Teachers of intensive Mandarin course in China used actions to demonstrate Chinese words or expressions in their Chinese teaching. Through teaching practice, it has been proved that the perceptual knowledge of students can be enriched and the new content of teaching can be directly imported into classroom teaching. In this way, students usually can completely devote themselves into the course and be active to comprehend and memorize Chinese words and expressions.

One teacher who is teaching in a school to study in China is quite good at using this teaching approach in his Chinese class. Here are the examples of his Chinese teaching class.

When he was teaching the word “安静”to students who learn Chinese in China, the put his forefinger in front of his mouth and asked the students:你们会做吗？Students then imitated him. The teacher asked the students:这是什么意思？谁知道？Students all answered:是不要说话的意思。In this moment, the teacher brought the word “安静”to teach students.

According to the textbooks of the Mandarin learning courses, this week they should learn the expressions 乘、办理、托运and登机牌. The teacher firstly set homework for students and asked them to prepare for a dumb show and present the whole process of taking airplane in front of everyone in the classroom.

He appointed the group of students who performed the best to present again as the collaboration of his classroom teaching. In the process of performance, the teacher guided students who learn Chinese language to describe the actions of the performers and imported the new expressions乘、办理、托运、登机牌、装、掏、登机、系、插、按and起飞.

Teachers of Keats school in Kunming to study Chinese also practice this teaching approach in their classroom. When teaching the directional complements:上来、出去……, the teacher firstly demonstrate the actions for students, such as “walking to the platform” and “going out of the classroom” and then he asked students to imitate him.

During the students who learn Mandarin imitated the teacher’s actions, the teacher explained for them and wrote on the blackboard:
他从座位上到讲台上。
他从教室里边到外边。
The teacher then imported the sentences with directional complements according to this:
他从座位上到讲台上。→他上来了。
他从教室里边到外边。→他出去了。
The teacher demonstrated the actions again and asked students to write on the blackboard:
老师出去了。
老师过来了。

The new grammar of directional complements was started to be taught to the students who study Chinese.

In order to let students of Chinese language school understand the two phrases 够得着/够不着, the teacher also took this teaching approach to let students comprehend in the most direct way.

The teacher put a dish of fruits on the windowsill of the classroom before the class. He asked one boy and one girl to take the fruits on the windowsill. The two students did as the teacher told them to do. And the consequence was that the boy could take the apple, but the girl couldn’t. According to the actions of the students, the teacher then wrote on the blackboard: 男生够得着苹果。/女生够不着苹果。

In the class of teaching the new grammar “V+得+state complement”, the teacher firstly demonstrated some actions and asked the students who learn Chinese in Yunnan to comment on his actions in adjectives. The teacher wrote on the blackboard the contents of the actions and comments, as well as imported the new grammar “V+得+state complement”, for example,
Actions comments new grammar sentences
打太极拳 好 打得好
跑步 太慢了 跑得慢
画画儿 很漂亮 画得漂亮