Reported by Cassie Tammy Wang:
Greater Princeton AYLUS (GPA) branch in NJ encourages its members to volunteer and contribute their spare time by tutoring young students in need of help. Inspired by the other members, Angelina Yingying Liu has started her unique “Bilingual Youth EdTutoring” project recently for once a week on Sunday, for an hour between 5 and 6 p.m.
Volunteer Activities Provided by Angelina Yingying Liu:
1. My new neighbors, two 3-year old twin girls, can only speak Chinese and have little experience in speaking English. Because I am good at both languages, I wanted to teach them both English and Chinese as part of my community service project.
On Sunday (5-6p.m.), January 20th, 2019, I walked over to their house, where their parents greeted me and introduced me to the twins. They were a bit shy at first, but soon, they began to warm up to me and we settled down with a puzzle. Incorporating English into our conversation proved to be difficult, as they mostly didn’t pay attention to what I was saying or didn’t have the patience to listen to me explain. I resorted to asking them questions in Chinese, like “What color is this princess’s dress?”, and I would tell them to repeat after me the color’s name in English.
After the puzzle, we moved on to reading. They were quite interested in reading a princess book, so I took out Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and read a sentence in English then translated it into Chinese. Throughout the reading, I tried asking them interactive questions about colors and characters.
Next time, I think I will work more English into our conversations and try to talk in Chinese less. Though it may be hard for them to interpret what I say, I trust that they will gradually gain a better understanding as we continue on.
2. As for the other volunteering project “Model UN Club” that I started last year in school, we had our second official Model UN Club meeting on Jan 8th. That week’s topic was Climate Change, and we paired off into groups and were each assigned a country. My partner and I were assigned Indonesia. During that 40 minute period, each group began researching their country and started putting together their position statements that included how Climate Change affected their country and some possible solutions to the issue. In the next meeting, our members will present their position statements and have a mini-simulation of what an actual United Nations assembly might entail.
A Note From the GPA President Cassie Tammy Wang:
For the “Bilingual EdTutoring” project, we do want to start with teaching the young children English along with Chinese so they could be well prepared for their school. Once they are in the Kindergarten, we want to focus on Chinese, however. As we know, kids can catch up English quickly once they are thrown into an English-Environment class. But they will likely forget everything they have learned about Chinese at home. In that case, GPA members with bilingual talents teaching kids how to read and writing in Chinese turns out more meaningful a long term EdTutoring project for all us American Born Chineses (ABC).
Congratulations to Angelina Yingying Liu, and we expect more and more GPA members become committed to our community service projects!
