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Chinese Language Students Celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival
Following the Lunar New Year, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the second most important Chinese holiday. Nearly three hundred students from the Orange-Ulster BOCES Chinese Language Initiative K-12 program marked the occasion and helped to jumpstart another successful year for the expanding program. Over the course of two days, Chinese language students from nine school districts celebrated the holiday at Harriman Learning Center by reciting famous Chinese poems about the Harvest Moon, dining on moon cakes and green tea and expanding their vocabulary through theme-based, collaborative speaking practice.
(Picture: Mandarin Chinese language Instructor, Mr. Liam O'Neill)
It was also the first time that the students were able to see their teachers in person. “Mr. O’Neill is a lot taller in person,” remarked several sixth grade students. Both sixth grade teacher Liam O’Neill and seventh grade teacher Ms. Hui-Mei Cheng teach Mandarin five days a week via video-conferencing. “This format has its challenges, for sure, but it also enables us to effectively teach a high-demand language to so many different schools,” says O’Neill. “However, events like this are also invaluable because it allows both the teachers and students to make those necessary personal connections,” adds Ms. Cheng, a native of Taiwan.
And as if to accentuate the point, Ms. Cheng shared the meaning of the moon cakes to all the students. Chinese people everywhere look up at the Harvest Moon while eating the moon cakes, thinking of loved ones who may not be present, but also gazing at the moon, she explained. “Since all my relatives are in Taiwan, you are like a new family to me. It is special that today we can eat moon cakes together, in person, rather than over video-conferencing.”
Another activity to celebrate the Chinese New Year is planned for late January. The school districts involved in the Chinese Language initiative include Chester, Goshen, Greenwood Lake, Highland Falls, Minisink Valley, Monroe-Woodbury, Port Jervis, Tuxedo and Warwick Valley.
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| (Left to Right) Victoria Petit, Erica Miller, Alexandria Bouchard, Alyssa Clark, Julia Episcopio. | (Left to Right) Eugene Iozzino, Michael Wolek, Brennan Dinsmore, Kevin Rooney, Ben Kaplan |