Chinese Language Curriculum

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Chinese Language Curriculum

• Rosyth School
• Parents Briefing
• 3 Jan 2008

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Background

• Chinese Language Curriculum and Pedagogy Review
  Committee set up in Feb 2004 in response to
  changing home background of students

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Generational Shifts in Use of CL in Homes

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Differentiated Objectives for Range of CL
Students

• All CL students enthuse them to learn CL
• Majority of students focus on oral communication
  and reading writing to reinforce language skills
• Students with ability and interest develop
  fluency in all four language skills and good
  understanding of Chinese culture
• Core group of students achieve both high
  proficiency in four language skills and an
  intuitive understanding of culture and
  contemporary developments in China

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The Pedagogical Approach
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???? Enjoy Chinese Language Learning
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Listen and Speak More

• Language learning begins with ability to converse
  in the language
• Knowing sounds and tones of a language will help
  students link sounds and meanings
• Students will be actively encouraged to express
  themselves using the language

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Recognise Characters Effectively

• A range of character recognition strategies will
  be taught explicitly to students
• No one-size-fits-all strategy
• Teachers and students will be encouraged to
  adapt strategies to suit their needs

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Character Recognition Strategies

• Pinyin Romanization Approach(????)
• Pictorial Approach (????)
• Rhythmic Approach (????)
• IT-based Approach (????)
• Character Logic Approach (????)
• Word Family Approach (?????)

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Character Recognition
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Character Recognition Strategies

• Character Logic Approach (????)
• ? a single person
• ?, with two ? to follow or join another person
• ?,with three ? a sizeable number of people and
  usually means a crowd
• ? wood or a tree
• ? with two ? forest
• ? with three ? jungle

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Character Recognition Strategies

• Word Family Approach (?????)
• ?????,
• ??????
• ?????,
• ??????

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Teaching Reading

• Early reading helps students acquire the language
  faster
• It helps students consolidate characters learnt
• Children love stories
• Teach students reading strategies explicitly

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Script Writing

• Script writing will be given less emphasis in
  lower primary
• At the onset, students will learn to write mostly
  basic characters and characters they commonly
  encountered in their daily life
• It will help students appreciate the form of CL
  characters

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Script Writing

• Not required to write the characters many times
• Augment with structured processes such as
• writing using fingers (?)
• demonstration (?)
• tracing (?)
• evaluating (?)

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Essay Writing

• Essay writing skills will be taught
  systematically
• At lower primary, students will be taught to
  compose simple sentences (??)
• As they move up the levelsSentences?Paragraphs?S
  hort Essays
• (??) (??)

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Early Reading
Enjoy learning CL
Writing
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Main Teaching Materials
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Categories of Characters

• Characters for Writing ???
• Required to read and write these characters
• Characters for Reading ???
• Required to read these characters only
• Meet-Once Characters ???
• To retain the authenticity of the passages
• Only required to read these characters in context

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Parent support
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Parent Support

• Encourage children to speak to family members in
  both Chinese and English
• Encourage your child to read good Chinese and
  English books
• Public libraries
• Books with attractive illustrations to start the
  child
• Audio books, electronic books

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Parent Support

• Expose your child to good Chinese and English
  television programmes, e.g. cartoons
• Tap on the environment such as road signs and
  advertisements to engage your child in Chinese
  conversations during outings

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Parent Support
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Parent Support
Online Resources
http//www1.moe.edu.sg/dir/cl
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Parent Support

• Do not excessively correct childrens mistakes
• Build up their confidence
• Children are more willing to use the language,
  thus, will acquire it better
• Allow the children to learn through meaningful
  games

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Parents Feedback

• Welcome feedback from Parents
• Schools will engage parents with their customised
  communication efforts
• Parents could stay closely in touch with schools
  and provide feedback to the teachers regarding
  different aspects of the curriculum (e.g.
  instructional materials, implementation measures
  etc)

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Making CL Learning Meaningful and Engaging
Thank You!