Speaking Up for the Planet in Chinese Language Learning

On this week’s WAB Podcast, Grade 10 students in Chinese Language Acquisition share how their language learning intersected with real-world impact. Hajin, Ellie, and Viviane shared their recent project, where they delivered a speech about environmental protection entirely in Chinese. The assignment grew out of a unit centered on environmental protection. Students were tasked with writing and recording their own speeches in Chinese, advocating for specific strategies to protect the environment, using structured sentence patterns, and drawing on new vocabulary they had built throughout the unit. 

Each student chose a personal angle, from reducing paper and water use, and the importance of working together to single-use plastics and food waste, to excessive plastic consumption: single-use cutleries and bottles and cutting back on electricity. All three touched on small, everyday actions that add up. 

Sharing more about their process, the students shared the new vocabulary they learned. The students learned terms like 保护环境 (bǎohù huánjìng, protecting the environment), 垃圾分类 (lājī fēnlèi, waste sorting/recycling), and 少用 (shǎo yòng, use less), as in 少用纸 (use less paper) and 少用塑料 (use less plastic). Hajin discovered that 设计 (shèjì — design) functions as both a verb and a noun. Viviane found herself wrestling with the pronunciation of 自行车 (zìxíngchē, bicycle) a phrase that’s “kind of like a tongue twister.” Transportation vocabulary like this was a common theme of the speeches as riding bikes and taking buses were suggested as alternatives to driving. 

The students’ Chinese Teacher Stacey Liu noted that the speeches felt impactful because the students brought their own experiences and beliefs into them. Viviane shared: “These are not big things: turning off the water, switching off the lights. But if everyone thinks someone else will do it, nobody ends up doing it." Reflecting on the habits they want to change, Ellie shared "I sometimes have a habit of keeping the water running, especially in the shower or when washing dishes. I just have to keep that in mind." Hajin shared a goal he has set for himself: wake up a little earlier and ride a bike to school. 

On tips for learning Chinese or any language, students shared advice for anyone wanting to improve their Mandarin, especially around topic-specific vocabulary. 

• Say it out loud. All three agreed: speaking, not just reading, is what makes vocabulary stick. Read the pinyin, practice the sounds, and the characters start to click into place. 
• Review consistently. If possible, review it right before class or after school to get the hang of it. 
• Use AI tools to help check sentence structure. DeepSeek and ChatGPT can be useful for working out word order and grammar patterns in a new language. Every language has a different noun-verb order, and AI can help when you're trying to figure out how to use a word in a sentence. 

Be sure to listen to the full episode of the WAB Podcast to hear more from our students.