Students created a Chinese language survival book “Welcome to Shanghai” that was for sale on Amazon and targeted new comers to Shanghai. First students surveyed the newbies in SAS to ask what vocabulary and expressions they needed to use when they first came to Shanghai. The students then collected the data and started to create topics and organize information and categories. Then team of students chose one topic, and under that topic they brainstormed the words and expressions. The translated the these words from English to Chinese and created pages for the bool. The final product was used by students and community members.
“To really help the students, they need more help developing word banks and they need to practice the vocabulary. The students did good work for the book, but did not develop their own fluency. The next time I do this project, students will need to develop a situational dialogue. I would make it more conversation based so it will be more fun and achieve better communication by carrying on conversations.” - Joan Xu