Inquiry-based Learning in World Language Teaching

Inquiry-based Learning in World Language Teaching will definitely have its place, simply because there is no other knowledge or skill like language acquisition presenting the importance of involvement which is the essence of inquiry-based learning.

Last time when I talked with several moms, one mom said her little one spoke ‘Mine! Mine!” very early, because he often needs to argue for toys with his brothers. It gained other moms’ agreement. Involvement in language acquisition implies communication that leads to language understanding and inspires children to speak out. Usually when parents communicate with their child more, the child’s language have better development. On the other hand, there are cases reported that some parents baby-sit their kids with a TV or computer games which caused delay of the kids’ language development. Because watching TV is a one-sided language input, it lacks of language output.

The outcome of second language learning depends on how much a student could involve the language just like the first language acquisition. I’m glad to see the first three content standards in the Standards Selection of World Language are all about communication. In one word, involvement in second language teaching means helping students to use the language in real life and to speak out what they really want to say- their personal information, their feeling and opinion; but not means to memorize material which have no any contact with them.

Recognizing the importance of involvement has more significance in Mandarin Chinese teaching in America. Most America students do not learn Chinese to be a sinologist, but to have an asset for competing in the modern global society, even those students in Harvard University. This fact was also what I found when I worked at Harvard.

I’m developing a new Chinese teaching model for American students in which I especially stress students’ involvement in Chinese learning. For instance, I found many students who learned many years Chinese even did not know how to write an absence note to the teacher. In my curriculum, I give students some absence note samples in Chinese with different possible reasons, so students can pick one when they need to write a absence note to me. Then when we learned Chinese tense, I asked students pay attention the difference expressions when they will not go to school and did not go to school. So students master successfully Chinese tense which is the most difficult grammar point in Chinese learning. As a language teacher, we have to remember, language is not knowledge but a useful tool. Students first know how to use it and then they master it.

Target Standard & Visual Learning

The content standard I am looking at is World Language- Grades 9-12. I will focus on communication, especially the content standard 1- Interpersonal communication.

I have been teaching Chinese as a second language for more than ten years in China, Japan and the US. A experienced foreign language teacher must know that it is much more difficult to teach the students to speak a goal language than teaching them how to read or write it, because when people communicate with others, he/she will have no time to check dictionary, no time to think if the sentence he/she speaks out fits the correct grammar or not. All the language communication (listening, understanding and speaking out appropriate sentences) have to be complete in limited time. Most of second language learners have not enough time and language environment. How much a student could master the new language depends on how much effective time the student can have to practice the goal language. To save time, usually we do not give students time to read textbooks in the classroom. When I worked at Harvard University, I prepared many flash cards and write key sentences and goal structure on the blackboard before class. If the classroom has electric screen, I will make them into PowerPoint in advance.

For meeting the culture standard it is a good idea to link visual learning with digital’s imagery & Inspiration. In the past, we had to bring heavy picture books to class and showed students to fit the same visual outcomes.

I have continued to go to my daughters’ school to celebrate Chinese New Year and introduce Chinese culture. I had summed up a model of activities. That is reading a Chinese New Year book, making one or two Chinese New Year arts & crafts and enjoying some Chinese food or gifts. In the latest two years, I added some digital video about Chinese New Year to show children and got a big welcome. This year I showed a song “Best Wishes” to my little daughter’s class, it’s so amazing when the children watched and heard the song on the computer, they began to dance following the music beats.

layering digital image - winter & lion

Winter & Lion is my first work with photoshop. It's interesting to recreate pictures and I can't wait to try another one.

inspiration concept map - memory

Long-Term Memory: Explicit and Implicit

Explicit and implicit memory systems follow different rules and involve different neural systems of the brain. The subdivisions of each kind of memory also may involve different neural systems.
(source: From Psychology by Peter Gray: Published by Worth Publishers. Copyright© 1991,1994,1999,2002 by Worth Publishers)