Chinese Beginner 2 Course Training
Course overview
Chinese Beginner 2 course has 10 lessons, to be taken over 10 weeks in any weekday evenings or over 5 weeks in an intensive course on Saturdays.
Our Chinese Beginner 2 course is designed for students with Pinyin foundation already, and ideally with knowledge of 80 or more vocabularies. In this course, students will continue to further their Pinyin training to achieve natural pronunciations and tones. Another 30 essential Hanzi and learning methods of Hanzi will be introduced in this course. In each of our lesson, the strong focus is on conversational skill training talking about lifestyle, likes and dislikes, home and neighbourhood, favourite things to do and places etc. Our key grammar points covered include complete basic sentence structure, all forms of questions asking when, where, how etc, how to indicate directions and locations, use of modal verbs, measure words etc.
Lesson Topics
Lesson 1 – Likes & dislikes
Lesson 2 – Self introduction
Lesson 3 – Daily Routine
Lesson 4 – Commute
Lesson 5 – Neighbourhood
Lesson 6 – Mid course review and practise
Lesson 7 – Directions
Lesson 8 – Meeting Friends
Lesson 9 – Eating Out
Lesson 10 – Total review and practice
Understand the students
To start off, we must understand students are still very green. They can’t understand if you say a word that they haven’t learned, or even they might take some time to respond to what they have learned.The good thing is they might already understand how the classes will run, and they are ready for it. The beginner stage is very encouraging and empowering, it’s the process of 0 to 1, so they are still enthusiastic, but they are not ready for complex grammar and explanations yet! So when being asked a question outside of the curriculum, experienced teachers will know not to expand too far, and to bring it back to focus on the current learning, without hurting the student’s feelings.Lastly, remember to ask students to use Quizlet flashcards, and our review podcasts after class to revise. And encourage students to submit audio homework each week into their class group! This is very motivating to the class as a group.
We use our own course books 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) Fluency coursebook: Book Level 1A last two lessons, we also call it Discover Chinese 1A, and Book Level 1B first 6 lessons
2) Pinyin coursebook: Pinyin 2 Naturize My Tones, this is optional, as it’s tone pair practise, not so easy for Beginner 2 students, perhaps Beginner 3 or 4.
3) Hanzi coursebook: Hanzi Level 1 Book A last 4 lessons.
4) Printouts: including flashcards, activities, and worksheets mostly for review lessons
5) Digital material: Fluency book Kahoot, Pinyin Kahoot, Hanzi Quizlet, Review podcasts.
All material can be accessed on Zoho platform, please request access.
Understand the Materials
course Introduction – Beginner 1-4
- Course curriculum
- Typical lesson plan
- How to use the course books including fluency main book, Pinyin & Hanzi books
- How to use other digital resources
- How to teach a student-led classroom including lesson time control, varieties of interactions, ie T-SSS, S-S, S-TSS
- How to use enough Mandarin in class
- How to bring your personal touch bringing culture and personal stories or interest
How to use Kahoot
- We use Kahoot as an interactive assessment tool to test the students, best after students learn grammar or when they need a bit of fun to lift up the mood! In general, students love it!
- It takes normally about 10 mins for 10 questions.
- Access to each lesson Kahoot links below, you will need to create your own account to use our Kahoot links.
Book 1A kAHOOT Last two lessons
Book 1B kAHOOT By Lesson
How to use quizlet
- Sign up to this course Quizlet class first, you and your students will need to request for full access, headoffice will approve when we receive the email notification.
- Look at the video, learn to use Quizlet functions, especially Live Group Game. It’s competitive and fun! However, it requires a minimum of 4 students to start the game.
- Encourage students to use Quizlet to review words after lesson on the phone. It’s effective and fun!
Games & Activities
- There are games and activities designed to go along with the courses in a goodie bag in the office .
- For Pinyin, we have Spelling Bee for the last lesson.
- For Hanzi, we have two sets of 我有…, 谁有…game.
- For every other lesson, to jazz up the atmosphere, we have 听力抢答 and 惩罚卡.
- For each review lessons, we have worksheets, please ask Learning team for printouts if they are not in the goodie bag already.
- There are also 词汇卡 vocabulary flashcards in the goodie bag for your designed games of charades etc.
Before & After Class
- Ask your student to join your WhatsApp group: “Please join our class WhatsApp 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 need to ask for a leave, running late or need help with opening the door 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.
- We encourage students to submit audio homework at beginner stage. Give them encouragements when they do. As teachers, you will find yourself super proud of their progress each time you hear their homework.
Term start & term end
- For Entry Beginner term start, we’d prepare the books and a name list for the teacher.
- For term end, the graduation test is at the back of the books, you can do that in 20-30mins.
- You can also use the culture experience as a graduation ceremony or ask head office to prepare a little graduation gift for your students.
- We also encourage you to take students out for a graduation meal where your meal will be reimbursed (£20 per class).
- Make sure to make the graduation rather ceremonial, exciting! Take tons of photos and video please!
Understand
Understand the nature of active learning, is always by finding out “why” rather than hearing “why”.
Shift
Teacher shouldn’t be the busy person in the room, time and space should be given to the students to learn, practise and present.
Stand back
Except for tutorial part, most of the other activities should be done by students, become a facilitator, move closer to listen to students and help.
Class Management Tips
Class Dynamics
To warm up a group of strangers in the room, the teacher has to be the facilitator and set the tone.
Class WhatsApp
To maintain students sticking to the class, encourage them to share homework to their WhatsApp group.
Do things Together
The group bonds when they share good times together, learning in class, joining our workshops or going out together.
Trouble Shooting
Some students are very confident to speak out and answer teachers’ questions, while some are a bit shy to speak.
Try to maintain a balance of time allocated to each student in the classroom. Choose questions suitable for the not so confident students’ level and ask them to answer them directly. This would help them to build confidence.
Some students are fast learners, and some are slow learners. Fast learners always complete their tasks first and then chat with each other while waiting for the fellow students to finish their tasks.
It is OK for the fast learners to chat a bit once they finish their tasks. However, this should not be too long. Therefore, teachers should always be aware of the whole class’s progression with the tasks. Give the faster individuals or groups additional material/ tasks to work on, while providing support for the slower individuals or groups.
Teaching Prep by lesson
Beginner 2 Lesson 1
Beginner 2 Lesson 2
Beginner 2 Lesson 3
Beginner 2 Lesson 4
Beginner 2 Lesson 5
Beginner 2 Lesson 6
Beginner 2 Lesson 7
Beginner 2 Lesson 8
Beginner 2 Lesson 9
Beginner 2 Lesson 10
Demo Lesson Clips
Beginner 2 Lesson 1
Pinyin 2 book could be difficult, instead of doing tone pair drills, tongue twisters and song singing are better alternative to boost student’s confidence in Pinyin.
Hanzi 2 learning is actually quite important, because these characters are the building blocks for any further learning. Preferably to allocate 15mins each week to learn them. You can use different introduction methods, and always finish with playing a game or Quizlet.
Beginner 2 Lesson 2
Beginner 1 Lesson 4
Many teachers will encounter difficult questions from students. If you can’t answer the question on the spot, diver the attention, to have time thinking about it, or say “I will check or discuss with my colleagues to give you a good anwer”.
Teacher brings in fun interesting Youtube videos to share with the class in between break time, this could be a fun ritual for the class to relax and chat.
Overall, preferably teacher can stand up, use less of the TV screen, alternate in tutorial teaching style, and chic chat relaxed style, to achieve best results.