Teaching the Sounds of Chinese and Pinyin Use the Following Pathway to Get the Best out of This Site

Teaching the Sounds of Chinese and Pinyin Use the following pathway to get the best out of this site.

Chinese sounds very different to English and students need to train their ears to hear the differences and reproduce Chinese sounds accurately. The following resources will help to facilitate this understanding. They are suitable for beginning learners of Chinese from mid- upper primary and lower secondary levels.

Pathway: Quick glance

• The Sounds of the Immortals Unit >> Showcase section • The Pinyin Journey >> Showcase section • Challenges: Adventure Travel >> Challenges section Writing on the Wall >> Challenges section • Select or upload your own resources) >> Resource Bank • Make your own audio files (student or teacher) >> Upload a Challenge • Your Chinese Tutor >> Connect section • Good websites • Oracy Professional Learning topic >> Professional Learning section • Using Apps Professional Learning topic >> Professional Learning section

Pathway: In depth

The Sounds of the Immortals unit works as an introduction to the sounds of Chinese. This could be followed by the Adventure Travel Challenge.

Alternatively, you may find it more suitable to assign the Challenge first and then have your students move onto ‘The Sounds of the Immortals’. Or you can use The Pinyin Journey as a beginning point. While the approach is very different, the resources are complementary in that they enable students to develop and consolidate their understanding of both the Pinyin system and its relationship to the sounds of Chinese.

As with all activities undertaken in the classroom it is very important that teachers give students plenty of time to gain optimum benefits from the resources available. Spacing out the activities over a number of lessons enables students to reflect on their learning and discuss their discoveries with both classmates and the teacher.

The Dragon Collective Trilogy Part 1: The Sounds of the Immortals

This unit in the Dragon Collective Trilogy alerts students to the sounds of Putonghua and its differences to both English and other dialects of Chinese. Students engage in a wide range of activities where they are required to distinguish the sounds of Putonghua, become aware of its rhythm, distinguish tones accurately, gain an understanding of the vowel and consonants that make up Putonghua and be able to read Pinyin with correct pronunciation.

© 2014 Education Services Australia Ltd, unless otherwise indicated. Provided all acknowledgements are retained, this material may be used, reproduced and communicated free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes within Australia and in overseas schools where the Australian curriculum is taught until 30 June 2018 unless otherwise indicated.

The first three of the Four Powers of Sound as explored in part 1 are: 1. Capturing The Flow – listening to streams of language 2. Tapping the Secret Layer of Rhythm 3. Grasping the Tone Technique

Challenge: Writing on the Wall

Writing on the Wall is a related Challenge for Intermediate students. In this Challenge, students explore the different types of Chinese spoken within China. Students listen to individuals speaking Standard Chinese (Mandarin) and compare this with regional accents and other Chinese family languages.

Learning Pinyin

It is very important that students have a sound understanding of pinyin to facilitate their pronunciation of Chinese. Their ability to use pinyin is also an essential tool for enabling written communication via emails, for example, in Chinese as well as for accessing online Chinese dictionaries. The Pinyin Journey is a unit of work that can be found in two different areas of the Language Learning Space. It forms Part 2 of the ‘Sounds of the Immortals’ mission in The Dragon Collective but it also stands alone in the Showcase section of the LLS.

The Pinyin Journey deals with ‘Telling signs what to say’. The unit takes students on a journey to learn:

• The vowels of pinyin • The consonants of pinyin • The finals (endings)

There are lots of listening activities and opportunities for students to test themselves as they learn more about pinyin and its rules for pronunciation.

Challenge: Adventure Travel

The goal of the Adventure Travel Challenge is for students to be able to pronounce any pinyin they see correctly. It focuses on developing student understanding of the concept of Pinyin and the sounds of Chinese as represented in Pinyin. This involves them becoming familiar with different written signs (letters) and the relationship of the signs to sounds, and how to determine what sound applies to what sign.

Creating your own challenge

If you wish to create your own challenge, there are pinyin resources in the Resource Bank that can be added to your personalized challenges. The Chinese with Mike videos and associated PDFs deal with pinyin and Chinese pronunciation, including tones. Search by title ‘Chinese with Mike’.

Upload sound onto the site Add sound to the vocabulary in your challenges by uploading a sound file.

The Assignment Assessment option allows students to upload their own audio files.

Your Chinese Tutor

Your Chinese Tutor provides additional free lessons for groups and/or individuals.

Other websites

The following websites may also prove useful to you in preparing your own Pinyin-focussed challenges.

1. https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-pinyin-chart.php (students can click on the pinyin and hear the sounds of Chinese pronounced in the four tones) 2. http://kid.chinese.cn/pinyin/ (a cute site for younger children) 3. http://www.laits.utexas.edu/ppp/ (a site run by the University of Texas which both teaches and provides opportunities to practise pinyin. 4. http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/pinyin_notes.htm

Professional Learning

Six videos in the Oracy section show teachers using differing and innovative approaches to achieve student fluency in terms of content and vocabulary, use of target language, listening skills and error correction.

Apps

Read what experienced teacher Mei-Lin Chu has to say about the best apps for teaching Chinese in the Professional Learning topic Using Apps.

The following Apps may help students with learning pinyin. These are commercial products.

Pinyin Apps Pinyin Trainer Students listen to the sounds of Chinese and select the one they hear. Immediate feedback.

Pinyin Chart: Interactive chart for learning Chinese pinyin

Pinyin Chart: Pinyin chart with audio

See your home page for more ideas about how to use the site.

祝你好运！