I believe that the basic principles of language acquisition should be on building self-confidence, introducing Chinese language with ease, building vocabulary and developing the learning process by creating interest in the language itself. Here are some of my approaches.
My G1 students are learning Pinyin. This is fundamental basic in Chinese language learning. By putting the initials and finals together, students have to figure out the pronunciation of these letters. A fun way to learn Pinyin is to read rhymes and tongue twisters.
In G3/4, they are learning about idioms. Each day, a student is tasked to find an idiom for the class. He/she would share and explain the chosen idiom at the beginning of Chinese lesson. Not only that this form of peer learning foster collaboration, it also got them excited about learning about idioms.
The students in G5/6 were given the opportunity to learn about the story <猴子捞月亮>/Monkey caught the moon. As a formative assessment, the students had to work together on a poster which they presented when retelling the story in Chinese. They were such confident speakers and I am so proud of them.
