用英语开展讲中国故事的活动英语作文

用英语开展讲中国故事的活动英语作文

Telling Chinese Stories in English

Hi everyone! My name is Lucy and I'm a 5th grader at

Sunshine Elementary School. A few weeks ago, our English

teacher Mrs. Park had a really cool idea. She wanted us to share

some of our favorite Chinese stories and legends, but we had to

tell them completely in English! At first, I thought that sounded

kind of hard. There are so many amazing Chinese tales with

tongue-twisters and idioms that wouldn't make sense in English.

But Mrs. Park said that was part of the fun challenge.

She split our class into small groups and each group got to

pick one famous Chinese story to retell using our English skills.

My group picked the classic folk tale of Mulan. We all loved the

Disney movie, but the original story is over 1,500 years old! It's

about a brave young woman named Hua Mulan who secretly

takes her elderly father's place in the army by dressing as a man.

She fights for 12 years to protect her family and country from

invaders. In the end, Mulan is honored as a hero by the Emperor

himself.

First, we had to read through different versions of the Mulan

tale and take lots of notes on the key events, characters, and dialogue. That part was pretty easy since the story is so popular.

The hard part was figuring out how to express some of the

intricate plot points and poetic language into simple English a

kid could understand. Things like "She plucked a sagacious

warrior's melon" to mean she lopped off an enemy's head was

definitely a head-scratcher at first!

After a few practice rounds, we started getting the hang of

translating the story into plain English that still captured the

spirit of the original. Mrs. Park had us use body motions and

props like cardboard swords to act it out as we narrated too. That

made it way more fun! I got to play the role of the fearless Mulan

which was so awesome. My friend Jacob made an incredibly

stern-looking emperor with his bathrobe and chopsticks for a

beard.

On the day of our big performance, the other groups

presented some legendary tales I'd never heard of before. Like

the crazy story of Jingwei Bird who kept dropping pebbles into

the sea for centuries, trying to fill up the entire ocean. Or Lord Ye

who slayed the mighty Black Dragon but almost got tricked by its

talking belly button! So many unique tales that were hilarious,

moving, or just downright bizarre when retold in English. I think my favorite might've been the group who did the

classic folklore of the Monkey King. With jump ropes as their

staffs and towels as magic clouds, they acted out how the

Monkey King rebelled against the heavens and fought the

immortals with his shapeshifting trickster powers. They made the

dialogue so goofy and fun, like when the Monkey King was

calling the Dragon King names like "Old Scribbleneck" and

"Flapcakes." I was cracking up the whole time!

When it was our turn, we gave it our all to make the Mulan

story just as entertaining. I still got butterflies during the scene

where Mulan's male persona is finally revealed after the war.

"She lowered her helmet...her hair cascaded like a cloud river!" I

tried to say it with dramatic flair, slowly undoing my topknot to

let my own hair tumble down. The class gasped and cheered - we

nailed the climactic moment!

After all the performances, Mrs. Park praised us for clearly

working so hard to bring these ancient tales to life using our

English skills. She could tell we weren't just reciting words by rote,

but really understood the meaning and cultural significance

behind each story. A few parents even came up after and said

their kids' performances gave them new appreciation for the

richness of Chinese mythology and folklore. Overall, it was such a rewarding experience. I never would've

predicted how fun and engaging it could be to take these classic

Chinese stories I've known since childhood and re-envision them

through an English lens. It stretched my language skills for sure,

but more importantly it reminded me of the transcendent power

that stories, whether centuries old or retold anew, have to unite

people across cultures. Retelling tales with ties to my heritage

while exercising my English fluency? My dual identities just

co-existed in perfect harmony. I can't wait for the next creative

assignment Mrs. Park has up her sleeve!