1. Teaching Chinese to
International Exchange
Students: A Case Sharing
TANG, Weizhi (University No.: 2010881153)
Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong
Center for Language in Education, The Hong Kong Institute of Education
Classroom discussion and oral presentation
Teaching Chinese Language in International Contexts
Med part-time group
Instructor: Dr. LAI, Chun

2. Intro: overview
 This presentation sharing aims to present a case of
teaching foundation level Chinese language to
international exchange students at Hong Kong
Institute of Education with its merits and cons
exposed through video clips and related
experiences, as well as launch classroom discussion
of solutions and propositions accordingly.

3. Background Information
 Foundation Chinese courses for International
Exchange Students conducted by Center for
Language in Education
in cooperated with International Office
of the Hong Kong Institute of Education.

4. Background Information:
Course
 Length: two hours a week, six weeks in total
 Optional and not credit bearing
 Using materials that developed by our staff

5. Background Information:
Target Students 2010-2011A
Origin and Learning Experiences of Students
Korean with Learning
Experiences
Korean without
Learning Experiences
Finnish (ab initio)
Swedish (ab initio)
1
4
3
3
11 in total

6. Challenges
 Students are in variety of linguistic and cultural
background, motivation, Chinese learning
experiences, target language proficiency, learning
styles, majors .etc.
 Attendance is not stable.
 Short term course.
 Teachers may change.
 Almost all of the students are not planning to learn
Chinese Systematically.

7. Learning Needs Survey
 Fun
 Bargaining
 Mainland Touring
 Campus or Party Social

8. Main Pedagogical Models in
Practice
 Project-Based Learning
 Task-Based Language Teaching

9. Students Grouping
 Mainly 3 groups
 Consisting of experienced Korean students, ab initio
Korean students and ab initio European students.

10. Presumptions
 All students are able to be satisfied by doing this
project in spite of diversity since it is learner
centered and tailor made.
 Students are highly motivated and interested since
they get enrolled voluntarily.
 Compared with traditional methods, PBL and TBLT
can be more inspiring.

11. Intro: A PBL Case
 Project: My Profile
 Project Description: Create a personal profile on
Wikispaces in Chinese.

12. Project Planning Graphic
Project
Language
Pinyin Vocabulary
Person pronouns,
numbers, time, date,
nationalities, hobbies,
professions, families .etc.
Listening
Be able to follow an oral
introduction of someone
else
Speaking
Be able to introduce
oneself briefly
Partly Recognizing
Be able to recognize some
Chinese Characters while
typing with computers
Content
Knowledge
Life, structure of profiles,
professions, description of
personal experiences .etc.
Attitude
Be able to understand the
differences among people
of cultural gap, family
background, education
and interests in the aspect
of intercultural
communication.
Skills
Communication
Guessing, inquiring,
inferring, politeness,
observing, discussing .etc
Technology
Exploring new websites,
webpage organizing and
designing, typing, video
shooting .etc

13. Project Steps
 Background info and sample from teacher.
 Grouping and taking on the roles.
 Discuss background information, knowledge and
evaluation criteria with project diary that being
showed in video clip.
 Accumulate materials while learning.
 Create profiles while learning.
 Individual Presentation.
 Peer evaluation and reflection.

14. Project Goals
 Greeting
 Self intro
 Small talks

15. Why PBL?
 Students are in charge
 Less boring
 Promoting team work spirit
 Real life experiences
 Developing multiple intelligence

16. Why “My Profile”
 Easily accessing
 Flexible customized content
 Rich information
 Daily using
 Internet related

17. Project Content: My Profile
 Basic information
 Education background
 Families
 Hobbies
 Customized content e.g. videos, audios, pictures
and animations .etc.

18. Language Learning Needs:
Vocabulary
 Person Pronouns
 Numbers
 Time
 Date
 Education
 Profession
 Family Members
 Hobbies
 Nationality (Countries and Regions)

19. Language Learning Needs:
Sentence Patterns
 Greeting
 Make Statements
 Tendency with levels
 Possessions and belongings

20. TBLT: Classroom Tasks for
Language Learning
 Case 1: Magic Square and Sudoku for numbers that
being showed in video clip.
 Case 2: My Schedule for numbers, time, date,
expressions of daily activities and making
statements.
 Others: Costume party for professions and
nationalities, Secretary for time, dates, numbers,
professions and daily activities, Matching,
Jigsaw .etc.

21. TBLT Case 1 Analysis:
Exposed Problems
 Students focused on task itself instead of language
using: At first, they translated all the numbers in
Magic Square, then they translate them back after
finishing the task.
 Peer help are mostly about the answers but not
language learning.

22. TBLT Case 1 Analysis:
Possible Solutions
 Translation mark on task sheet should be strictly
forbidden, use Pinyin all the time.
 Finishing this task individually.

23. TBLT Case 1 Analysis:
Check
 Mostly solved but it relatively took much longer.
 Solved.

24. TBLT Case 2 Analysis:
What is My Schedule
 Use the task sheet to plan your schedule for the
coming week.
 Share your schedule with classmates orally.

25. TBLT Case 2 Analysis:
Exposed Problems
 Too many repeating items, e.g. having class and
eating everyday.
 It is limited by vocabulary, e.g. students are
planning to have a party but not knowing how to
express it in Chinese.

26. TBLT Case 2 Analysis:
Possible Solutions
 Planning activities except eating, sleeping and
having class, encouraging diversity.
 Asking for peer help since there are students of
higher level sit next to you.

27. TBLT Case 2 Analysis:
Check
 Distinctively improved.
 Classmates do help a lot.

28. Project Outcomes:
Observed Merits
 The discussion in the stage of designing the project is ok.
Students actually attempted to customize their profile design
of maximum use in language, e.g. the Korean students that
learned Chinese before have more complicated design and
richer info contained.
 Less yawn during the class compared with last semester class,
but maybe it was not comparable.
 Students seem to enjoy the tasks very much.
 There is no memorizing during class and afterwards, but most
of the students still remember what they leaned last time.
 Students are highly impressed and inspired that they are able
to speak this much Chinese in such a short time.

29. Project Outcomes:
Observed Cons
 It is still too easy for the Korean students that
learned Chinese before.
 No one is doing homework, e.g. I asked them to
create an account at Wikispaces and write the
profile text in English first but few did.
 There are always someone skipping class that their
project progress can not be fully tracked.
 We can only finish one project, hardly two in such a
short time, few topics can get involved.

30. Proposed Thoughts for
Discussion
 Better projects for this kind of diverse class and
short term course.
 More suitable tasks for ab initio learners.
 How to get some culture stuff integrated in the
projects and tasks.
 Whether more practice in TBLT and PBL are more
efficient and inspiring than traditional teaching
methods requires further study and observation.