Premier’s Kingold Chinese Bridge Language Teacher
Scholarship
Teaching spoken Chinese, character
recognition and writing in the primary
school
Judy Shih
Cabramatta West Public School
Sponsored by
PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIP REPORTS, PART 1/1
Rationale
In recent years some Chinese as a second language researchers speculated that the
teaching of spoken language and written forms of Chinese simultaneously is not the best
method for the L2 beginners (Liu, 2002). Chinese, unlike English or French, does not
employ a phonetic system or alphabet as an aid to pronunciation. If characters are not
chosen systematically, it will not only make learning characters more chaotic and difficult,
but it will also be a stumbling block to the acquisition of oral fluency (Zhang, 2002).
Learning may be unsuccessful if the learner is taught what he is not ready for (Corder,
1973). From my experience, teaching Chinese in primary and secondary schools as well,
Chinese language has been perceived as being beyond the young learners’ grasp due to
the obstacle of character learning. From this study tour I was seeking to  provide a means of introducing Chinese writing system in context appropriate to
young learners’ stage of language development;
 advance student’s knowledge, understanding and confidence in the use of
Communication skills, preparing for further learning;
 increase my knowledge of how the contemporary research of Chinese as a
second language can be used to support on-going implementation in Chinese K-6
Syllabus.
Focus of the study
The study tour allowed me to travel to the People’s Republic of China to participate in
different professional development activities in Chinese as a second language teaching
methodology related to the teaching spoken Chinese and character recognition and
writing in the primary school. During my 35 days stay in China, I selected two
destinations with different purposes:
31 days in Beijing  Completed the Teachers Training Program for Teaching Chinese as a Second
Language at Beijing Language and Culture University;
 Engaged in my research study under the supervision of Professor Shichuan Yang;
 Collated the latest Chinese language and culture resources cater for Chinese
learning K-12, especially for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games;
 Spent four days in Shanghai and visited Shanghai Experimental School for
International Students to find out their practical pedagogy to overcome the
obstacle of acquisition of Chinese language skills in Years 1-3 foreign students
who come to Shanghai with their parents and learn Chinese as a second language
in a formal school environment;
 Visited Rixin Experimental School for making comparisons of Chinese
acquisition between Year 1 Chinese local students who start to learn Chinese for
three months and the foreign students;
 Participated a workshop with the teachers and the principals of the schools stated
above to share experiences in teaching Chinese characters to the L1 and L2
young learners and how schools keep staff and students motivated in language
learning programs;
 Attended the 1st Shanghai Children Reading Conference covering the
implementation of big book teaching programs in Jiangsu Province and the
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PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIP REPORTS, PART 1/1
developing effective children literacy and language teaching program in primary
schools. I also had the chance to observe different teaching demonstrations how
to teach reading to aged 6-10 students.
Having the opportunity to be a full-time student studying at the Beijing Language and
Culture University was indeed a valuable experience. I have learnt to be more familiar
with current monographic studies on Chinese linguistics and grammar, making
comparisons between Chinese and other languages, teaching methodology and culture. It
was the area to which I believed research made a constructive contribution. I met more
than 56 teachers who came from China, USA, Taiwan, England, France, Germany and
Malaysia. Even though I was the only one from Australia I never felt lonely or home
sick. Even though the study was very tough and lots of assignments and tests needed to
be done, I enjoyed every moment to stay and learn with them, especially our New Year
Party. I also met some famous researchers and professors and was deeply moved by their
diligence in teaching and professionalism. I was so fortunate to spend one-on-one time
with the researchers and educators of my study interest, that is, how to break through the
obstacle of Chinese character learning for the young learners. I am encouraged to keep
studying and to implement it in Australia.
Findings
According to the NSW K-6 Chinese Syllabus, the teachers are often required to cater for
a diverse range of young learners, from those with little or no experience of Chinese to
fluent background speakers. For students who commence the study of Chinese in Early
Stage 1-Stage 3, they need to have a developmental sequence of learning that takes place
as knowledge, understanding and skills in Chinese language and in other areas of the K-6
curriculum as well. Knowing how to break through the obstacle of Chinese character
learning for the young learners is the key to the teaching and learning of Chinese.
Compared with the remarkable achievements of contemporary research of Chinese as a
second language to the adult learners, there is a great need for the researchers to put
more effort into the study of how young L2 learners learn Chinese, especially for those
aged five to ten years. However, different contemporary pedagogical approaches have
been implemented in those primary schools for foreign students in the major cities, e.g.
Beijing and Shanghai. More appropriate resources have been available for teaching as
well.
A new spoken Chinese and characters recognition and writing program that draws the
attention to the intellectual development and speaking ability of the learners aged five to
seven years is introduced. This program focuses on strengthening the links between
Chinese and other KLAs, particularly HSIE, PDHPE, Creative Arts and ICT at the
subsequent stage. In a short period of time, Stage 1 students who have little or no
experience of Chinese will  develop the knowledge and understanding of standard Chinese phonetic system,
regular structure of Chinese characters’ formation system and basic speaking
Chinese and listening comprehension skills;
 enjoy learning and to be self-motivated, reflective and competent;
 engage and be challenged to maximize their individual thinking in terms of
images capabilities.
Step 1 Entry to Chinese
Hanyu Pinyin Lesson
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PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIP REPORTS, PART 1/1
Listening & Speaking Lesson
Basic Characters Lesson
According to the K-6 Syllabus, most NSW primary schools can offer a two hour Chinese
program per week. For the effective delivery of Chinese, each session of this program
consists of Hanyu Pinyin Lesson, Listening and Speaking Lesson and Basic Characters
Lesson and lasts for approximate 30 hours. Teachers should note that the content, age
and skills development had to be appropriate. On the other hand, the difficulty and
quantity of each lesson would be based on the student’s present ability “ + 1”. Giving
enough learning practice to the young learners is more important. The ideal allocation of
practice time will be 70 per cent of the whole session, using various learning activities
and resources.
1 Hanyu Pinyin lesson
In order to learn standard Chinese, one must learn and master its phonetic system first.
Hanyu Pinyin (Chinese Phonetic Alphabet) is the phonetic system adopted by the
People’s Republic of China since the 1950s. To introduce Hanyu Pinyin to the beginners
the lessons consists of:
 Chinese Phonetic Alphabet
 21 initial consonants
 36 simple or compound vowels
 Phonetic spelling rules for writing Chinese syllables
 Tone recognition
(Rules for tone sandhi and light tone are complicated, so they will not be introduced here
or at step 2.)
Some common principles for effective delivery of Hanyu Pinyin are  Before introducing Chinese syllables, students need to know the names of the
articulators. Any posters of Points of Articulation and Tone Pitches of the Four
Tones help the young learners grasp the pronunciation easier.
 The teacher should use various activities for pronunciation practice, tone
recognition and discrimination, such as Chinese tongue twisters.
 When teaching initial consonants particular attention should be paid to the
position of the air stream obstruction and other factors involved in the
pronunciation of individual consonant, such as the degree of obstruction, the
variation of the obstruction, the strength of the air stream and the degree of the
vibration of the vocal cords.
 Attention should be paid to the position of the tongue and the shape of the
mouth teaching of simple or compound vowels particularly.
 Being different from English, Chinese is a tonal language whose basic tones can
be classified into four types: high level tone, high rising tone, fall-rise tone and
high falling tone based on tone pitch. They are also called as the first tone,
second tone, third tone and fourth tone. A change in tone in a spoken syllable
will bring about a change in the meaning. Thus, introducing the four tones into
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the Chinese syllables greatly seems to be a challenge to the teachers how to
manipulate student’s learning outcomes, especially to those non-tonal language
background students. We should emphasize the tones in pronunciation but not
too harshly. Students can gradually achieve a good foundation in pronunciation
by doing various exercises throughout the years.
The first tone should be taught first because the other three tones come after it,
then fourth tone, second tone and third tone. Once the student can pronounce
all the tones correctly, four tones would be read in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th order.
Analyse and compare the similarities and differences between Chinese and
English in pronouncing a particular sound when it becomes relevant, such as c, j,
q, x, zh, ch, sh in Hanyu Pinyin and English. More practice should be given to
the differences.
2 Basic Characters Lesson
In consideration of the real situation, in which the young learners coming from the nonChinese character-culture learn Chinese character in Australia, helping them establish a
cognitive construct for the system of Chinese characters is the aim of this stage. The
lessons consist of  Strokes of Chinese characters - Six basic strokes
 Order of strokes for writing Chinese characters
 Structures of Chinese characters – Basic characters
(Components and radicals are complicated, so here it will not be introduced.)
Some common principles for effective delivery of Chinese characters are  Select a list of basic characters (‘danti zi’ namely in Chinese) that can be used to
create all other Chinese characters. These characters are selected by their
independence, meaning, simple and higher flexibility of formation in words. It
always moves from simple to complex, from easy to more difficult.
 With the help of pictures, young learners will be encouraged to associate
pictographic elements with meanings.
 Six basic strokes of Chinese characters, namely, the horizontal stroke, the vertical
stroke, the left-falling stroke, the right-falling stroke, the dot and the rising stroke
will be introduced first. The students are equipped to go on learning other
derived strokes until they have mastered the whole character system.
 A copy form of Chinese characters called ‘Tian zi ge’ in China, which is a square
with dotted cross in the middle, will be used for tracing and copying Chinese
characters. The different size of the square should be used appropriately for the
different age of the learners.
3 Listening & Speaking Lesson
Enabling students to develop communicative skills in Chinese is the aim of the Chinese
K-10 Syllabus. Gaining insights into the relationship between language and culture will
promote a fair and just society that values diversity. The Listening and Speaking Lesson
will provide ample opportunities for the young learners to communicate their thoughts
spontaneously in real-life situations. Some common principles for effective delivery of
listening and speaking skills are  All the oral materials in the most needed functional items, such as greetings,
introductions and classroom instructions, should be modified and carefully
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PREMIER’S TEACHER SCHOLARSHIP REPORTS, PART 1/1
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selected to suit the young learners’ level, so that a gradual development of
Chinese language can be achieved.
The materials focus on Hanyu Pinyin, which has Chinese characters with a
smaller size font written beneath them as this not only eliminates the difficulties
encountered by young learners lacking a background in Chinese characters but
also provides a preview of the Chinese characters for the next step.
Step 2 Integrate Listening & Speaking into Reading & Writing
Reading & Writing Lesson
Listening & Speaking Lesson
Basic Characters Lesson
As the learning steps in the
second stage, the students
will have already obtained a
firm grasp of basic
Chinese phonetic system and
character system. This
should enable them to gain the listening, reading, speaking and writing skills necessary
for effective interaction in Chinese. We should also prepare them to explore the linguistic
systems and patterns by making comparisons between Chinese and English.
1 Reading & Writing Lesson
Some common principles for effective delivery of reading & writing skills
 With limited learning experience, mass practice and vocabulary input will be
more beneficial to young learners than theoretical teaching.
 Grammar should be used to support the process of young learners’ language
acquisition and to facilitate communication, rather than being taught in isolation.
All technical terms in grammatical knowledge should be avoided. Learners are
exposed to various fundamental sentence patterns by engaging in simple texts
and exercises.
 The key sentences of each text provide overall grounding in reading and writing
and move from easy to more difficult.
 In order to suit the differing levels of the learners, the difficulty level of the
sentences using as examples for teaching in class should be lower than the text. It
can increase the amount of supplementary contents and vocabulary so that
learners can learn according to their individual needs.
 The written materials focus on Chinese characters with the appropriate fonts and
size suitable for the eye sight of children. Hanyu Pinyin written beneath
characters is provided to help learners pronounce independently. Practice of
Hanyu Pinyin is needed for consolidation at all time.
 With the knowledge of Hanyu Pinyin, learners can start to use word-processing
skills to produce texts. It enhances their development of writing skills in Chinese
and ICT skills as well.
2 Listening & Speaking Lesson
Transcending the limits of needed functional items, the lessons include a broader range
of interesting materials, concentrating on topics of interest to the young children and
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illustrating cultural differences between China and Australia. The materials still focus on
Hanyu Pinyin as the previous step.
3 Basic Characters Lesson
Second cycle of Basic Character lessons will be continued and associated with new
elements:
 Strokes of Chinese characters - Derived strokes
All 21 derived strokes will be too much for the young learners to learn at this
stage. The most common and easy derived strokes should be selected carefully
and be maximized its effectiveness to the writing.
 Order of strokes for writing Chinese characters - Revision
 Structures of Chinese character - Components
Aiming at helping learners master a system of Chinese characters’ formation, the
formation of a character by combining different component parts will be taught.
Grouping pictophonetic characters by their pictographic and phonetic elements
can easily draw students’ attention to the relationship between the character and
its meaning.
 At the same time, students should master the use of characters into words, words
into phrases and phrases into sentences by practicing them. Character learning is
never in the sole situation.
Practical applications
The new spoken Chinese and characters recognition and writing program, stated as
above, has already been implemented in Year 2 students of Cabramatta West Public
School since February 2008. The evaluation of this program will be done at the end of
Term 2, 2008.
Dissemination of results
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By exploring, collating and updating materials in a wide variety of 2008 Beijing
Olympic Games, Chinese language and culture during my study tour, I
established the a resource kit consisting of a booklet and CD to make the
extensive teaching materials relevant to the NSW Chinese K-6 Syllabus.
Individual teachers may decide to modify some materials suitable for their
secondary school students. These resources will be distributed among Chinese
teachers by the Chinese Consultant, Chinese Language Teachers Association of
NSW.
The permission for reproducing the photographs on CD related to Chinese
culture has been given to NSW Department of Education and Training.
A K-12 Chinese workshop has been conducted in April, run by the Chinese
Consultant, Language Unit, NSW Department of Education and Training.
A workshop of the spoken Chinese and characters recognition and writing
program will be presented to the conference of National Chinese Teachers
Federation Association at Canberra in July.
An article that is an extract of this report translated in Chinese will be sent to the
Beijing Language and Culture University.
As some Chinese teachers requested, an interest group of teaching character
recognition and writing in the primary school has been formed and
communicated via DET intranet.
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References
Corder, S.P. 1973, Introducing applied linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Liu, X. 2002, Introductory of teaching Chinese as a second language. Beijing: Beijing Language
and Culture University. 107-119.
Zhang,P.P. 2002 Intensive Spoken Chinese, New approach to learning Chinese. Beijing:
Sinolingua. 1-5.
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