Chinese Colloquial Course First Grade Textbook. Language Skills Category

Author: Dai Xixin, Wang Jing
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: "A Practical Course in Spoken Chinese" is a supplementary textbook for the first-year "A Course in Chinese" (Volume 3). The book consists of 20 lessons, each comprising text, vocabulary, usage notes, and exercises, requiring 2-3 class hours per lesson. Oral Chinese classes are single-skill training courses, with the goal of cultivating students' communicative competence in spoken Chinese. This competence is specifically demonstrated by:
1. Communicating in accordance with the patterns of spoken Chinese language interaction.
2. Using spoken Chinese language in communication.
Based on this understanding of the nature of oral Chinese courses, the teaching principles we adopted in the compilation are: centering learning on discourse and training with the aim of expression.
Centering learning on discourse
Learning discourse means not only studying words and syntactic structures in speech activities but also understanding their communicative functions in such activities, as well as the ways and patterns of and (cohesion and coherence) in discourse segments. This textbook presents situational dialogues centered around a foreign student and a Chinese family. This approach makes it easier to arrange scenarios and topics commonly encountered by foreign students while reflecting the communicative behaviors, values, emotional expressions, and habits of Chinese people. As a result, the speech behaviors and cultural customs of the characters in the textbook appear more authentic and natural.
Training with the aim of expression
The premise of expression is the comprehension of inputted linguistic information. Therefore, the first step in expression training should be the training of comprehension skills, so we recommend giving students the opportunity to listen to the texts first. In the arrangement of text content, we always design 2-3 dialogue segments around one or two scenarios, with each segment containing 4 to 8 turns. This ensures that each segment is focused and a single topic, making it easier for students to understand and remember.
The second step in expression training is question-and-answer, which can be conducted between the teacher and students or among students themselves. This approach not only enhances students' comprehension but also trains their conversational (dialogue) skills based on their understanding.
The third step in expression training is narration, which involves converting the dialogues (dialogue) in the text into monologues to train students' ability to express themselves in longer passages.
The fourth step is guiding students from the scenarios in the text to real-life situations, encouraging them to flexibly apply the linguistic knowledge and speech skills they have learned in class, thereby cultivating their communicative competence.
The "Usage Notes" in this textbook include two parts: vocabulary usage and expression methods. The explanations of vocabulary usage are not exhaustive but are designed to be practical for the specific lesson. The expression methods list common expressions based on the main functional points of the lesson for teachers and students to choose from. All exercises are in dialogue form, requiring students to appreciate the context and communicative function of each dialogue pair.