1. +
Storytelling and Technology
Frank Tang, New York University
in the Foreign Language
Robin Harvey, New York University Classroom
Bing Qiu, Bronx High School of Science
Xuan Wang, Sidwell Friends School

2. +
Story-Telling and Technology in
the Chinese Classroom
How can we use culturally important stories
in the second language classroom?
How can we tap into student creativity and
linguistic ability to allow them to tell their own
stories, in their own voice in the target
language?
How can we create opportunities for
students to use technology, an important part
of their daily lives, to tell their stories?

3. + The Six Senses for the 21st Century
Design
Meaning Story
Play Symphony
Empathy
Daniel Pink, A Whole
New Mind, 2006

4. +
The Sense of Story
Humans are not ideally set up to
understand logic; they are ideally set
up to understand stories. (Roger
Schank, Cognitive scientist)
Stories
are easier to remember—
because in many ways, stories are how
we remember.

5. +
The power of stories
 Most of our experience, our knowledge and
our thinking is organized as stories.
 Storieshave causality, conflicts,
complications, and characters. (Daniel
Willingham, 2000)
 Storytelling
stimulates thinking and creativity,
and encourage collaborative learning.

6. +
What does it mean by ―storytelling‖?
 Storytelling is interactive.
 Storytelling
uses words as well as actions such
as vocalization, physical movement and/or
gesture.
 Storytelling presents a story—a narrative.
 Storytelling encourages active imagination of the
listeners.

7. +
The queen died and the king died.
The queen died and the king died of a
broken heart.
Place the facts in context and deliver them with
some emotional impact.

8. +
The art of storytelling
 Engage students in the storytelling process:
Create opportunity for them to practice the
language, interact, reflect, question, inquire,
predict, and imagine.
 Integratestorytelling with other art forms, such as
pictures, music, songs, ppt, videos, movie clips,
news, dramatization, etc.

9. + NYU StarTalk Immersion Training Program for
Teachers of Chinese (K-6)
 Teacher training program
 First held in 2012; new program developed for 2013
 Three credit, graduate level summer course ―Teaching Foreign
Language to Elementary School Students‖
 Four additional workshops in Dual Language/Immersion education
(ongoing in fall)
 Special summer workshop on Story-Telling with Helena Curtain

10. +
Stories from NYU 2012 StarTalk Training
Program for Teachers of Chinese
Working with Authentic Cultural Stories:
•Creating stories our students can
understand (I+1)
•Focusing on language points (grammar,
vocabulary)
•Incorporating the 5 C’s
•Three modes of communication

11. +
Stories from NYU 2012 StarTalk Training
Program for Teachers of Chinese
Types of Stories
Repetitive Stories
Cumulative Stories
Content-based Stories
Helena Curtain

12. +
How do
we honor

13. +
今天是亡靈節
Yo Recuerdo a
Abuelito

14. +
我的爺爺去年過世了。
我很想念他。

15. +
媽媽說爺爺今天會回來。

16. +
今天是亡靈節！
我們買麵包和花朵給爺爺！

17. +
今天是亡靈節！
我們帶食物和水果給爺爺。

18. +
今天是亡靈節！我看到很多蝴蝶！

19. +
今天是亡靈節！我的爺爺回來了！

20. +
Yo Recuerdo a Abuelito
¡Es el día de los muertos!
¡Celebramos!

21. +
Ahora, compramos pan.

22. +
¡Es el día de los muertos!
¡Celebramos!

23. + Ahora, compramos flores.

24. +
¡Es el día de los muertos!
¡Celebramos!

25. +
Ahora, compramos calaveras.

26. +
¡Es el día de los muertos!
¡Celebramos!

27. + Ahora, compramos dulces.

28. +
¡Es el día de los muertos!
¡Celebramos!

29. +
Ahora, vamos al cementerio.

30. +
¡Es el día de los muertos!
¡Celebramos!

31. +
Ahora, abuelito se celebra con
nosotros.

32. + Concept Web
Memories
Faith
Traditions
“ How do people
pay respect to
those that have
Emotions passed away?
Respect
Offerings,
Food Geography

33. + Lesson Breakdown
 Lesson 1 – Story: Yo recuerdo a Abuelito
 Lesson 2 – Shopping for the Day of the Dead
 Lesson 3 – Geography (Where do we celebrate Day of the
Dead?)
 Lesson 4 – My favorite things
 Lesson 5 – What will we bring?
 Lesson 6 – Creating an offering
 Lesson 7 –
 Lesson 8 – What is Qing Ming Jie?
 Lesson 9 – Chinese poetry
 Lesson 10 – Compare and Contrast
 Lesson 11 – Preparation for presentation
 Lesson 12 – Final Presentations

34. +
Day of the Dead vs. 清明节

35. +
Xuan Wang
Sidwell Friends School
2013-4-7
Creating Stories in
Beginning Chinese
Classroom

52. +
Stories
• Context
• Creativity
• Emotion
• Repetition

53. +
Tell a Story VS Ask
a Story

54. +
How to Ask a Story

55. +
卡片
情人节卡片
一张情人节卡片
写了一张情人节卡片
……给……写了一张情人节卡
片

56. +
情人节
qíng jié
晚餐
wáncān

57. +

58. +
Activities with Stories
Put in order
Acting Draw the
Story
Spot the
Read a new difference
Tell the story
story

59. +
A new story to read

60. +
Rock That Movie Night!
Spring 2013 Chinese Video
Bing Qiu Competition
Bronx High School of Science

61. +
History of Rock That Movie Night!
 Qiu Bing(Bronx Science High School) & Wang Xuan (Suffern
High School, Sidwell Friends School) started Rock That Movie
Night in 2012 as an effort to involve students in sharing insights
and knowledge about the Chinese language and culture
through creative videos.
 They approached Project DCLT for
 Support in infrastructure
 ―Authentic community‖ for sharing videos
 Prizes!!!

62. +
Why we created the ―Rock That
Movie‖ competition

63. Why we created the ―Rock That
+
Movie‖ competition
Locked up

64. Why we created the ―Rock That
+
Movie‖ competition
Break out

65. Why we created the ―Rock That
+
Movie‖ competition
Teamwork

66. Why we created the ―Rock That
+
Movie‖ competition
Students

67. Why we created the ―Rock That
+
Movie‖ competition
Community
One of the 5 C’s

68. +
History of Rock That Movie Night!
 Mr. Qiu’s students participated on a volunteer base and got extra
credit
 In-class project for Ms. Wang’s students
 Last year, students dubbed English movies with Chinese voices,
which can be seen on
http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/teachlearn/dclt/Forum_April_2012

69. +
History of Rock That Movie Night!
 Last year’s winners won:
 Extra Credit for their Chinese class
 Certificates from NYU
 NYU T-shirts
 Pride
 A powerful addition to their college applications (extracurricular
activities and honors)
 There were a great number of very imaginative entries into the
competition, which inspires more interest for the Chinese
language etc.

70. +
What Rock That Movie Night did for
students and teachers last year
 It gave students an opportunity to apply what they’ve learned in a
creative way
 It was a very meaningful project for students, who were very
excited by it
 It provided authentic learning experiences for an authentic
audiences through very culturally relevant and familiar topics
 It encouraged teachers to explore more about Storytelling
techniques/strategies and adapt them in teaching practice
 It helped promote collaboration and learning within the Chinese
teacher community, while creating higher expectations of
ourselves 闭门造车

71. +
Rock That Movie Year 1

72. +
Rules for the 2013 Competition:
Students
 Formats to choose from:
stop action, live movie, video of puppet show, photo story
 Length: 5-7 minutes (2-3 scenes) of meaningful conversation
 Process:
 Script writing
 Peer Editing (first round)
 Teacher Editing (second round)
 Final version
 Read to teacher (optional) for pronunciation
 Final movie due April 1

73. +
Teacher Contract
 Teachers are not permitted to write the script.
 Teachers must treat this as authentic student work.
 Teachers may help edit student work by pointing out what kind
of mistake it is, but students should figure out how to write the
sentence by themselves.
 No help in structure of the video, creative aspects, storyline.
 Teacher may work with students on pronunciation
 Teachers may have walk-on roles 路人甲 but may not be a
main character in the movie.
 Teachers upload videos (so students have privacy) by school

74. +
Making your video great
without Hollywood Gear
 Acting
 know the lines well
 never read
 shoot in short scenes
 be expressive! Use eye contact and body language
 while the character is speaking:
 look at the camera
 speaker’s lips should be shown in the video
 never turn one’s back to the camera
 add subtitles to the video while post-processing

75. +
Show a video!!!!

76. +
Join Us!
Check out more student videos from
our website;
Joinour mail list and stay tuned for the
winner of 2013 Rock That Movie
Contest.
You know you want your students to
win the 2014 Rock That Movie Contest
:)

77. +
Thank you!
Frank Tang Robin Harvey
New York University New York University
Frank.tang@nyu.edu Robin.harvey@Nyu.edu
Bing Qiu Xuan Wang
Bronx High School of Science Sidwell Friends School
qiu@bxscience.edu wangx@sidwell.edu