Monash master of education give Chinese lessons to students at all age

Background

Majoring in teaching Chinese as foreign language, I got a job as teaching Chinese in Thailand where Chinese teachers are badly needed, and earned an offer in a Chinese language school after rounds of selection. The major textbook adopted by the school was Chinese Character Canon, and students were expected to master four Chinese characters and relevant sentences in each class. Not long after I started to teach, however, I found the textbook put much more emphasis on explaining the meaning of single character than on its daily use, which unconsciously belittled language attribute of tool of communication. So I decided to compose a new textbook that started from a simple level and deepened gradually. It wasnt an easy job, costing me a lot of time on looking into academic materials, consulting with the experienced teachers, and summarizing and integrating the information acquired from diversified approaches. Delightedly, all the efforts paid off. The new textbook was well received by the manager, my colleagues and my students. Noticeably, the students felt more comfortable learning with the new book and made considerable progress. I myself also derived great confidence from this success, which made me all the more determined and passionate to learn more about language education, to feel its great power in promoting social development, and to be a member of this sacred course.
There were also many problems that couldnt be solved solely with theories. A typical example was the frequent distraction of primary school students. Learning Chinese, in particular Chinese characters, was kind of boring to them. Traditional teaching methods usually couldn’t help much in such circumstance. I designed a series of games and integrated them with Chinese reading, listening, speaking and writing skills, in an attempt to arouse students learning interest and maximize the teaching efficiency. Again my method succeeded. The students had much fun in playing the games and practicing what they learnt at the same time. The experience was rewarding to me as well. Not only did my oral English get largely improved, but more importantly I learnt to make flexible teaching plans out of textbook theories, felt for myself the nature of education, and accumulated precious experience.