The Students

To start off, teachers must understand that from this level on, students will start to learn some pretty hard to grasp grammar concepts in Chinese, like 动词补语, even though our material is taking steps to introduce to them, it’s quite possible that some students might find it hard to internalise. That’s why if the teacher is not careful, it could become a grammar lesson, with students asking questions that are hard to answer.

What teachers must do, is to understand the concepts beforehand, and to guide students through discovery and examples. At the same time, shift the focus onto the story reading, comprehension practice, and fluency practice.

You will find students after the 60 hours of beginner stage, they become quite quick in reading the story, and they like to understand the sentences word by word, they normally can get the comprehension questions right. Ask them a few more questions along with the storyline, to practice their listening too.

Students also would have the ability to practice in pair work independently, it’s time to encourage them to start using Google translate or Pleco the Chinese dictionary App to check words they don’t know. They might start to make funny sentences, but there is not much need to correct them all the time since it will then cost more time to explain… there is no need for an Elementary student to be error-free.

We use our own coursebooks for students. Make sure to read and understand all our material thoroughly before each lesson. This process will equip you with the required subject knowledge and confidence.

1) Main textbook: Mandarin.World 中文世界 Leve 2 Book A, Elementary 1.0 course teaches Lesson 1 -5, Elementary 2.0 course teachers Lesson 6-10.

2) Hanzi coursebook: Hanzi Level 2 Book 1

3) Digital material: Course Kahoot, Course Quizlet, Hanzi Quizlet, Review podcasts

The Materials

Fluency Main Course

Our fluency coursebook has a standard format, which includes 3 main sections – Tutorial, Fluency practice, Immersion. Each lesson has a standard format – tutorial 导入, story 读对话, comprehension 阅读理解, vocab workshop 解释新词, grammar workshop 语法学习, assessment 测试, fluency practice 口语练习, homework 作业, immersion 课后听看.

At the back of the book, there are all answers to the lesson, especially where grammar points were explained properly. Make sure to read this part beforehand, so you know how to explain to students without confusing yourself or over-explaining certain concepts.

Our sample teaching plan offers an overview of a sample lesson flow, but teachers are encouraged to treat each lesson with their own creativity and with reference to students’ needs.

• This level starts to have some more complicated grammar concepts, such as verb complements of results, which are explained and learned in several lessons across the whole book. Therefore, it is important to familiarise yourself with the whole syllabus/textbook even when you are only able to start teaching Lesson 1.
• Due to this feature, be prepared with students’ questions that might need ‘future knowledge’ to provide a satisfactory answer. Thus, signposting related forthcoming content might be helpful along the teaching journey.
• Not all native speakers always know the rules of their mother tongue. Not all linguists always know how to explain grammar in simple English. We wrote our version with very careful consideration, so it’s a good reference for you.
• Always seek opportunities to scaffold students’ learning by 1) modifying the length of sentences, grammar, and vocabulary to the level that students can understand 2) encouraging them to use the newly learnt grammar structures

Grammar

The Flow

• Prepare well and know well your teaching plan – what steps to carry out and how much time is allocated to each step? Transit to different steps naturally and smoothly.
• The format or teaching flow of each lesson does not need to be the same all the time. A diversified teaching flow is proved to work well by our experienced teachers. For instance, Fluency Practice is often used towards the end of a lesson. However, some of its activities can also be used as revision at the beginning of the next lesson. Grammar Workshop often comes after Story Time; however, it can also be learnt before Story Time to facilitate their understanding. Thus, feel free to mix and match different steps and create diversified and dynamic teaching formats.
• Make good use of our Course Kahoot and Course Quizlet games, which are proved to be useful tools to bring excitement and fun in the classroom.

• Allocate 10 – 15 minutes each lesson for Hanzi. However, as each lesson has quite a bit of content and Hanzi to cover, it is possible to leave this part as homework. Be flexible.
• Hanzi Level 2 books are designed to guide students to master the key foundational Hanzi from each lesson of their main textbook, via a selection of interactive activities, such as differentiating single component characters from compound characters, recognising characters of the same radicals or sound component, differentiating sound alike characters, differentiating look alike characters, and etc.
• In order to explain to students why certain Hanzi is the way it is, we have written answer sheets, it’s highly recommended to read them before class! It’s possible, sometimes these explanations are hard to comprehend, you can make it light by joking “I also don’t understand why ancient Chinese people see it this way”, “these Hanzi were created so long ago, that we have put on the caveman think cap” for example. Don’t just read them out, make it fun.
• For in person class, we will print the Hanzi books for you, for online class, please encourage students to print them out, and write them with pen and paper.

Hanzi

Before & After Class

Before the first lesson

• Well prepared – material reviewed, teaching plan done, joined all of the digital resources, collected all of the books, tested your computer with screen etc.
• No need to be nervous. Remember you are equal to the students, they will be just as friendly as you can imagine.

During the first lesson 

• If it’s a new class, you don’t see all students joining your what’sapp group, please invite them verbally. You can say this to let them understand the importance of joining the group:

“Please join our class what’sapp group, it’s a study group created for us, I will be sending you learning material lesson by lesson, review podcast after each lesson, and your homework submission would be within the group too. It’s also useful when we have tech issue, or running late etc. “

• If you want to use Quizlet for your first lesson, some of your students might not have it, please instruct them. (See Quizlet section below)

After each lesson 

• Learning team will send students links and instructions to download App and material etc.
• It’s highly recommended to send students homework and the lesson Review Podcasts right after the lesson. Most students wouldn’t necessarily download the podcasts themselves, also it helps students who are absent to make up the lesson. By sending it right after the lesson, it helps the students to create a habit to listen to it. It’s proven to HELP them a lot to retain the words learnt, and listen better.

Homework 

• Since learning tasks are quite heavy in this level, homework would mostly just be assessment and sentence workshop to help students review. Some super diligent students might choose to do Writing Club. 
• We encourage students to submit their writing homework using Hanzi typing or audio speech at Elementary stage. 
• Give them encouragements when they do. As teachers, you will find yourself super proud of their progress each time you hear their homework.