The initial stage of the overseas students is the beginning of the whole learning process, which bears significant influences on the student’s future study, the oral lessons are the skill lesson with an aim to train and culture the oversea students’ oral communication skills and social abilities. It is agreed by students who’d been to learn Chinese in China that the speaking is the most widely used skill which had aroused the attention of numerous oversea students.
Therefore, it will also be agreed by students who’ve been abroad to learn Mandarin in China that the adherence to certain principles and the appliance of effective methods are quite necessary.
To study Chinese well, the crucially of Oral Chinese Lessons must be made conscious, with regard to its fundamentals and its utilities. There is a popular saying goes like this, Great oaks grows from little acorns, the initial stage of Chinese learning plays a role in paving the way for the future study of oversea students.
However, it can be discovered by those who are waiting to study in China that the oral practice is one of the effective ways in facilitating language learning, in the past teaching of Chinese as a second language practices, although some schools has opened courses of advanced or intermediated levels of oral Chinese Lessons, the complete system and the specific goal of oral communication practices had not been clearly identified.
When students are planning to take Mandarin learning courses in China, they will need to evaluate the teaching approaches and modes of elementary speaking Chinese courses, the oversea students would evaluate their proficiency of Chinese knowledge through their prompt responses, while the teachers would be able to assess the student’s level as well as the teaching results.
There are mainly four types of teaching methods in schools to study Mandarin, namely the phonetics, vocabularies &phrases, paragraphs and passages, and there are mainly two types of training, the training of the individuals and the group training.
There are mainly four teaching approaches to be shared with oversea students in Chinese language schools, namely the phonetic teaching approach, the vocabulary teaching approach, the sentences teaching approach and the simple passage instruction method.
The first method in teaching elementary oral Chinese as a second language is phonetic approach, since languages are voiced; therefore, the clearness and accuracy of the pronunciation are the basic demands both in oral and listening practices. The teaching of phonetics according to the phonemes is the main approach adopted in the teaching Chinese as a second language boundary as well as in intensive Mandarin courses in China.
The main teaching approaches adopted in Mandarin language courses in China include the teaching methods of chart demos, repeated demonstrations, circulated imitations, the practicing methods of solos, choruses, integrated reading and speaking practices, the correcting methods of anticipating approach through exaggerations and comparisons, the gestures and body movements.
The second part is the teaching of vocabularies, there are many techniques when you learn Chinese language, such as the direct method which explains through the display of objects or actions, the recognizing reading method which usually carries out through following readings of the blackboard writings, the explanation technique which prescribes the definitions of the words, the replacement method which uses homonyms to illustrate certain word, the morphemic method, the association method and the translation method, etc. and for the elementary level students , the recognizing reading, the situation method and direct method are usually adopted.
The teaching of the sentences mainly relies on the imitation, which includes the imitations of the stresses, tones, speed and pauses, the sentence making method is also useful for intermediate level students, which are the practices of the vocabularies in sentence making or the blank fillings; what’s more, the communicative practices which includes impromptus questioning and answering as well as the free dialogues are usually used for higher level students in schools in Kunming to study Chinese.
The teaching of the simple passages, teachers should focus on the sequencing, causing and resultative, inductive reasoning or transitional propositions of the passage. Beginners may choose to practice according to given topics, joining sentences into paragraphs, retelling or repeating to enhancing their levels of Chinese speaking skills, since it is a rule that there is no royal road to learning.