The 6-E’s to Develop CFL Basic
Vocabulary
Ying Zhang
Visiting Chinese Professor
The
goal of Chinese as a foreign language teaching is to provide the learners with
the necessary means to enable them to communicate in Chinese. But recognition and retention of individual Chinese
characters, words and phrases are very challenging and demanding for its
complicated three-in-one system of symbol, meaning and pronunciation. With an
aim to help Chinese language learners to achieve both correct production and
fluency, meanwhile, efficiently support vocabulary growth at the very initial stage in Chinese learning, this presentation
will discuss 6-E’s instructional model and reflective thinking on the practice
of “6-E” as well as their implications on Chinese teaching effectiveness.
Each of the 6 E's describes a phase of learning, and
each phase begins with the letter "E": 1) Empower: Empower Chinese language learning strategies and resources
(especially memory strategy training); 2) Elaborate:
Elaborate vocabulary with technology-enhanced presentation; 3) Excite: Excite students’ oral
communication and application; 4) Engage:
Engage students with web-based follow-up enhancement activities; 5) Evaluate: Evaluate by various kinds of
tasks; 6) Expand: Expand exposure by
extensive reading. The first two
phrases focus on the input from the instructors and the other phrase all stress
the output of learners.
The 1st
step “empower” is to emphasize the significance of the instruction and
encouragement of the use of foreign language learning strategies from the very
beginning stage, which include the application of paper dictionary, pop-up
electronic dictionary, online translation tools, the input of Chinese
characters with keyboard, many efficient memory tricks like imagery mnemonics,
keyword method, peg-word method, English alphabet association, etc. These strategies will definitely help to promote
active learning, autonomous learning and produce
independent learners even at the initial stage.
During
the 2nd step
“elaborate”, the attractive presentations featured by power point, video clips,
photo story, comic strips, and other digital story-telling techniques always
achieve the aim of maintaining learners’ interest and attention. The
computer-assisted presentation containing verbal annotations, visual annotations,
multimedia aid, relevant materials with students’ daily life also effectively
improve the students’ visual literacy, information literacy and thorough
comprehension of the Chinese characters and new vocabulary and their usage in
contexts. The recall of vocabulary will be enhanced.
The
3rd E “excite” refers to student-centered
speaking tasks to communicate with teacher, fellow students, and short reading
text. The 4th
E is the use of quia.com or CMS or other web tools to create meaningful
web-based language games with the purpose of enhancing learning incomes and
creating a learner-friendly environment. And it is an
easy way for the instructor to collect student information and monitor student
progress and potential.
The
5th E “evaluate”
is the stage of assessment which reflects the notion that students learn
through feedback. Various kinds of tasks are supposed to assign to students to
create some forms of learning outcomes, which enforce the students to
demonstrate what they have achieved by doing.
The
6th E “expand” requires the
instructor to be able to provide or develop appropriate extensive or
after-class reading materials including sandwich stories, bilingual reading
texts, simplified text, conversations, translated short text, email writing, etc.
This step motivates students to spend more time on Chinese learning and get as
much input as possible. The extensive reading is also a rewarding learning
process.
In
short, by using the 6-E’s instructional mode, the presenter explores many
effective and entertaining ways to facilitate vocabulary teaching by integrate
use of memory strategy, technology-enhanced language learning, power of image
and visual support, techniques of questioning, recreational problem-solving
activities and web-based language games, online quizzes, all kinds of tasks and
self-developed extensive reading materials. The
ultimate purpose is to evoke deeper thinking of the characteristics of quality
and effective Chinese teaching.