I have not had the opportunity to teach Chinese before, and it's very fun in a different way to teaching Indonesian.
Indonesian has so many cognates with English, and the roman alphabet helps alot, however the Mandarin language is highly tonal, incorporating a script that is entirely foreign to most of my students.
I've gotten through the first term with some really basic language learning, but I can't help but there must be a better way to teach this all! Most of my kids have a very high intrinsic motivation, they are absolutely fascinated by the culture and language itself. Always begging me to teach them to write lots of characters and love playing with whiteboard markers. However, I'm finding their fluency in understanding is a lot lower than I would expect in Indonesian. Surprisingly their pronunciation and their risk taking in speaking is excellent, because I have not been over-correcting their language; the emphasis being to have a go.
Bu Cathy emailed me last year, convinced that TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) is the best way to go. She has bundled a good number of resources on her blog if you want to get started! I was still a bit sceptical, after trying to attempt this year on my own [Click Here for Blogpost about My First Attempt].
BUT after a good number of weeks of very thorough research; Watching numerous videos of Ben Slavic and Terry Waltz teaching using this pedagogy, reading articles, and finally investing by downloading Ben Slavic's "TPRS in a YEAR", and "Stepping Stones to Stories", I think I will endeavour to spend this holidays really honing and creating a curriculum that will suit my students.
I have really been relying on Ignite Chinese blog, it is absolutely a gem in class demos, and what the classroom should look like. Some incredible task ideas, for example I really love the idea of "Movie Talk", where the teacher tells the story in target language, using a non-verbal visual to get students used to listening to a more naturally paced language, using Circling technique to engage the audience.
It is really a perfect fit for my students, as they love listening to my travel stories, and love imitating the sounds I make when I speak Mandarin. It can also be incredibly fun, because we can add drama and jokes to our stories in any way we please.
I am also currently enjoying the Australian Curriculum and the freedom it lends to how I develop my students' learning, and creating clear guidelines for what we should idealistically [NOTE: Idealistically!] aim for.
So I've started my first TPRS Pintrest board attached below. Later on I will be starting to attach all the posters I have made for my classroom, as it is incredibly laborious and if I can share that with you the better!