Teaching Chinese to International Exchange Students: A Case SharingTANG, Weizhi (University No.: 2010881153)Faculty of Education, The University of Hong KongCenter for Language in Education, The Hong Kong Institute of Education

Classroom discussion and oral presentationTeaching Chinese Language in International ContextsMed part-time group Instructor: Dr. LAI, Chun

Intro: overview

This presentation sharing aims to present a case of teaching foundation level Chinese language to international exchange students at Hong Kong Institute of Education with its merits and cons exposed through video clips and related experiences, as well as launch classroom discussion of solutions and propositions accordingly.

Background Information

Foundation Chinese courses for International Exchange Students conducted by Center for Language in Education

in cooperated with International Office

of the Hong Kong Institute of Education.

Background Information: Course

Length: two hours a week, six weeks in total

Optional and not credit bearing

Using materials that developed by our staff

Background Information: Target Students 2010-

2011A

Origin and Learning Experiences of Students

Korean with Learn-ing Experiences

Korean without Learning Expe-riences

Finnish (ab initio) Swedish (ab initio)

1

43

3

11 in total

Challenges

Students are in variety of linguistic and cultural background, motivation, Chinese learning experiences, target language proficiency, learning styles, majors .etc.

Attendance is not stable.

Short term course.

Teachers may change.

Almost all of the students are not planning to learn Chinese Systematically.

Learning Needs Survey

Fun

Bargaining

Mainland Touring

Campus or Party Social

Main Pedagogical Models in Practice

Project-Based Learning

Task-Based Language Teaching

Students Grouping

Mainly 3 groups

Consisting of experienced Korean students, ab initio Korean students and ab initio European students.

Presumptions

All students are able to be satisfied by doing this project in spite of diversity since it is learner centered and tailor made.

Students are highly motivated and interested since they get enrolled voluntarily.

Compared with traditional methods, PBL and TBLT can be more inspiring.

Intro: A PBL Case

Project: My Profile

Project Description: Create a personal profile on Wikispaces in Chinese.

Project Planning Graphic

Project

Language

Pinyin Vocabulary

Person pronouns, numbers, time, date, nationalities, hobbies,

professions, families .etc.

Listening

Be able to follow an oral introduction of

someone else

Speaking

Be able to introduce oneself briefly

Partly Recognizing

Be able to recognize some Chinese

Characters while typing with computers

Content

Knowledge

Life, structure of profiles, professions,

description of personal experiences .etc.

Attitude

Be able to understand the differences among people of cultural gap,

family background, education and interests

in the aspect of intercultural

communication.

Skills

Communication

Guessing, inquiring, inferring, politeness,

observing, discussing .etc

Technology

Exploring new websites, webpage

organizing and designing, typing,

video shooting .etc

Project Steps

Background info and sample from teacher.

Grouping and taking on the roles.

Discuss background information, knowledge and evaluation criteria with project diary that being showed in video clip.

Accumulate materials while learning.

Create profiles while learning.

Individual Presentation.

Peer evaluation and reflection.

Project Goals

Greeting

Self intro

Small talks

Why PBL?

Students are in charge

Less boring

Promoting team work spirit

Real life experiences

Developing multiple intelligence

Why “My Profile”

Easily accessing

Flexible customized content

Rich information

Daily using

Internet related

Project Content: My Profile

Basic information

Education background

Families

Hobbies

Customized content e.g. videos, audios, pictures and animations .etc.

Language Learning Needs: Vocabulary

Person Pronouns

Numbers

Time

Date

Education

Profession

Family Members

Hobbies

Nationality (Countries and Regions)

Language Learning Needs: Sentence

PatternsGreeting

Make Statements

Tendency with levels

Possessions and belongings

TBLT: Classroom Tasks for Language Learning

Case 1: Magic Square and Sudoku for numbers that being showed in video clip.

Case 2: My Schedule for numbers, time, date, expressions of daily activities and making statements.

Others: Costume party for professions and nationalities, Secretary for time, dates, numbers, professions and daily activities, Matching, Jigsaw .etc.

TBLT Case 1 Analysis: Exposed Problems

Students focused on task itself instead of language using: At first, they translated all the numbers in Magic Square, then they translate them back after finishing the task.

Peer help are mostly about the answers but not language learning.

TBLT Case 1 Analysis: Possible Solutions

Translation mark on task sheet should be strictly forbidden, use Pinyin all the time.

Finishing this task individually.

TBLT Case 1 Analysis: Check

Mostly solved but it relatively took much longer.

Solved.

TBLT Case 2 Analysis: What is My Schedule

Use the task sheet to plan your schedule for the coming week.

Share your schedule with classmates orally.

TBLT Case 2 Analysis: Exposed Problems

Too many repeating items, e.g. having class and eating everyday.

It is limited by vocabulary, e.g. students are planning to have a party but not knowing how to express it in Chinese.

TBLT Case 2 Analysis: Possible Solutions

Planning activities except eating, sleeping and having class, encouraging diversity.

Asking for peer help since there are students of higher level sit next to you.

TBLT Case 2 Analysis: Check

Distinctively improved.

Classmates do help a lot.

Project Outcomes: Observed Merits

The discussion in the stage of designing the project is ok. Students actually attempted to customize their profile design of maximum use in language, e.g. the Korean students that learned Chinese before have more complicated design and richer info contained.

Less yawn during the class compared with last semester class, but maybe it was not comparable.

Students seem to enjoy the tasks very much.

There is no memorizing during class and afterwards, but most of the students still remember what they leaned last time.

Students are highly impressed and inspired that they are able to speak this much Chinese in such a short time.

Project Outcomes: Observed Cons

It is still too easy for the Korean students that learned Chinese before.

No one is doing homework, e.g. I asked them to create an account at Wikispaces and write the profile text in English first but few did.

There are always someone skipping class that their project progress can not be fully tracked.

We can only finish one project, hardly two in such a short time, few topics can get involved.

Proposed Thoughts for Discussion

Better projects for this kind of diverse class and short term course.

More suitable tasks for ab initio learners.

How to get some culture stuff integrated in the projects and tasks.

Whether more practice in TBLT and PBL are more efficient and inspiring than traditional teaching methods requires further study and observation.