Mandarin Immersion Parents Council

Written by Elizabeth Olson

In March 2009, I went to the Chinese Language Bridge Cup Contest in San Francisco to watch my first grader participate in a poetry recital. He was contestant #478 – I couldn’t believe so many kids would show up on a Saturday morning to recite poetry!

I saw a friend there who encouraged us to check out another Mandarin speaking event called the CLTAC (Chinese Language Teachers Association of California) Annual Mandarin Speech Contest. She said that since the speeches are written by elementary school students (rather than poets from the Tang dynasty) he should be able to understand what the other students are saying. We only had six weeks to prepare, but my friend’s fourth grader from CAIS volunteered to help my son, so we signed up.

Our friend suggested that we pick a simple topic and make notes about it in English first. Once we had an outline, we could start writing the Chinese. The application form had suggested sample topics such as Learning Mandarin, Family Life, or Favorite Sports, but my son thought those sounded too dull. Instead, the topic he chose was the tiny red eared slider turtle that his aunt had just found on her farm and decided to keep as a pet. We interviewed her, and he wrote what we thought was a simple speech in English. Once he began trying to translate it to Chinese, we had to throw out parts where the vocabulary was too difficult, such as describing the pattern on its back or the warming light she used in its aquarium.

Transcribing the speech in Chinese was more difficult than I estimated because my son could speak more words than he could write. We wanted to use the words he was familiar with, so he would attempt to translate a sentence verbally and I would look up the characters for what he was saying in an online dictionary. We ended up with holes where he didn’t know the proper connecting phrases to use, so we passed the speech off to our 4th grade friend, who filled in the gaps and corrected the grammar. It looked like his speech was going to be shorter than the minimum two minutes, so we told him to speak  s..l..o..w..l..y.

Once we got to the event, we saw this breakdown of contestants in my son’s category (1st grade students with experience in an immersion or bilingual Mandarin program):

9 students – International School of the Peninsula (ISTP)
10 students – Chinese American International School (CAIS)
1 student (my son) – Jose Ortega Elementary School

The parents were allowed to sit in the room and observe, so I got to hear all 20 speeches. Some kids were nervous and spoke very quickly. One girl gave a humorous speech. Two kids couldn’t be coaxed to go on and passed on their turn. (The judges were very understanding when this happened and offered some advice: “If you find yourself in front of an audience and forget your speech or get too nervous to go on, just smile sweetly, say “xie xie ni”, bow, and scoot off stage.”) A few kids delivered their speeches with amazing confidence and poise for first graders. Even though I understand very little Mandarin, I accurately guessed the winner based on her captivating delivery.

Many of the speeches were based on the theme of “My Family”. I could somewhat follow these simple speeches that went along the lines of: “There are 4 people in my family: my father, my mother, my sister, and me. My father has brown hair. He likes to walk our dog and eat ice cream…” In hindsight, I should have encouraged the family theme for my son’s speech, which would have eliminated much of the work doing dictionary lookups.

My son understood when we started the project that he wasn’t expected to win anything, so when his group was finished, we listened to some of the entertainment in the talent show and left before the awards ceremony to get an ice cream.

Here is the speech he gave. Please keep in mind that it was written by a first grader with help from a 4th grader and a non-Mandarin speaking parent. Also, in a few places the pinyin may not match the characters because we made some last minute simplifications.

Auntie’s Tiny Turtle
姨妈的小乌龟
yímā de xiǎo wū guī
by 区正杰

My auntie has a very small red eared turtle.
我的姨妈有红色的耳朵乌龟。
Wǒ de yímā yǒu hóngsè de ěrduo wūguī.

One day my auntie was riding her horse
有一天我的姨妈骑马
Yǒu yītiān wǒ de yímā qímǎ

looking for a four leaf clover
寻找四叶草的时候
Xúnzhǎo sì yè cǎo de shíhou

and she found a tiny turtle in the grass.
她找了一只小乌龟在草地上
Tā zhǎo le yī zhī xiǎo wū guī zài cǎodì shàng

The turtle was lucky because she did not step on it.
小乌龟很幸运因为没有被姨妈踩到。
Xiǎo wūguī hěn xìngyùn yīnwèi méiyǒu bèi yímā cǎi dào.

The turtle has red ears.
小乌龟有红色的耳朵
Xiǎo wūguī yǒu hóngsè de ěrduo

He is light green and dark green.
它的身体是浅绿和深绿色的。
Tā shì qiǎn lǜ sè hé lǜ sè

Because it is a baby, it is 5 centimeters long.
因为它是宝宝，它是五厘米长
Yīnwei tā shì bǎobǎo ，tā shì wǔ límǐ cháng

She does not know if it is a girl turtle or a boy turtle.
她不知道小乌龟是公的还是母的。
Tā bù zhī dào shì nǚhái guī háishì nánhái guī

She does not know where the turtle came from.
她也不知道小乌龟是从哪里来的。
Tā yě bù zhīdào xiǎo wūguī shì cóng nǎlǐ lái de.

She thinks a bird dropped the turtle.
她想鸟投下了乌龟
Tā xiǎng niǎo tóuxià le wūguī

She gave the turtle lots of food.
她把小乌龟带回了家，还给它许多食物。
Tā gěi xiǎo wūguī xǔduō shíwù 。

Her cats like the turtle a lot.
小猫很喜欢小乌龟
Tā de xiǎo māo hěn xǐhuan xiǎo wūguī.

The turtle is a red eared slider.
这只小乌龟的品种是红耳龟。
Xiǎo wūguī shì yī gè hóng sè ěr duo huá zǐ

He can live for 40 years.
它可以活四十年。
Tā kěyǐ huó sìshí nián 。

His name is Duncan Monarch of the Glen.
它的名字是峡谷邓肯君主
Tā de míngzì shì dèngkěn guó wáng

She will let him go back to the pond when he gets bigger.
等小乌龟再长大些后姨妈会把它放回到池塘里。
Děng xiǎo wū guī zài zhǎngdà xiē hòu yímā huì bǎ tā fàng huídào chítáng lǐ 。

Xie Xie!
谢谢！