American Born Chinese and Japanese folktales

11/7/2012

I'm planning to read the graphic novel American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang, with students in my comics and graphic novel course and use it to expand English vocabulary and expressions, to critically examine stereotypes, and explore other issues of interest to students that arise through our reading. In the book, Yang tells mini-stories simultaneously, including Chinese folk tales, one about "The Monkey King." In my introductory lesson I will have students share some Japanese folktales and identify the morals of each story. As I was looking for some Japanese folktales online, I came across a great website that has several Japanese children's stories in both English and Japanese. They would be helpful to anyone studying English or Japanese, and are a good point of discussion for those teaching students in Japan. Stay tuned for more on the American Born Chinese unit.

1 Comment

Sarah Forbes

12/4/2012 02:57:38 pm

Just finished reading American Born Chinese with my students and they loved it. I read the whole book as a read aloud, over a period of four 50 minute classes. I kept asking if students wanted me to stop and review vocabulary and they said unanimously "NO!" They were so interested in the characters and the story, and they were amazed at how it ends. Even though there was lots of challenging vocabulary, the students easily understood what was happening thanks to great pictures, that show tons of emotion and detail. They were eager to learn the words they didn't understand because each word helped them uncover more of the story. Now, students are tasked with creating their own comic books, by placing a traditional Japanese folktale in a modern day setting with familiar characters, maybe even themselves! Stay tuned.

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I'm Sarah Forbes. I'm the
K-1 ELL Teacher at John F. Kennedy Elementary, Vermont, and President-Elect of the Northern New England TESOL Board. I have my MATESOL and K-12 Licensure in ESL. I spent several years teaching English in Japan at Kanazawa Technical College and have also worked at Saint Michael's College as the Graduate Assistant to the Applied Linguistics Department, and Instructor in the Intensive English Program, and Summer TESOL Certificate Program. In addition, I have worked with Vermont Refugee Resettlement and through local grant budgets to provide English classes for Adults from the refugee community. I am passionate about sharing resources and experiences that can help other teachers in their work with ELLs.

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American Born Chinese and Japanese folktales

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