Chinese word. Students must listen for the words and place a marker over the image. The first to get five markers horizontally, vertically, or diagonally wins.

Topics: Any topic for which images are clear and easy to recognize. Especially good for animals, foods, parts of the body, etc.

F. Shi shen me? Guessing game: One student or the teacher (the "leader") thinks of an item, person, or place and gives a clue in Chinese. The students can ask questions about the item in Chinese and the leader can answer them. The student who guesses which item or person is meant gets to go next as the leader.

Topics: sizes, shapes, and colors, food, clothing, animals, places, professions, rooms in a house, or many other kinds of things once students have good descriptive vocabulary

G. Sticker Labels: Removable stickers with Chinese characters and pinyin are provided for common household items and school supplies. Students place the stickers on their items at home and practice saying the word each time they see the items.

Topics: Household items and school supplies, rooms, furniture, possibly clothing and foods

H. Lending Game: The teacher provides some inexpensive school supplies (colored pencils, small notebooks with pretty covers, etc.), one for each child. Play proceeds as a "Yankee Swap" (each student gets to take their item out of its bag in turn, and see if they want to "borrow" someone else's item instead, and "lend" them the item they have.) Students must be able to request the item they want in Chinese in order to swap items.

Topic: School supplies, could also be done with doll clothes or pictures or stickers of other items

I. Gift Guessing Game: bring some small "gifts" for kids to give to each other while they practice this dialogue. These should be small candies, pretty stickers, fuzzy pom-pom critters, something that smells nice, or something that makes a little sound (e.g. a little bell). Each should be conceiled in a wrapper or bag at the start. Arrange students in pairs, circle, or groups, and each one looks only at their own "gift," then takes role A and gives the "gift" to role B at the end of the exchange. Role B asks questions in Chinese about the items which have been practiced in a dialogue previously, like "does it smell good?" "is it good to eat?" Role A answers the questions in Chinese, until Role B can guess what the item is. If students like, they can then re-wrap the gifts, trade partners or re-group and play again.

Topic: Senses and sensory descriptions (smells, tastes, etc.)

J. Audio Flashcard Search: Lay out picture flashcards in the middle of a group of players, listen for the words from teacher or CD, the first one to spot the card matching the word gets to keep it; the game is over when all the cards have been picked up; the one with the most cards wins.

Topics: Any vocabulary for which images can be provided. Especially good for animals, foods, parts of the body, professions, etc.

K. Qing Ni (“Simon Says”): A leader (either the teacher or a student) gives directions to the group of students. The directions may be an action like “zuo” (sit) or something like pointing to a body part. If the leader says “qing ni” the group must perform the action. Anyone who does not know what to do is “out.” If the leader does not say “qing ni” then anyone who does perform the action is out. The last player who is not out wins, and is the next leader.

Topics: Action verbs, body parts, animals (pretending to be an animal), washing up activities. Clothing can also be pointed to.

L. Wo zai zuo shen me? (Charades): A leader (either the teacher or a student) performs an action or pretends to be an animal. The students must say the Chinese word for the action or animal. There are two ways to play this: either the first student to correctly say the Chinese words gets to be the leader, or one leader can continue but the class is divided into two groups, and the first side to say the Chinese word gets a point. After 20 words or a set period of time the side with the most points wins. (This is a good group activity -- the students get very competitive!)

Topics: Works best with actions (run, jump, brush teeth), emotions, or animals or professions that are easy to guess.

L2. Time Quiz: The teacher draws a clock on the blackboard, or brings in large cards showing times of day. The students line up in two teams, A and B. The teacher starts by asking the first student from team A what time it is (or what time of day it is) according to the clock or picture, in Chinese. If the student from team A can answer in Chinese, they can set the clock or choose the next picture, and ask the next student from team B the same question. Team A gets a point. If the student from team A cannot answer the question, the next student in team B can try to answer the question. After a student asks a question, they go to the back of the line. The game continues for a set time limit. The team with the most points at the end of the time wins.

M. Memory Chain: Students take turns building longer and longer lists of words. For example, with foods, a student starts with “My soup has carrots.” The next student says “My soup has carrots and onions.” There is nothing wrong with “silly soup” that has ice cream in it! This also works well for “going to the zoo” or “going to the store”: “I’m going to the zoo and I want to see a lion.” (Encourage students to produce complete sentences rather than just listing the memorized items.)

Topics: Nearly any group of words that can be combined into lengthening sentences.

N. Stepping tour (musical cards): Use large cards with pictures of rooms or other places, arranged in a circle on the floor. Students walk around them, from place to place, until music stops. Everyone has to name the place they are, or they're "out." Remove a similar number of "known" cards. The last one not "out" wins.

Topics: Can be used with any images, but makes the most sense with places or rooms.

O. Zai nar li? (Picture Hide & Seek): Show a large picture of a house with rooms and furniture to all the students. One player picks a place to hide, e.g. "under a table". Other players ask questions about where the hiding player is. The hiding player gives clues, like "near", "far", "under something blue", etc. The first player to find the hiding player gets to hide next.

Topic: rooms and furniture

P. Wo shi shui? (Name tag guessing game): The teacher prepares nametags with different professions (or members of the family, or animals) on them (in Chinese) and attaches them to each student's back. The students can see each other's name tags, but not their own. The students can walk around asking each other to give them hints on who they are. The hints should be in Chinese, but nobody can tell the student their identity in Chinese or English, only give hints.

Topics: members of the family and professions, animals

Q. kan he shuo (show and tell): Students each bring in an item from home and spend a couple of minutes telling the class about it, using as much Chinese as possible. Photographs are also good for this activity, especially from vacation trips.

Topics: Household items, descriptive words, places

Reading characters:

R. Concentration memory game: pairs of cards are prepared with the same character on two cards. The cards are shuffled and dealt face down. Players take turns turning over one card, then another. If the cards match, and the player can give the pronunciation and meaning of the character, they can keep the pair of cards and go again. When all the cards have been collected, the player with the most pairs wins.

S. Wu Ge (Bingo): Any set of 24 characters can be practiced using this game. Print the characters on stickers and let students place them on their own 5x5 grid to randomize the characters. Leave the center square free. Then use a deck of flashcards or another random way to call out each Chinese word. Students must listen for the words and place a marker over the character. The first to get five markers horizontally, vertically, or diagonally wins. This game can also be played with images, by writing the character on the blackboard and having the students place markers over the corresponding image. If characters are used, avoid homophones.

T. Audio Flashcard Search: Lay out character flashcards in the middle of a group of players, listen for the words from teacher or CD, the first one to spot the card with the matching character gets to keep it; the game is over when all the cards have been picked up; the one with the most cards wins. These sets of flashcards must not contain any homophones. This game can also be played with image flashcards by having the teacher write the character on the blackboard and letting the students look for matching images.

U. Musical Characters: Use large cards with characters, arranged in a circle on the floor. Students walk around them, from card to card, until music stops. Everyone has to name the character they are standing on, or they're "out." Remove a similar number of "known" cards. The last one not "out" wins.


Writing Characters (or pinyin)

V. Labeled Drawings (Family Tree, My Body, My House, etc.): Students draw a picture of their family, themselves, their house, etc. and write the Chinese word for each member of their family (body part, room, furniture, etc.) next to the appropriate part of the picture.

W. Speed Words: Students are given a category, e.g. “Characters with the heng stroke,” “Characters with the gou radical”, “colors”, and a one-minute timer. The students have to write as many characters as they can which fit the category in one minute. The student with the most correct characters wins. This game can be played at a blackboard or at desks. The blackboard version can also be played in teams. The teacher can decide if students are allowed to look at their textbooks (looking characters up will slow the students down).

X. Character Pictures: Students are each given a character. Each student draws a picture which shows how they think that character might have been invented, or a picture to help remember what the character means. Students present their pictures to the rest of the class.

Y. Comic Strip: Students (or groups of students) draw a short comic strip and fill in the character’s dialogue in Chinese (pinyin or characters, depending on the level of the students). Another, quicker way to play this game is to take a popular comic strip (e.g. "Peanuts") and white out the dialogue before copying the pages, allowing students to translate or invent new dialogue in Chinese. Photographs (e.g. of a trip) can also be used to make an annotated photo album.

Z. Script Swap: Small teams of students work together to write a script for a short play or puppet show using Chinese (Characters or pinyin, depending on level). Then they exchange scripts with another group. Each group has to perform the script they receive by reading it.

AA. Classic Character Practice: worksheets are given to students showing the correct stroke order of each character. Students “build” the characters one stroke at a time, then complete the row with finished characters written in the correct stroke order.

AB. Calligraphy: Students use traditional brushes and ink to produce characters in correct stroke order.

General Review:

AC. Trivial Pursuit: Use the Trivial Pursuit game board but use flashcards from lessons for the questions. Each “color” comes from a different lesson or topic area. Flashcards may have single words (images), sentences from the dialogues, or characters on them, depending on the level of the students.

AD. Quiz Grid: The teacher builds a grid on the board with several columns from different lessons and then different levels of questions. More difficult questions are worth more points. (Single spoken words or words in pinyin are easy, characters may be harder, whole sentences to translate or questions to answer may be hardest and worth the most points.) Students are divided into two teams. Each team takes turns letting one member pick a question. If they get the question right, their team gets the points for that question. If they get it wrong, the other team gets a chance to answer the question and get the points.

AE. Vocabulary/Character “Bee”: Students are lined up and each is asked a question in turn (a vocabulary word, the meaning of a character, asked to write a character, etc. Students who miss a question are “out.” The last student who is not “out” wins the bee. (Students can also compete in small teams so that a whole team can win cooperatively.)