Get In Touch

We'd love to hear from you!

BB&N Office of Communications communications@bbns.org

Print this Page

Inside The Classroom:
Yinong Yang Brings the Far East to BB&N's Upper School

Yinong Yang, who helped to found BB&N’s pioneering Chinese program, doing what he does best.

Upper School Chinese Teacher Yinong Yang’s Beginner Chinese Class is abuzz with giggles. The students are beginning the challenging process of learning how to write traditional Chinese characters, and Yang has called them up to the board in pairs to demonstrate their technique—with decidedly mixed results.

“The way you write Chinese characters is very logical, but it is very different from English—there is a distinct stroke order, think of it like mopping a floor,” Yang says as he picks up an imaginary mop and gets to work on his classroom floor. “You don’t want to mop yourself into a corner, the correct stroke order allows you to draw each character most efficiently and beautifully.”

Although they are laughing, these intrepid freshmen are also learning perhaps the most difficult foreign language offering at the School. Chinese language uses two different scripts; the original 3,000 year-old character script, and “pinyin,” a more recent phonetic script which uses letters from the English alphabet to allow outsiders to use the language more easily.

Yang’s beginner classes, which he describes as “well paced, but not hurried,” focus mostly on the spoken language “pinyin,” stressing pronunciation and tone, but as with today’s class, some character lessons occur as well.

“By the end of the year, beginner students know about 500 characters and can talk about simple concepts—things like their family, food, and country,” says Yang. “I’ve found that students can memorize between 15 to 20 characters a night if they try, but they won’t retain the information—so there is no point. I try to initiate them to learn characters through association—for example, the character for “country” looks sort of like a map.”

Another challenge for Yang is incorporating an understanding of Chinese culture into the curriculum without making it a history class.

“It’s hard to separate the Chinese culture from the language because it is essential to understanding how the language works,” says Yang. “If language is taught correctly, the culture comes through on its own.”

As an example, Yang shows his beginner class the Chinese character for “goat,” then the character for “beautiful,” which is very similar, only larger. “This is because 3,000 years ago in China, goats were very important, so a big goat was considered beautiful,” he explains. The class laughs, but Yang can guarantee that they won’t soon forget the Chinese characters for “goat” or “beautiful,” and in the process they’ve gained some insight into the culture’s roots and values.

For many students, this unique and interesting etymology makes Chinese a welcome departure from other foreign languages.

“It’s much more fun that I thought it would be—I’ve taken other languages and found them difficult, but this is different,” says freshman Nico Enriquez. “The learning style is different. It’s much more creative and really fun.”

“Basically, Mr. Yang is the man,” adds Noah Randall ’11.

Although he was born and raised in the Hunan province of China, Yang was teaching Chinese at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. when he first heard about BB&N at a job fair.

“They were looking for a part-time Chinese teacher to start a program, and hopefully grow into a full time position,” says Yang. “At the time, this was a very rare thing for secondary school to do.”

His first year at the School, in 1997, Yang had one class with 14 students. Today BB&N offers six different levels of Chinese, from beginner through advanced, as well as AP and Chinese History. And thankfully, Yang has help from a second Chinese teacher, Hongchen Wang.

With an attrition rate of almost zero, it appears that Yang is doing something right, although he modestly offers up another reason for the program’s success.

“The Chinese economy has been growing a lot in recent years. That has spurred global interest and I think made the program more successful,” says Yang.

Stepping from his Beginner Chinese class to Yang’s Advanced Chinese class one hour later attests to just how successful the program has been.

There are only four students in the advanced section, and the experience is one of total immersion, with no English being spoken or read. According to Yang, these students are performing at a “college three level,” and are mostly fluent in the language. Two of them have already spent semesters abroad in Beijing.

The class appears to be as much of a group conversation as it does a teacher instructing students. The kids do more talking that Yang, and the dialogue is punctuated more with laughter than with confusion.

In a current assignment Yang has asked the students complete a research essay comparing only children in China with only children in the U.S.

“In Chinese cities, each family is only allowed one child,” Yang says. “How will this affect the upbringing? Such questions allow the students to learn about the culture and the language at the same time.”

And of course, the entire assignment will be completed in Chinese. It’s an impressive feat, and a testament to both the School and teacher that such a program has been in place for over ten years.

“I want students to enjoy the class, because people hear a lot about how hard Chinese is and that it can be intimidating,” Yang says, “I try to incorporate activities to make it fun—students learn without even realizing that they are learning.”

Mission accomplished.