Approaches to Effective Instruction of Chinese as a Foreign Language: A Case Study of Foundation Chinese Speaking Classrooms

Abstract

The basic objective of Second Language Learning (L2) is to encourage learners' linguistic and communicative skill development. This encouragement plays a fundamental role in classroom instruction. A classroom is where learners have opportunity to communicate with each other. A Chinese speaking course generally requires learners to practice their skills, enabling them to communicate verbally, pronounce consonants, vowels, and tones correctly, and use correct vocabulary and grammar. In addition, it provides learners opportunity to express their opinions and ideas in a variety of situations. In classroom instruction, teachers not only provide students fundamental knowledge, but also instruct them to apply what they learn in class to their real communication. To achieve the efficiency within the limited time, teachers need to include “speaking” in their instruction, demonstrating students how and what to say in a situation. Completing this article, the author spent one semester investigating the learning efficiency of beginner Chinese language learners in a basic Chinese speaking course through the teacher’s perspective.