Learning Mandarin in Confucius Institute
23,2012
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Since the establishment of the Confucius Classroom, the popularity for gaining an insight into Chinese culture and learning Chinese language has been rapidly increased at Monkseaton High School, North Tyneside, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
Since the establishment of the Confucius Classroom, the popularity for gaining an insight into Chinese culture and learning Chinese language has been rapidly increased at Monkseaton High School, North Tyneside, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. To reinforce the learners’ enthusiasm for learning Mandarin, and to further promote their interest in Chinese culture, the Chinese teachers have developed a teaching plan: ‘Performing Comic Sketch, Learning Chinese’, in which the visual, auditory and kinesthetic skills have been incorporated. It is first put into practice at an adult class that the learners performed a comic sketch: the characters 'Spring Chun (upside down) arrived, Dragon Long (upside down) arrived, Good Fortune Fu (upside down) arrived. (In Mandarin, the pronunciation of the words ‘upside down’ and ‘arrived’ are of the same). The ‘performance’ and ‘audience’ are so excited that each of them would like to try a role.
Through this activity by using comic sketch, the learners have realized the differences of the written Chinese characters between "arrived" and "upside down", together with the best use of homophones for especially lucky purposes in unique Chinese culture – understanding why some Chinese characters with good luck indication are placed upside down. The students feel that they are increasingly interested in the profound Chinese culture and the charm of Chinese characters! Meanwhile, the learnt characters are strongly committed into memory. That indicates ‘Kill more birds with one stone’!