As a teacher, something I really feel is important to include in our day to day learnings, are the values and attitudes required to actually make learning happen in the first place! When we have positive attitudes and values towards our learning, it allows us to have a deeper learning experience. This isn’t rocket science, but it is something that is taken for granted in our education system, like kids should just ‘know’ this. But unless we use the vocabulary of such values with our kids, and talk about them, they probably aren’t learning to their full potential!

As always, learning something in another language, allowing a comparing and contrasting to a first language, adds another layer of ‘meaning’ to a word or concept. So learning the names of the values we would like to practice, in Chinese, is a good way to think about the meaning of these values that we wouldn’t have before! Not all in one vocabulary session of course! But just by having them visually in our space, and talking about them as they apply to what we are doing in that moment.

So in our library, we have these learning values visually on display to remind us to talk about them every now and then!  I have them nice and big, both in English and Mandarin.  I have used the same image on the English and the Mandarin equivalents, so that it is easy for the kids to understand the Chinese version instantly.  There is a kid friendly definition of each one on the English version card. Here is the vocab if you wish to do something similar:

Thinker	善于思考	shàn yú sī kǎo	Cooperation	合作	hé zuò
Open-Minded	思想开放	sī xiǎng kāi fang	Creativity	创新	chuàng xīn
Risk-Taker	勇于挑战	yǒng yú tiǎo zhàn	Confidence	自信	zì xìn
Communicator	多元交流	duō yuán jiāo liú	Tolerance	容忍	róng rěn
Reflective	自我反思	zì wǒ fǎn sī	Independence	独立	dú lì
Knowledgeable	知识丰富	zhī shi fēng fù	Respect	尊重	zūn zhòng
Inquirer	勤于探索	qín yú tàn suǒ	Integrity	廉政	lián zhèng
Caring	充满爱心	chōng mǎn ài xīn	Enthusiasm	热忱	rè chén
Balanced	身心均衡	shēn xīn jūn héng	Empathy	怜悯	lián mǐn
Principled	公平正直	gōng píng zhèng zhí	Commitment	投入	tóu rù
Curiosity	好奇	hào qí	Appreciation	感恩	gǎn ēn