On Sunday, March 3rd of 2024, the Roslyn AYLUS branch helps out at Great Neck South High School of CCA- The Chinese Cultural Association of Long Island from 1:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. CCALI first started in 1979, starting with few students and teachers, but over the years it slowly grew into a larger association on Long Island. The school helps expanding the Chinese culture furthering Long Island as more people grow interest in learning Chinese. In 1986, the CCALI became a New York State non- profit community organization. Their mission is to ” educate future generations about the Chinese language and culture and to expand Chinese culture exchange in our society.”
On Sundays, the school is borrowed by the CCALI, Chinese Culture Association of Long Island to teach their students Chinese culture and the Chinese language. The day is broken into 2 sections. The first section teaches the students based on their level of Mandarin skill. The volunteers helped out by assisting the teachers as teacher’s assistants. The volunteers are mostly assigned to classes with younger kids since they can be easily distracted at a young age.
In the first section of class, the volunteers keep their assigned classrooms prolific and organized. We assisted teachers with helping kids that needed help by repeating the readings in their textbook to them in mandarin and translating them to English for them to have a better understanding of the material. We also brought the little kids to the bathroom and took care of their needs. If some students are homesick or didn’t want to be in school, we would try our best to comfort them by keeping an eye on them and making sure they felt better in school. The volunteers also tried to make sure the kids are focused on the teacher while in class, and they don’t get distracted by their friend. The volunteers remained patient and calm while guiding the distracted students towards the right direction.
Not only did we help the kids learn better and be more engaged in the classroom, we also helped enforce the proper behaviors in the hallways. When we saw kids running in the hallways we would stop them or tell them to be slower to prevent accidents from happening. During snack time when the students of each classroom go out to buy snacks, we help at the snack stand to sell students what they want and collect coupons from them. After snack time, we would make sure every student from our assigned classrooms returned to their classrooms.
In the second section of class, the volunteers are assigned to a different classroom. In this section of school, the students were able to choose which classroom they wanted to be in. The school offered different cultural classes on Chinese culture. Some courses they offer included: arts and crafts, calligraphy, dance, singing or Martial arts. Different classrooms had different roles for the TAs. For instance, the arts and crafts class required volunteers to help the younger kids cut with scissors or glue small delicate parts. Similarly, the calligraphy teacher asked the volunteers to help set up the student’s equipment. On the other hand, Martial arts teacher requires the TAs to watch for the students’ safety, stopping any students from taking any dangerous actions.
Members who participated include:
William Wei (3.5 hours), Mingyao Xu(3.5 hours), Leah Chan (3.5 hours), Jasmine Wang (3.5 hours), Simon Long(3.5 hours), Hunter Chen(3.5 hours), Christopher Zu (3.5 hours), Chloe Wu (3.5 hours), Hua Tiffany Lin(3.5 hours)
Reporter: Mingyao Xu
