教「外師」說華語 (Learn to Speak Chinese)

#2012-0811

連續幾個暑假，我負責教聖雅各的「外師」說華語。今年所教的 Jenna 和 Melissa 兩位都很年輕、很有活力，學起華語（只說不寫）也進步很快。

她們六月下旬抵達後，聖雅各於 6/26 在五權西三街的「大和屋」舉行迎新餐會（See photo 2 below）；八月中她們離台之前，我們於 8/10 在同一條街的「董月花」辦理送別晚宴（See the last photo）。

從 7/5 起至 8/9 為止，這門 Let's Speak Chinese 華語課，安排在每星期二和星期四下午。總共也不過十來堂課罷了，該教［或學］哪些東西才好呢？或者說，什麼內容應列入優先學習的範疇？而教材的編選，如何兼顧「由易到難」「循序漸進」等教學基本原則？. . . . . 雖然過去讀過許多教育（教學法）理論，我還是要多多與她們討論，以便找出她們的需要和最適當的教學方法。

In my Mandarin (Chinese) Class for beginning learners coming from abroad, I don't teach them to write the Chinese characters at first, as most Chinese words/phrases are much more difficult to write than to say. So I employ Hanyu Pinyin, which I believe is a convenient spelling tool for Western students to use when they start to learn Chinese.

As for the content of the course (what should I teach first?), I think it is extremely important for my students to notice that the Chinese language is a so-called "tone language" (instead of intonation language). When it is read (or said) with a different tone, the same "speech sound" (of a syllable) may refer to something very different.

For example,
1. ma with the 1st tone [= high level] means "mother" (媽),
2. ma with the 2nd tone [= high rising] refers to a kind of plant (蔴),
3. ma with the 3rd tone [= low falling followed by a rising] means "horse" (馬),
4. ma with the 4th tone [= falling from high to low] can be a verb meaning "to score" (罵).

Of course, there are some other words read as ma with one of these four tones -- or even with a so-called "neutral tone" -- which carry very different meanings or which function as "particles" or something like that in Chinese grammar, such as 嗎, 嘛, 麻, 碼, 螞, etc. [Note: 嗎 is a question particle.]

Do you think Chinese is a difficult language? Well, to master any new language is impossible in just a short process of learning. But if you want to learn to speak it, I can assure you that you'll be very successful if you keep practicing it every day with your teacher or friends (and some language devices) that can "show you the way."

下圖摘自 正中書局 出版之《新版實用視聽華語１》第 iii 頁

此處原是「饗宴--牡丹亭」，由於老闆換人，已更名「董月花」。