Teaching Chinese speaking skills

By YUE MING

Introduction

Speaking is an important aspect in learning language Speaking is an important aspect in learning language My personal experience in learning foreign languageMy personal experience in learning foreign languageMany students struggle in their pronunciation and Many students struggle in their pronunciation and

fluencyfluencyWhat kind of teaching method is better to help What kind of teaching method is better to help

students improve their short term speaking skills?students improve their short term speaking skills?

Purpose

Which method will help learners understand context better and promote them to speak as well as possible in real situations?

Two sides teaching method

Traditional Chinese teaching methods

Technology based teaching aids

Side One : Traditional Method

Mechanical memorization without any technology teaching aids

Advantage: the students can recite the text Disadvantage: they can’t apply their

learning to associate with their past knowledge

Side two: New teaching Method

Use the visual aids as supplementary to help learners to understand the content

Advantage: students can apply their learning in the real situation

Disadvantage: will visual aids affect pronunciation?

Methodology

Made surveySelected 18 students at beginning levelDivided into two groupsGave the same paragraph and vocabulary

list to each group

Methodology

One group uses traditional method, the other uses technology-based method

Test how much they understand the paragraph through three aspects:

* Pronunciation

* Accuracy

* Fluency

Methodology

I take the average scoreCompare two groups’ final average score,

the highest score can be adopted as the better teaching method

Results

Problem

The pronunciation is not obviously different The pronunciation is not obviously different from two groups. from two groups.

Two groups have same problems with some Two groups have same problems with some certain words.certain words.

For example: zou lu (to walk) For example: zou lu (to walk)

henxihuan (like to do)henxihuan (like to do)

chuquwan (go out to play)chuquwan (go out to play)

Conclusion

The new method with the pictures helped learners to understand the text better

The new method helped students apply their learning into real situation rather than the traditional method

Especially reflect in accuracy and fluency

Future Work

Test this method in one or two semesterHow to help students improve their

pronunciation in short term If the teacher can’t find proper visual aids,

what kind of method should they adopt to help their learners, still keep the traditional method?