Designing Innovative Classroom Activities in CFL

This course is designed to equip in-service/pre-service Chinese teachers with the knowledge and hands-on skills to effectively develop and implement classroom activities in order to raise and maintain students’ interests in learning Chinese and Chinese culture. To this end, we will discuss language requirements we should meet and thematic topics we may choose to develop classroom activities. We will explore how cognitive, pedagogical, linguistic and individual factors affect students’ Chinese learning and how we should accommodate these factors when developing classroom activities. We will discuss and identify difficulties and challenges American students may come across in the process of learning Chinese and ways to tackle them through different classroom activities. We will study sample activities and analyze the employed techniques and strategies. We will perform group and individual projects developing theme-based and form-focused activities.
Students will learn and master the course content through lectures, readings, discussions, group work, and individual projects. Class is primarily conducted in Chinese.

Textbook: Teaching Language in Context (3nd edition) by Hadley, Alice Oaggio, 2000