It is inevitable that the students learn Chinese in China will more or less make some mistakes, especially for words choosing. Students’ language levels are varied because of different ability and learning durations.

For the mistakes made by students of the primary phase, it is better to only help them correct but not explain the reasons. When it comes to the students who just start to learn Mandarin in China, they may choose the wrong words to express themselves. So, it is the teacher’s job to help them correct.

To study Chinese well is not easy for a foreigner, so when correcting mistakes, the teacher can’t just shout at them and interrupt them rudely because they don’t know how to study Chinese properly. The teacher can just wait until the student stammer the sentences that less than fifteen words. After students finish reading the sentences, you can naturally correct the mistakes he has just made and repeat the right one.

Let’s take one example to explain this. If the students say: “我的哥哥很短”, what you should say is just “很矮，我的哥哥很矮”. Normally speaking, students may not realize their mistakes at once and what the teacher done is to correct the mistakes.

Of course, some students who just begin to learn Mandarin may just stare at you. Then you can say: “You were saying ‘My brother is short.’ right? We would say ‘我的哥哥很矮.’” Problems can be easily solved like this. But so much for correction and no more explanation needed. They may not be able to understand even if you explain why because they just begin to learn to speak Chinese.

There is a long process to acquire a certain language. For the students of the primary phase, we should teach them with simple way that fit them. In Chinese culture, there is a set phrase meaning to pull up seedlings to help them grow. If we do not teach according to students’ ability, it may mislead them. Of course, you can ask students to repeat again to correct the pronunciation if you want to impress them.

For the students in the intermediate and advanced stages, we can correct them more but explain less. Some teachers may feel excited when they meet a high level Chinese learner at Chinese school in China, especially at schools or regions has less Chinese people. They are so happy as if they meet an old friend in a foreign country when they meet one who can speak Chinese so frequently.

Under this circumstance, some teachers may warmly correct them when they make some mistakes. You are in good intention but it may leads to the opposite consequences for those who study in China. When the teacher correct students’ mistakes, one should attach more importance on correction and less on explaining even if your students are so excellent that they have a very large vocabulary.

If the mistakes made by the students are related to the words whose meaning is similar, there is no need for teachers to talk much about the differences between the two words. Here is an example for students learning Mandarin Chinese. If the student says：“IKEA能征服仿冒品带来的问题吗？”. In this sentence, “征服” should be replaced by “克服”. But you can just correct it but no need to explain the reason.

There are some differences about how to learn Mandarin for various learners because they have different language skills and levels. As for teacher, they should try to avoid explaining to students of the primary phase because it will confuse them. For students of intermediate and advanced stages, very little explanation is allowed.

To sum up, no matter how excellent the students are or no matter what their levels are, if the teacher finds students mistakes, the most important thing for teacher to do is to correct. Explanation is the last measure you should take when you have to do it.