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Teaching Chinese in the sunshine – finding the keys to unlocking students’ potential

This blog post is about the learning journey of teachers. In particular it is about my learning journey at Chinese for Families , now in its twelfth year of operation. Many thanks to all who have supported me in this journey.

There is a famous Chinese idiom about a frog who lives in a well. This frog thinks the sky is only the size of the mouth of the well because that is all he has ever seen. When a passing bird tries to tell him about the vast world outside, he angrily rejects her words as rubbish. To me, this metaphor is very relevant to the field of Chinese as an additional language education.

As a practicing teacher, I see that a significant number of key players have already given up before the students even walk into the classroom. Chinese is ‘too hard’, students are ‘unmotivated’, it is ‘not possible’ or even more sadly, it is ‘not important’ or children ‘shouldn’t have to learn it’. Without belief, purpose or a sense of the importance of our work we cannot teach effectively, while without effective teaching most children will not learn.

An adapted version of this idiom “Viewing the sky from the bottom of a well” appears in AI Story Time

In fact, we do not yet fully know what is possible. The question of how best to present this very different language with a highly memory based written system to children growing up in the Western educational environment is still not fully explored or understood, although there is a small but growing body of research on the topic. To learn more, we need to be willing to try different approaches and leave the safety of the well of past practice. To have the courage to explore, we need to believe in the children’s learning potential and in the importance of our work.
I started a one lesson a week program, Chinese for Families Adelaide, in 2008 with a belief that it was possible for children to learn more than was common in once a week primary language programs and a desire to find out how to do it. I wanted them to develop a sense of the language and give them a foundation that would set them up for success in secondary school. Read more

Building a language foundation – your child’s journey in learning Chinese

December 11, 2017/in Chinese for Families /by Belinda Dello-Iacovo

Our parents often ask about learning outcomes: how much will my child be able to understand, speak, communicate, read and engage with the Chinese speaking world? Recently one of our students went on a family trip to China and her mother kindly agreed to share her observations with our Chinese for Families community.

“Our daughter has been learning Chinese for nearly 8 years now with “Chinese for Families” and our family recently travelled to China for a holiday. It was a wonderful trip and gave us all the opportunity to experience the food, language and culture while visiting some amazing places.

During our travels we had no particular expectations of our daughter’s level of Chinese language – she has learnt a lot during her lessons but we knew she would not have the confidence or vocabulary required to hold a fluent conversation. However despite this, we were pleasantly surprised to discover how much she actually could understand while we were travelling.

She was able to recognise various characters on signs and menus, and she could listen and understand some spoken words and phrases. At times she could assist us communicating with staff in shops and restaurants – even if only by speaking some words here and there – and even though none of this involved a full sentence or conversation it was extremely useful.

It made us realise there are many stages in learning a language before reaching the highest level of fluent conversation – and all of these stages can help in communicating. As a family we felt very thankful for the weekly classes at Chinese for Families and the opportunity it has given our daughter to broaden her language skills. Thank you Belinda!”

I like to think that in our one lesson a week program we take children a significant way along the path of genuine language acquisition. When they finish with us, they still have some way to go but they’ve gone far enough to see the peak and to know that they can there. They have a solid foundation in and engagement with the spoken and written language. They ‘get’ Chinese and they are ready to race ahead on their journey to the mountain top!

Dr Delia Lin , Lecturer at the Centre for Asian Studies, Adelaide University

September 16, 2015/in Teachers Reviews /by Belinda Dello-Iacovo

Dr-Delia-Lin

“Modern Chinese is without doubt the best set of Chinese texts I have used over the past 16 years teaching Chinese as a Second Language at Australian universities. It is one of the few texts which explain Chinese grammar from a functional perspective in such a way that makes sense to English speaking learners. The text shows a clear progression in terms of vocabulary and grammar learning. The language used in the dialogues is up to date, natural and colloquial. The topics are interesting, making it easy to create additional materials and classroom activities around them. The online resources are helpful and engaging. I would highly recommend Modern Chinese to any institution which teaches Chinese as a Second Language. We will definitely continue to use Modern Chinese and I hope to see more and more Australian universities using it.”

Alexander Spriggs, Second Year student Adelaide University

“I love these books for the following reasons:

-The books are well laid out.

-They have colourful comics that are inviting and fun.

-The grammar is very well explained and user friendly. It makes me want to study Chinese grammar.

-It is easy for teachers to use as they don’t have to set extra homework outside the books as with other text books. Students can simply open up the book and start studying.

-The books gradually get more difficult and don’t introduce things too quickly. They cleverly build on previously learnt grammar structures and vocabulary allowing students to be reminded of things previously learnt.

I wish they would make third year books for this series because they are the best books I have used.”

Bradley Wall, Second Year Adelaide University

“I like using the Modern Chinese book series because it helps me to assimilate with the Chinese language discourse. The books are easy to use with clear and simple explanations on the structure of the language and they provide a decent and practical selection of vocabulary to learn. The book series started by introducing me to expressing myself in the Chinese language, but now as I approach the end of Modern Chinese 1B, I see that I have slowly been learning more and more about how to think and create meaning within Chinese, much to the standard of a native speaker of Modern Chinese.”

Modern Chinese has been the First Year and Second Year Chinese core text at the Centre for Asian Studies at Adelaide University since 2013.

Teacher News & Reviews

Teaching Chinese in the sunshine – finding the keys to unlocking students’ potential

Building a language foundation – your child’s journey in learning Chinese

Dr Delia Lin , Lecturer at the Centre for Asian Studies, Adelaide University

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