Technology and Chinese Language Teaching

A concern about "Chinese fever"

2006-05-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

We keep being fed by the news about "Chinese fever". It is certainly a good news to most of us. At the same time, some concerns arise. One of the concerns is how we deal with it. Many people see the opportunity and rush into the field of teaching Chinese. It becomes a big need in seeking Chinese teaching certificate in many states. I have attended several conferences on teaching Chinese. I found out that many studies on pedagogy of Chinese instruction were focused on listening and speaking parts of language learning(pronounciation and conversation). Not many studies are done in the areas of reading and writing. Comparing to the instruction of other languages, Chinese instruction still stays at a quite elementary level. This reflects the fact that Chinese is not an easy language to learn. On the other hand, it may reveal some critical issues existed in the current pedagogy of Chinese instruction. Some may argue that it is a complex issue. The question is how to improve our pedagogy to sustain the interest of learning Chinese to a higher level instead of just "ni hao". Lack of training and pedagogical researches among instructors of Chinese language is fatal. Every Chinese speaking person would believe that he/she is a good instructor of Chinese language. Same thing happened in China. Many institutions just grap any native speaker of English to teach English. What result would you expect? So the solution is not only to seek funding to open more classes of Chinese. We also need to seek more funding on the studies and researches on pedagogy and methodology of Chinese language teaching. Teacher training plays a crucial role in this trend of "Chinese fever". Otherwise, it can only be a short "fever". Maybe I worry too much. However our conscious efforts should have a more positive impact on the outcome of this "Chinese fever".
Comments are welcome.

中文教学中电化教学手段的运用 (TLCT 4)

2006-05-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

MP3 player, gameboy, ipod, pocket PC, cellular phone …… are in the hands of our students. The questions of additional challenges further arise - How do we infuse these new technologies into education? How do we bridge this gap between the home use of electronic/computer devices and the use of technology in teaching and learning at school?

1. Blogging/Journal writing:

外国人学中文

夏威夷大学萧老师

blog organizer/ssr feeds

学生1

学生2

http://blogger.com

2. Web Design in Classroom Teaching

http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC063573 (Chinese Calligraphy)

http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC040593/indexcn.htm

http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC052179/chinese.html

3. Pocket PC/Portable digital assistance device (PDA):

http://download.enet.com.cn/pda_pocketpc.shtml

4. Writing through Digital Images(/video)

Student Samples

What are the challenges of AP Chinese to college instructors?

2006-05-11T17:40:00.000-07:00

As we know, College Board will start to offer AP Chinese Exam in 2007. Many high schools nationwide (about 2400) will offer AP Chinese course. It means that there will be more graduates from high school with advanced or high level of Chinese in colleges. Are we prepared? How do we improve our instruction at college level? Maybe our college teachers need to know a little more about what we do at high school level. I am also quite certain that reading and writing will become a more important part of curriculum at college level. In order to train teachers for the AP Chinese course, College Board will host its annual conference in Florida this summer. Seminar and workshops will be presented at the conference. For more information, go to AP Chinese web site

Let's share and celebrate!

2006-05-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

Great conference at USC!
I attended the TCLT4 conference. It is great to have this opportunity to explore new ways in the teaching of Chinese language. This is also the focus of this conference. A few studies/researches on using technology in teaching/learning and analyzing Chinese teaching were presented. Several presenters insisted that using technology in classroom should consider the effectiveness of student learning. The purpose should be improving student learning, not just to show some fancy courseware. Technology is just a tool to make classroom teaching more effective. I totally agree. The variety of the topics covered is quite amazing. But most of the presentations still aim at listening, speaking including pronunciation, vocabulary, very few topics on reading and writing if I remember correctly. Therefore I can say that comparing to the teaching of other languages, the teaching of Chinese language still stays at beginning stage. This shows that Chinese is a quite difficult language to learn. On the other hand, there are still much more to do to make the teaching of Chinese language more effective.
I assume that there is a need to have a platform or forum where we can all share our thoughts and ideas about the teaching of Chinese language, or discuss some issues in teaching/learning, or express our concerns, or just to exchange information. More importantly, there is a need to celebrate our achievements. Therefore, I would like to initiate this blog. Hopefully more educators and experts in the field can join this blog to make the teaching of Chinese language more effective.