TY - CONF

T1 - How to Improve Pragmatic Competence of Students Learning Chinese as a Foreign Language

T2 - Nordic Symposium on Chinese Language Teaching and Research

AU - Zhang, Chun

PY - 2010

Y1 - 2010

N2 -   It is not an easy task for teachers to teach Chinese as a foreign language to the students who have completed the foundation levels of Chinese language and are embarking on more specialized work. The level of these students can be roughly characterized as 'advanced'. One of the most challenging tasks is how to improve the pragmatic competence in Chinese language for the 'advanced' students. The solution to the task is to develop language skills in the course of focusing on thinking about Chinese and cultures. This paper takes teaching practice and teaching examples as starting points, elucidating the instructional framework in how to design warm-up activities for students, the theoretical basis of teaching, as well as design focus from the perspective of cognitive science. Aiming at the students at advanced level, the design of warm-up activities should not only emphasize language points and vocabulary in order to assist students to consolidate their language skills, but also be structured around the building language skills and developing cultural understanding of Chinese, their society, and their recent history. Thus, it is hoped that the well-designed warm-up activities together with classroom activities can help students improve the development of language use, particularly, in language complexity, i.e. the capacity to use more advanced Chinese, with a greater willingness to use Chinese effectively.

AB -   It is not an easy task for teachers to teach Chinese as a foreign language to the students who have completed the foundation levels of Chinese language and are embarking on more specialized work. The level of these students can be roughly characterized as 'advanced'. One of the most challenging tasks is how to improve the pragmatic competence in Chinese language for the 'advanced' students. The solution to the task is to develop language skills in the course of focusing on thinking about Chinese and cultures. This paper takes teaching practice and teaching examples as starting points, elucidating the instructional framework in how to design warm-up activities for students, the theoretical basis of teaching, as well as design focus from the perspective of cognitive science. Aiming at the students at advanced level, the design of warm-up activities should not only emphasize language points and vocabulary in order to assist students to consolidate their language skills, but also be structured around the building language skills and developing cultural understanding of Chinese, their society, and their recent history. Thus, it is hoped that the well-designed warm-up activities together with classroom activities can help students improve the development of language use, particularly, in language complexity, i.e. the capacity to use more advanced Chinese, with a greater willingness to use Chinese effectively.

M3 - Paper

Y2 - 18 June 2010 through 20 June 2010

ER -