How to Break the Barriers in Learning

Chinese?Dr. Wenling Li

Agenda

• Why is learning Chinese beneficial?• What are the barriers in learning Chinese ?• What is the best teaching approach?• How to best support your child’s learning?

Why is learning Chinese beneficial ?

• The economics grows in China• Globalization• Neuroscience

• Alphabetic and non-alphabetic language processing

What are the Barriers in Learning Chinese ?Chinese is non-alphabetic language• English is alphabetic language- Grapheme-Phoneme rule

• Chinese is non-alphabetic language- Grapheme-Morpheme rule• Chinese character structure• Single character: 人，日，月• Combined character: 河，湖，海

Chinese Language

• Simplified Chinese: mainland China春节• Traditional Chinese: Taiwan, Hong Kong春節 • Pinyin: onset, final and tone, for example: Nǐ hǎo/ 你好 /Hello

What is the Best Teaching Approach?

Shared Book Reading Approach• Interesting Story • Theme-based teaching• Fun and play• Everyone engaged

What are critical in Chinese Language learning?• 1. Morphological Awareness

• Orthographic awareness (structure of Chinese character)• Morphological awareness (radical awareness)

• 2. Tone Awareness• Four tone distinguish

Culture Introduce the culture background

Shared Reading Prediction, Shared Reading, Story retelling

New Words Learning new characters, words with games

Group Learning Group Reading, comprehension

Pinyin Learning Pinyin

Morphological Awareness

Understanding the grapheme-morpheme rule

Fun Writing Learning how to writing Chinese

Activities Hands on activities, performance, conversation

How to Best Support Your Child’s Learning?• Motivate your child• Let your kid as your teacher• Retell the story in Chinese• Use student’s activity book• Community activities—summer/winter camp• Visit China

Multimedia support in class roomChinese Songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQ6kycjs1k

Chinese Character Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlVEqA73Kv4