Panel

Strategies and Methods: Engaging Students of Chinese at Different Levels

Wenwei Du, Minmin Fan, Ye Li

Vassar College

Seton Hall University

SUNY at Suffolk County Community College

Abstracts:

Paper 1:

“Engage American Adults in Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language, ” by MinminFan

The development of Chinese language in the United States is currently at a booming stage. It is an exciting time because the field is expanding rapidly and the number of people learning Chinese language has increased exponentially over the past few years. K-12 schools in all parts of America rush to offering instruction in Chinese. Language education programs are also started for adult learners who want to learn Chinese. Chinese language education achieves popularity not only among heritage learners but also among those completely new to Chinese.

Just as the demand for Chinese language programs is growing across the country, Chinese language teachers are exposed to a host of challenges: How to prepare American learners to reach sophisticated levels of proficiency in Chinese? What are the learners’ expectations? What do they want and need to be able to do in Chinese? What do I want the learners to be able to do in Chinese? How do I structure things so that the learners develop the ability to do those things?

Unlike students in K-12 programs, adult learners generally have more concerns about family, jobs, money, transportation, fatigue, and other realistic and practical issues. All these factors might inhibit their full engagement in class. Therefore, teachers of adults learning Chinese as a foreign language often find themselves obliged to compete with more demands on learners’ attention: What is an adult learner’s motivation to engage? What should the instructor do to keep the adult learner motivated and engaged? How can an American adult effectively and efficiently learn Chinese? What should an American adult do inside and outside of the classroom to improve his literacy levels in Chinese?

This paper is to investigate how to promote learning engagement when teaching American adults who learn Chinese as a foreign language. This paper will commence by examining the trend of learning Chinese in the United States and the call for better engaging learners in instruction. Then, theories of language acquisition and researches on learner engagement in language-learning settings will be reviewed. Afterwards, specific instructional strategies will be introduced, followed by a description on how these strategies can be employed to promote the engagement of American adults learning Chinese as a foreign language. Finally, limitations of this investigation will be discussed and recommendations will be made for further research on learner engagement in this population.

Paper 2:

“中文教学中词语的重复与进深” by 李晔

众所周知, 一个词语能够被外语学习者有效掌握需要许多次的重复练习与使用。在中文教学中，一般词语教学的方法是当词语作为生词出现时进行讲解，并进行一些组词、造句或其它形式的操练。但如果学生在以后的学习中缺少对于该词语的重复使用或进一步的辨析了解，就很容易出现边学边忘，或使用起来词不达意的现象。“词语的重复与进深”对于学生能否打下扎实的词语基础起着至关重要的作用。下面笔者就“词语的重复与进深”这一问题谈一点自己的心得。

一、有意识地制造中文词语的重复率

为了学生能够有效地掌握所学词语，教师要有意识地重复使用所学过的词语。

1、 利用重复率高的课堂用语与作业题

在最初的几堂课中教学生一些课堂用语（仅仅结合拼音教学教学生发音即可），在以后的教学中每次必用，学生很快能够听懂并熟悉。而当课堂用语的生词在课文中出现时，适时地将语音提示转为文字提示。如一开始教学生的是拼音“qǐng dǎ kāi shū, dì _ yè”。当学生学了有关生词后，教师可以在黑板上用文字书写“请打开书， 第____页。”进一步，布置作业，也可以从“英文+拼音”，变为“拼音+汉字”，最后变为全是中文。布置作业的提示一般重复性词语也较多，学生看多了这些中文提示，很自然地就熟悉了这些中文字词。

2、 教授语法句型、设计情景对话时，不断重复学过的生词。

如教“在……”语法句型，可以把学生以前学过的地名或地点名称连带起来：“北京、上海”，“家、学校、宿舍、餐厅”等等。

在设计情景对话时，可以连带以前学过的会话，扩大对话的范围与容量，使学生温故知新，像滚雪球一样积累词句。

二、在比较辨析中重复，并进一步加深学生对词语的理解

1、 一词多义的辨析与重复

不少中文词除了本源意义还生发出不少其它意思。建议最初只教授本源意思，在原始意义学生已经使用多次，能够明确掌握后，再作辨析与加深的工作。

比如“打”最初的意思是 “strike,hit,beat”，但还有一些其它意思的“打”，如“打球”(play), “打电话”(give out)，“打工”(do, engage in)，“打的”(get) 等。建议等新的意思出现后，再连带前面出现过的意思进行辨析、比较，在辨析、比较中不断重复，这样，既能巩固词语的本源意思，又能进一步掌握词语的多种含义和用法。

2、 同义词与近义词的连带、比较分析

一些同义词或近义词虽然词义相同或相近，但用法却完全不同。当一个有同义词或近义词的生词出现时，最好将这一词语与其同义词或近义词进行辨析讲解，并说明其用法的不同。而在以后的课文中被讲解过的同义词与近义词在作为生词出现时，可以反过来让学生回顾同义或近义的已学词语。同义词或近义词的辨析最好两两相对地进行讲解，不宜一次罗列过多。

3、 对英译相同但汉字本身意思不同的词作连带、比较分析

如：“to know”（认识、知道），“new words” （生词、新词）等。

Paper 3:

“高年级书面语的理解与内在化Understanding and Internalization of Written Language” by Wenwei Du

The paper is based on the author’s teaching model of Chinese original texts at the advanced level at college. It first demonstrates the method of using various online aids to help students to understand the difficult language points. Then it shows how paraphrasing methods can help students to digest the content and review the old vocabulary, how repeated reading aloud can familiarize students with the difficult sentence structures in written language, and how questions and answers are arranged in a way that can help students to internalize those vocabulary, phrases and structures frequently used in written texts and spoken by educated native speakers. Finally, the oral and written retelling of the text’s story reflects the degree of each student’s proficiency level of the mastery of the text studied.