| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| chinesemonstermagic |
Posted - 03/26/2008 : 08:24:31
Have you had a look at the Chinese Curriculum being developed for teachers?
http://nflrc.iastate.edu/chinese/curriculum-group.html
Below is my feedback I sent to the committee:
Hello,
Thank you for your reply regarding the Chinese FLES Project.
I am happy to hear that the draft formats have been broadened, however, I have taught Chinese in Australia for 11 years and I would suggest that you design a Curriculum based on sound pedagogy. I have also been a general classroom teacher for 10 years before that.
I can only comment on what I have seen, and here are my impressions below: (sorry for the long response)
1. You are not addressing language skills but are prescribing content to be covered. Too many teachers I speak with here in the US have no understanding of how to teach the skills required to communicate in Chinese. Many teachers just want me to give them topics and when the students complete the topics it is assumed that one area of the curriculum has been completed. Teachers need to be trained in developing sound educational practice and I assume that will be included in the files you are writing.
2. Areas of communication needs to be defined:
Reading and responding
Listening
Writing
Oral interaction in authentic real-life contexts
The content such as my family, friends pets etc., can certainly be suggested, but if you have broader learning outcomes then teachers are free to choose topics and interests and themes that relate to individual classrooms.
3. I have taught for over 20 years in Australia and here in the US. I began teaching Chinese to Pre-schoolers, then K-8, and finally I taught High-school students. All my students were non-Chinese speakers with no knowledge of Chinese. I developed a whole range of language acquisition benchmarks for each grade level and then chose topics I felt were relevant to my students.
4. For Kindergarten in the Listening Strand there are things such as:
- Student identifies key items of information using teacher clues and visual stimuli
-Students identify patterns and connections by relating spoken sounds to Chinese characters, words or phrases
-Students discriminate intonation patterns in statements, questions, commands, requests, and exclamations
Oral Interaction:
-Students use rehearsed language (a few words or phrases) with others in social interactions.
Teachers then can devise learning activities to achieve that outcome - e.g. set up a restaurant in the classroom, rehearse role-plays etc.,
5. Once you have identified these learning outcomes, then you can suggest themes eg. My family, Friends, Pets etc., and ones that are familiar to the age of students, but topics are not the core of a Chinese curriculum.
6. The Processes of language use should be the starting point for Curriculum writing, otherwise it just develops into a list of topics and assessment strategies.
7. The Chinese Curriculum Scope and Sequence I viewed was a list of months and topics. This is hardly a Curriculum.
The draft of 'Who are our friends'? is entirely demeaning and prescriptive. Someone needs to come up with something that is educationally sound. This is how NOT to teach Chinese! It is teacher directed with little student collaboration, no acknowledgment of multiple intelligences or how teachers need to vary materials according to students' needs.
A well planned Lesson Plan should have elements of :
-Student outcomes - What do you want the students to achieve in the reading, writing, speaking areas?
-Specific Goals
-Procedure
-Required Materials
-Plan for Independent Practice
-Assessment
Anyone have any thoughts on what has been developed so far for Chinese teachers?
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