Mandarin Students Publish Articles to Local Chinese Newspapers

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Upper Schoolers finished out the school year in Mandarin class with Lily Childs, Upper School World Language Chinese Teacher, by writing articles for local Chinese newspapers that were published in April. To practice their Mandarin writing skills, they wrote about such topics as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on learning, shared family stories, and reminisced about travel experiences. They wrote about schools in America in comparison to China, Chinese culture, and more. To practice their verbal and listening skills, they also held conversations with international students at MICDS to get feedback before their articles were published. «The goal was to share student experiences and stories with the local Chinese community and build relationships with the international students at our school by having regular conversations and understanding culture through their first-hand experience,» explains Ms. Childs.

Their articles appeared in the St. Louis Chinese Journal:

Read all of their articles here! Many of our budding Mandarin writers also created English translations of their pieces which are included in that same document. Some also shared about what this project meant to them:

«I think that the competition [the Chinese competition hosted by Webster University where Nicole placed 3rd] is a good opportunity to practice writing Chinese and share it with the rest of the St. Louis community.» Nicole Dai ’23

«Most of the time, we write everything in English, but it was definitely a challenge to have to articulate my thoughts and ideas in such length and in Mandarin. I was proud of myself for having my own article published in a local newspaper, and I hope I can develop this valuable skill so I can use it in the future.» Hailey Kim ’22

«I improved my skills of how I can use Mandarin in the real world outside the classroom, and Mandarin presenting skills. Having my work published meant a lot to me because it indicated the hard work I’ve put into Mandarin in the past has paid off.» Eric Feng ’24

«I found this project very interesting because it gave me an opportunity to write about something in Chinese with the knowledge that actual Chinese speakers would be reading it. Therefore, the topic I chose was something that I believed would interest them along with interesting me: comparing the Chinese and American education systems. I’d been thinking about this topic since my junior year when I hosted a Chinese exchange student. While her school curriculum was far ahead of mine in terms of math and science, I found that mine emphasized hands-on learning and thinking skills as opposed to memorization. And in my research, I found that many individuals seemed to think that the Chinese system is better for an earlier education and the American system is better for developing life skills later on. I found this interesting and I thought my audience, those who read the local Chinese newspaper, would as well since they’ve experienced or at least know something about both education systems. So the biggest gain out of this project was practicing writing Chinese while keeping in mind that I’d actually have a Chinese-speaking audience, so I had to take that into account.» ~ Ananya Radhakrishnan ’21
What fun articles to write to work on Mandarin skills in ways that resonate!