My successful Chinese learning as a second language

Hyejin(Dianne) Jang

TESOL 147th(Kang-Nam)

January 13, 2017

Teacher: Jayme

I graduated a foreign language high school, and I took Chinese as my second language. I had never studied the language before, and had no background knowledge about what it was. At the first Chinese class, I met my Chinese teacher who was a real Chinese, and the language sounded strange because of the tone. After the first class, our classmates talked about learning Chinese, and we’re a little bit scared about the tough learning process. The strange tones and the strange words of Chinese made us embarrassed at that time. However, at the end of the school, we realized that our Chinese class was one of the best effective learning courses that we’ve met. Until now, without learning Chinese for 15 years, I can listen and understand the language. So, I want to introduce my successful experiences about second language acquisition of Chinese with the learning types and skills that we’ve done.

First of all, our Chinese class was a quite modern teaching environment. Most of the class time, we divided into 5~6 groups and monitored each-other. Some of us were native speakers, so our teacher and the native speakers facilitated our class together. That kind of environment made us feel to be more equal and similar with the teacher, and motivated us to learn and exchange knowledge. It was one of the most non- authoritative class that I had in my high school, and it helped us to refresh what the learning is. It was not boring at all, and the most of the class was the student talking time and the teacher talking time was little. He actually guided us to know the contents and facilitated us to build close rapport between students and him.

Second, for high retention rates, the teacher used auditory methods at the first of the class all the time for icebreaking. We listened and sang a famous Chinese song, and repeated and memorized the lyrics. Sometimes, we watched a famous Chinese movie for short time, and it was very fresh to all and helped us to remember live Chinese words in the movie. This kind of visual & auditory methods of learning helped us to understand Chinese. Novel reading like the story of little red riding hood called “Xiao Hong Mao” was another good case of learning the second language to the auditory learners, and it was really good for us to remember the total sentences of the language.

I’m sure that the Chinese teacher was the enabler in our class. He helped us to inspire and motivate us to get interested in the language, and he wanted us to remember the interesting mood all the time. One of the best teaching techniques of the class was “Making and acting Chinese play”. We made into 5-6 groups including the native speakers, and each group made one Chinese play and acted the play all together. To make the play, we had to find the live Chinese words to make communicating situations. We tried to find the words in the Chinese dictionary, newspapers, dramas and movies spontaneously and wanted to communicate each other and with the teacher. The native speakers were another good facilitators to each groups, and the way of making the play contained the integrated four basic language skills - speaking, reading, listening and writing.

With those great skills, he really made us as participants in his class with respect, and tried to make empathetic understanding with us. He sincerely believed us that we were another part of his learning process and respected us as a teacher and a learner. Those authentic attitudes made us feel more comfortable and made us to be creative in his class than other classes.

For a long time after my high school, I’ve realized that my Chinese learning process was still going on in my whole life. I cannot remember the most knowledge from the high school, but I can understand and speak Chinese over 15 years till now. Before this TESOL class, I’ve wondered why I memorized well especially about Chinese learning, and concluded that it was because of many interesting activities of the class. However, after studying TESOL Language & learning part, I could understand well about the teaching environment and skills from the class. At that time, I didn’t know how the teacher tried to make us excited and concentrated on the language, but now I realize that how much he put his efforts on skills and techniques.

In conclusion, my teacher was the enabler making students to be passive and motivated about the language. He taught us using auditory and visual methods, and it was really helpful for sensitive high-teen aged learners. The class was facilitated by the teacher and students all together, and the students learned by teaching and mentoring others, not just by lecturing or reading & writing. We were all teachers and learners. We communicated each other with respect, empathy and authenticity. Even 15 years passed by from that time, I really appreciate about making me confident in speaking and understanding Chinese. From this class, I learned that “good teaching comes from good learning”. Learning goes forever in our life, and this kind of learning process & environment affected me in many part of my life especially on communication. If I’d be a teacher in the future, this successful learning experience of my second language would help me to be a real teacher.