The overseas students may find it is difficult to learn Chinese language when they study in China. Therefore, teachers should prepare some proper lead-in before they begin to teach the teaching points to help learners understand and remember easier.

During the process of learning Chinese, students may have been familiar with the language they have mastered. So we can take the advantage of the acquired language knowledge to lead in by comparing the two languages. Theoretically speaking, this method is very beneficial for those who learn Chinese in Chinato acquire Chinese language much easier.

In order to make it more direct, let me take an example to help learners study Chinese. If the teachers will teach the word “狗” to the students speaking English, they can first illustrate some phrases with the word “dog” like “a dog-like afternoon, a gay dog, a top dog, lucky dog, every dog has his dog”. After a while, the teachers ask students to find out the similar word in the sentences above. Then the teacher can lead them to learn the new word “狗”. For the purpose of improving students’ skill to learn Mandarin, this way of leading-in is not only lead new knowledge but also helpful to master the characteristics of the Chinese language.

This method is also can be applied to the grammar teaching. For instance, if the teaching content is the sentence structure with “比”, they can first write “A is thinner than B” and lead them to express the same meaning in Chinese language “A 比B瘦”. By this way, students learn Chinese language with clear clue. Of course, it would be better to underlying the different parts of Chinese and English expressing the same meaning. It will be clearer for students to know more about the contracture of Chinese language. What’s more, when teachers teach Mandarin language, they can change the lead-in language into Japanese or Korean accordingly.

Another often applied in Mandarin learning courses when teaching Chinese language is to lead in by pictures. To use this approach, the teachers should prepare some relevant pictures showing the teaching points for students. During the process of describing the pictures, students can learned the useful expressions and important grammar points in Chinese language.

Here are two examples as reference to show how it goes. If you want to practice students to describe the appearance of someone, you can prepare a picture with a beautiful lade and students should use some adjectives like “年轻”, “漂亮”, “美丽”, etc. It is the same way to teach some grammar points. However, you can do some proper changes for better results.

Another effective lead-in way is to begin with a certain topic, which also frequently used in Chinese language school. On the basis of the new teaching contents, teachers can organize a discussing about a relevant topic. After the discussion, the teacher will summarize and move to the main teaching points. For example, to teach the word “乐观”, teacher can raise a topic for students to discuss and express their ideas. About the topic “怎么让自己身体健康呢？你觉得最重要的是什么？”, the students go to school to study Mandarin may have different answers like “每天锻炼身体，要早睡觉，要吃得好少喝酒、少抽烟，要尽量让自己每天都快乐，忘记烦恼，对什么都充满信心……”. As it steps further, teacher can lead in the word “乐观” to the teaching points.

It is a good method to encourage students to think deeply and stimulate students’ interest to learn Chinese language. In Mandarin language courses in China, it also can be used to teach grammar. To practice the structure “Verb+过” to express the experience, teacher can begin with the topic “请谈谈你的经历”. After discussing and talking, students may say “我五岁开始学钢琴，一直到学到中学毕业。” or “我去年去北京时，吃了两次北京烤鸭，很好吃”. The teacher should write it on the blackboard and lead them to say “我学过钢琴” or “我吃过烤鸭”, thus emphasizing the points to be learned.

The three methods mentioned above are very practical and often used in Chinese school to teach Chinese language. Actually, these methods can be practiced by students themselves to train the language skills.