Practice and Research on Chinese for Specific Purposes

Eralingua, 2022

Since the release of the 2013 Curriculum system by the Indonesian Ministry of Education, the vocabulary of Indonesian senior high school Chinese textbooks has constantly been changing. In 2021, The National Language Commission of the Ministry of Education, PRC, released the Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education (Grading Standard). In the same year, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia encouraged learning according to students' abilities and provided more expansive space for character development and essential competencies through the 2022 Prototype Curriculum system as an option for all academic units. This curriculum is a system implemented between 2022 and 2024 in the post-COVID-19 learning recovery. Based on the analysis of these new standards, we find out how to adapt to curriculum changes, find out which difficulties arise and how to overcome them. In this study, we use analytic and quantitative research to analyze the teachers' adaptation process to the two new standards in textbook vocabulary. Furthermore, we use the vocabulary statistics of Mandarin textbooks for senior high school, textbook compiling principle-based these two standards and related theory. Through the analysis and statistics of the vocabulary in this textbook, we found that teachers need to adjust some main words in adapting to the two new standards and make a vocabulary selection and supplement to the textbook vocabulary. In addition, to meet the standards of government textbook preparation and meet the expectations of textbook users to understand social life in China through vocabulary to achieve better communication, teachers need teaching resources for textbook vocabulary teaching in this adaptation.

IJARW, 2023

Learning a foreign language is a long-term accumulation process, requiring learners to have a certain vocabulary combined with the practice of each key skill. However, for most students majoring in languages in general and students majoring in Chinese in particular, learning vocabulary encounters many difficulties. And the most common difficulty for students of courses, especially freshmen, is the lack of vocabulary necessary to learn another language skills well. The issue of how to learn vocabulary effectively is of great interest to many teachers and researchers. Therefore, this article analyzes difficulties when learning vocabulary and proposes some effective methods of teaching Chinese vocabulary.

Research among Learners of Chinese as a Foreign Language is the fourth volume of the monograph series sponsored by the Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA). It is the first book of this series that devotes its main attention to the learners of Chinese language, namely the cognitive state of the learners when they engage in the learning and processing of the Chinese language. It signals the emerging consensus of the field that sound curriculum design and pedagogy need to take into account the mind of the learners, and marks a ground-breaking collaborative effort to explore the mind of the learners.

Author eBooks, 2017

This article explores textbook writers' perspectives on theoretical frameworks in beginning and intermediate Chinese textbooks. Four prominent textbook authors were interviewed, and modified structured interviews were used. Interview data reflect the following three trends. (1) Four textbook authors had different foci in applying in their textbooks widely accepted principles of second language acquisition and approaches to second language teaching. (2) While all four textbook authors guide the teaching of language structures by communicative functions and relate the teaching with culture, they use one of the two methods in the process: practicing language structures and then completing communicative activities or completing communicative activities to learn grammatical structures. (3) The four textbook authors show distinctive features in their textbooks: grounding communicative Chinese language instruction in U.S.-specific language, educational and social contexts; enabling communication through setting up frameworks of language structures; developing proficiency by providing relevant materials in practical and manageable steps; motivating students by engaging them in communicative activities. Pedagogical application of the above findings in teaching Chinese as a foreign language is discussed.

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) is now in vogue. In China, even the <New English Curriculum Standard> formulated bu the Ministry of Education also recommends this method to high and middle school English teachers.

Sociology Study, 2018

Every language possesses three cardinal elements: phonetic element, lexical element, and grammatical structure, of which lexis is the fundamental pillar that supports the huge system of a language. The close relationship between language and culture is most readily seen in words. In fact, being the most active and elastic element of a language, vocabulary has the greatest culture-loading capacity. Vocabulary teaching is an integral part of foreign language teaching. Its efficiency has a direct relation with the development of the learners' communicative competence. Vocabulary is culture-bound, so it is self-evident that culture introduction is indispensable in teaching. The author attempts to make a comparison between English and Chinese cultures, to make clear how cultural disparities exist in English and Chinese vocabulary, and to put forward some constructive suggestions on how to integrate culture into vocabulary teaching in Chinese schools, so as to promote the efficiency of vocabulary teaching and improve learners' competence in intercultural communication.

Acta Linguistica Asiatica, 2015

With Chinese language gaining more and more popularity among Slovenian students and with the growing numbers of learners of Chinese as a foreign language in Slovenia and elsewhere it is crucial to find an approach that will lead to high quality and long-term knowledge of Chinese and that will motivate learners to continue learning.We can speak of two basic approaches to teaching Chinese vocabulary: the approach that first introduces pronunciation and the approach that simultaneously introduces pronunciation and character. The key question that arises is which of the two approaches leads to high quality and long-term knowledge? To answer the question an experimental case study was carried out at Ljubljana’s Faculty of Arts in the academic year 2011/2012. The case study showed that the approach that simultaneously introduces pronunciation and character and is based on the key principles of constructivist learning theory had beneficial effects on the students in terms of motivation and...

The systematic study of foreign language acquisition involves a multidisciplinary approach of which linguistics is but one component, along with psychology, neuroscience, social science, cultural studies, computer science, and other fields. This article foregrounds linguistic issues involved in the teaching and learning of Chinese by non-native learners. For the sake of brevity, some limitations and generalizations are inevitable. First, non-native learners in this article are understood as Western learners. Questions surrounding heritage learners, i.e., ethnic Chinese learners with a Sinitic L1 background learning Mandarin outside China, are not considered (for a representative publication, see He and Xiao (2008). The background of Western learners also needs to be distinguished from that of South Korean and Japanese learners who have a higher degree of exposure to and therefore a greater competence in Chinese writing. Second, no systematic distinction is made between Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), i.e., the teaching of Chinese outside a Chinese language environment, and Chinese as a second language (CSL), i.e., the teaching of Chinese within a Chinese language environment. Instead, the acronym TCFL in general terms refers to the teaching of Chinese in classroom situations, irrespective of the regional context. The underlying idea of this article is that second language (L2) teaching in general and of CFL in particular entails making decisions as to what and how to teach. After a brief historical overview, the first section explains to what extent and how linguistic theories have inspired TCFL methodology. The following sections introduce three important areas of TCFL, i.e., the teaching of pronunciation, morphosyntax and writing; decisions that are made within these areas; and the assumptions and theoretical concepts that underlie these decisions. 1. CHINESE LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LINGUISTICS INSIDE AND OUTSIDE CHINA The history of Chinese language study by Western learners can roughly be divided into three stages: 1. The initial stage saw the sporadic establishment of discrete and special purpose programs and/or the design of curricula for Chinese language learning in Asia. The beginning of the initial stage can be traced back to the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries when Jesuit missionaries established the first systematic Chinese language study program. Although earlier Chinese-Western encounters must have involved

Journal of World Englishes and Educational Practices

In learning a language, vocabulary forms the cornerstone of the whole process since vocabulary influences speaking, reading, and writing ability. This study involved the observation of CFL learners who are students in Nanjing-China. It aimed to critically assess the perceived challenges of CFL learners across various universities in Nanjing learning Chinese vocabularies, their adopted strategies and motivation in learning Chinese vocabularies and explore ways to improve CFL learner’s proficiency. The study used a survey questionnaire to collect the data from 120 male and female Bachelor, Master and PhD students with different ages of 20 to 43 who are enrolled in 20 universities in Nanjing China. Based on certain Descriptive analysis and calculations, the findings of the study indicate that the participants indeed experience difficulties in learning Chinese vocabularies. Moreover, the results also revealed the participants’ already laydown initiatives and strategies that are mostly i...