Chinese teacher Liu Shanshan led students of Cumberland Trace Elementary School in Chinese songs and taught them how to use the language to introduce their families Wednesday. 

After the morning class, fourth-grader Addi McEwing said learning Chinese was fun.

“I get to learn another language and teach other people how to learn it too,” Addi said, adding that she’s shared her knowledge with her 1-year-old sister. 

As a class of third-graders is ushered into her classroom, Liu opens by greeting the students in Chinese. The students then settle in to watch a video about China’s Mid-Autumn Festival, which took place Sept. 27. Students learn about the customs of the Chinese harvest – many of which focus on the moon – such as eating moon cakes and thinking of family while looking at the moon. 

Liu, a teacher with Western Kentucky University’s Confucius Institute, came to the U.S. in 2013. This is her second year at Cumberland Trace. Liu came to America, she said, “to experience what it would be like to teach Chinese here.”

Her experience has taught her that teaching Chinese to American children is different from teaching adults back in China. In China, the adults improve quickly, but at Cumberland Trace kids have the class once as week.

“So I need to do a lot of fun things to attract their attention,” she said, citing Chinese calligraphy as an example.

Liu thinks there should be efforts to enhance communication between China and the U.S. as the two become increasingly linked. 

James Flynn, superintendent of Simpson County Schools, said the teaching program is a two-way exchange. 

“Well I think mainly it brings a level of understanding and appreciation for other cultures,” he said. 

Flynn said the district’s four teachers offering Chinese language and culture to students in grade one through 12 fits well with the global awareness the district wants students to have. 

After five years with the program, the district has teachers in four of its five schools. Flynn said the district has considered expanding the program into early childhood education efforts to take better advantage of a language learning window between birth and 10 years old.

The program has been valuable in Cloverport Independent Schools, according to recently retired Superintendent Charles Proffitt. The district has two teachers in its elementary, middle and high school, which are all in one building. Among the district’s language offerings, only Chinese is taught in person rather than online. 

The teacher’s presence allows diversity within teaching staff, and introduces teachers to communicating across language and cultural divides. 

“It’s been a wonderful experience all the way around,” he said. 

The Confucius Institute hopes to continue developing the program through an upcoming teacher training conference Oct. 9-11. More than 130 Hanban volunteer teachers from more than 20 states will attend the conference held in WKU’s Center for Research and Development, according to a news release. 

Confucius Institute Managing Director Terrill Martin, said topics will include difference in teaching American students and using technology in the classroom. Unlike in China, where the teacher is the master of the classroom, American students can be more robust. Classroom management, Martin said, is one of the central topics teachers must focus otherwise students will run the class rather than the teacher. 

Martin hopes the conference will offer teachers “a better knowledge base of how to teach students other languages.”

— Follow Daily News WKU, county schools and general assignment reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter at twitter.com/aaron_mudd bgdn or visit bgdailynews.com.