Comments on: The benefits of a comprehension-based approach for teaching and learning Chinese

By: Amanda

Amanda — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 18:15:55 +0000

This is a resourceful post and I was delighted to read the part to help students with some speaking ability read or elevate their literacy level in a joyful setting. Is it necessary to put students with heritage background and students with non-heritage background in two different groups?

By: Olle Linge

Olle Linge — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 18:17:27 +0000

In reply to Peter. Regarding Diane's answer about the third article: It's been published! You can read it here.

By: Diane Neubauer

Diane Neubauer — Tue, 07 Mar 2017 02:41:15 +0000

In reply to Peter.

Hi Peter! Thanks. Hopefully the third article will give you some suggestions about finding comprehensible input at your level.

Have you looked at the Tales & Traditions series? They are short stories on Chinese cultural topics, sometimes historical or related to 成语， and vary in their language level. I think about 450 characters up to about 1500 character levels. I also have used sites like Chinesepod.com’s Advanced & Media lessons — especially the Media lessons — since they helped scaffold into authentic materials. You might also consider comic books. Calvin & Hobbes is fun in Chinese; Diary of a Wimpy Kid is available in Chinese, too. An advantage to these: if you have an English edition, you can easily check for meaning if you need it.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 27 Feb 2017 18:14:31 +0000

Diane, these posts are a great resource. Thanks!

请问 I totally buy into the comprehensible input approach, but it’s been a struggle to find suitable material (particularly written fiction) at my level. I’m beyond graded readers (I’ve pretty much read them all) but don’t yet have the vocabulary to read translated middle grade novels such as Harry Potter and the Alchemist (to say nothing of 三体). Is there anything out there to bridge the gap?

By: DanielG

DanielG — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 15:38:31 +0000

The phrase “pinyin is your friend” has been bouncing around in my mind for a few days since reading this article. Until now, I may not have regarded pinyin as the enemy, but surely as a crutch to be discarded at the earliest possible moment. It seems that one of the consequences of not using a crutch is hobbling. The effect is most obvious when reading. If I read a pinyin text out loud, it gives a fair semblance of someone who can speak Chinese fluently. Even a person with only rudimentary knowledge of pinyin can already sound intelligible when reading. When I read a character version of the same text however, even one in which I can recognize and recall all of the characters, I constantly need to pause in inappropriate places and it sounds, well, not fluent at all. It makes sense as the author points out that learning characters is easier and faster if one has already internalized their sound and meaning. It also seems that it is easier to focus on the meaning of the sentence as a whole if one is not bogged down by having to think, even briefly, about the individual characters.

When I got started learning Chinese, I heard the advice to avoid learning to write characters too early, but I hadn’t heard the advice to delay learning to read them. It seems that the approach of delaying both probably has some merit. My thought at the time was that the characters are such an integral part of the language, that I should dive in right away, but I suspect that had I viewed pinyin as my friend, my character acquisition might have been quicker, and my general comfort with the language might have been greater.

As it is now, I essentially only use pinyin to discover or confirm the pronunciation of individual words. I do wonder though, now that I am at an intermediate level, if it is possible and useful for me to try to use pinyin in other ways. The textbook I’m currently using, Integrated Chinese, includes pinyin versions of the texts and until now I’ve largely ignored them. Perhaps I should give them another look…