DESIGNING PK-4 CURRICULUM BASED ON OBSERVATIONS OF CHILDREN INTERACTING WITH THEIR FAMILIES

A Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Master of Arts in the

Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Nan Meng, M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University 2007

Master's Examination Committee: Approved by

Dr. Galal Walker, Adviser

Dr. Mari Noda

Graduate Pro am in East Asian Languages and Literatures ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to propose a model curriculum for the PK-4 Chinese program based on the pedagogy of performed culture with the goals that learners are able to communicate and participate successfully in the Chinese culture. This qualitative study is designed to examine how native Chinese speakers at this age communicate in certain social and cultural environments. Three types of interactions are examined through interviewing the mothers of three to eight year old children: parent-to-child, child-to-child and child-to-other adult. In order to provide authentic scripts for curriculum design, the interactions between parents and children are recorded, and the scripts derived from interactions of 3-8 year old Chinese speakers in specific social and cultural environments are presented, organized, and analyzed in terms of cases, sagas, and themes. The commonly used linguistic forms for certain functions arc analyzed within the context. The results indicate that children do many routine activities everyday, and the three types of interactions within family environment include many cases that happen frequently in children’s lives, and many of these cases present crucial themes such as being competitive and making an effort, which are important for L2 learners of the same age. In order to establish and maintain good relationships in Chinese culture, young L2 learners need to pay attention to cases such as inviting, making suggestions, making comparisons, and expressing intentions, using appropriate terms of address. The study will contribute to our understanding of children’s language usage, and thus lead to a model of Chinese language curriculum for PK-4 grades that follows the performed culture approach.

As the number of students learning Chinese at a young age dramatically increases, more and more Chinese language instructional materials targeting learners belonging to this age group have appeared on the market. Several popular Chinese textbooks will be evaluated, and suggestions for adapting these materials to performance-based instruction will be provided.

As part of the PK-4 curriculum design, the content of instruction is proposed by defining the first three phases of a curriculum; and the implementation of instruction will be elaborated by addressing various issues in creating a PK-4 instructional environment. Dedicated to my Mom and Dad

IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my adviser, Dr. Galal Walker, for his research insights, guidance, and support throughout the process of this research. I want to thank him for giving me opportunities to work with him for the K-4 curriculum design project, and for Chinese, Communicating in the Culture. I am also greatly grateful to Dr. Mari Noda, for her perceptive suggestions and comments regarding this project as well as the invaluable experience I gained from 2006 and 2007 SPEAC (Summer

Programs East Asian Concentration), and the Alternative Licensure Program. I wish to thank Mr. Steve Knicely, Dr. Eric Shepherd and Yongfang Zhang, who were Chinese teacher trainers in SPEAC, for their advice and assistance in my teaching practice, which helped me to understand how the performed culture approach is implemented. I also wish to thank Debbie Knicely, who helped me through the process of graduation. My gratitude also extends to my colleagues in K-12 Chinese Flagship Program for their great help and encouragement with the PK-4 curriculum design project. Special thanks must be given to my friends in The Ohio State University for their encouragement, and professional editorial skills and constant assistance with the . Finally, I would also like to thank my parents for their unending support, sacrifice and love.

v VITA

July 22, 1980 ...... Born - Laiwu, Shandong Province, P .R.

June 2002 ...... B.A. English Language and Literature, Shandong University, P.R.China

May 2004 ...... M.A. Teaching English as a , Bowling Green State University, U.S.A.

2005 ...... Program Specialist, Foreign Language Center, The Ohio State University.

2005 - present ...... Graduate Research Associate, The Ohio State University.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: East Asian Languages and Literatures Chinese Language Pedagogy

Vl TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract...... ii

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgments ...... v

Vita...... vi

List of Tables ...... ix

List of Figures ...... x

Introduction...... l

Chapters

1. Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy...... 8

l .1 First Language Acquisition and the Implications for Young Language Learners ...... 8 1.1.1 Nativist Perspective ...... 8 1.1.2 Cognitive Developmental Perspective ...... 9 1.1.3 Behaviorist Perspective ...... 10 1.1.4 Interactionist Approach ...... 10 1.1.5 Content-based Instruction ...... 14 1.2 The Performance-based Pedagogy...... 15 1.2.1 Behavioral Culture ...... 17 1.2.2 Performance ...... 22 1.2.3 Play Games in C2 ...... 26 l .2.4 Compile C2 Memories ...... 28 1.3 Teaching Children ...... 34

vu 1.4 Summery ...... 37

2. A Qualitative study of interactions by Chinese children within family environments ...... 39

2.1 Introduction...... 39 2.1.1 Literature Review ..... , ...... 39 2.2.2 Proposal of the current study ...... 44 2.2 Research Method ...... 45 2.2.1 Participants ...... 45 2.2.2 Procedure ...... 47 2.3 Results ...... 49 2.3.l Interviews ...... 49 2.3.2 Themes and Cases ...... : 58 2.4 Pedagogical Implications and Limitations ...... 68

3. Pedagogical Materials: Review, Evaluation and Adaptation ...... 71

3.1 Structure-based vs. Performance-based Approach ...... 72 3.2 Overview of the Materials ...... 74 3.3 Review and Evaluation...... 78 3.4 Adaptation to the Performance-based Instructions ...... 84 3.5 Summery...... 87

4. A Performance-based Curricular Guide for PK-4 Chinese Teaching ...... 89 4.1 Program Goal ...... 90 4.2 Defining Phases ...... 91 4.2. l Goals ...... 92 4.2.2 Cases and Sagas...... 93 4.3 Implementation...... 98 4.3.1 Pedagogical Cycle ...... 98 4.3.2 Instructional Language ...... 103 4.3.3 FACT vs. ACT...... 104 4.3.4 Item- vs. Strategy-based Instruction ...... 105 4.3.5 Using Romanization ...... 107 4.3.6 Leaming Environment...... 108 4.3.7 Project-based and Content-based Instruction...... 109

List of References ...... 111

Appendix A Cases in the Recordings ...... 116

viii LIST OF TABLES

1 Comparison between ACTFL and ILR scales ...... 3

2 Comparison between structurally based approach and performance-based approach ..73

3 Overview of cases and topics in three sets of materials ...... 77

4 Cases of phase one, two and three...... 94

IX LIST OF FIGURES

1 Walker and Noda's Cycle of compilation ...... 32

2 Gender of the children participants ...... 46

3 Age range of the children ...... 46

4 Sagas of the first three phases ...... 96

5 Examples of how to locate stories using cases and sagas ...... 97

6 Pedagogical cycle...... 99

7 Walker's item- and strategy-based instruction ...... 106

x INTRODUCTION

CHINESE INSTRUCTION IN THE UNITED STA TES

With the increase in cross-cultural exchanges between North America and East spurred by the globalization of economy and the integration of trade and production in the past two to three decades, there is an urgent need to train individuals with the ability to communicate successfully in more than one language, more specifically, in East Asian languages. According to the Digest of Education Statistics 2002 compiled by the

National Center for Education Statistics, 5,898 U.S. students in grades 9 through 12 (43.6 percent of all students) were enrolled in foreign languages in 2000. This represents a 38.6 percent increase from 1990. According to the recent data from US Department of

Education, the enrollment in foreign language courses rose 38.6 percent between 1990 and 2000, with the greatest increase in Japanese enrollment. 1 According to some estimates, at least 27 states in the offer Chinese language classes in either elementary, middle or high schools. And according to the Center for Applied Linguistics in Washington D.C., there are 12 public and private immersion schools across the country where most subjects are taught exclusively in . 2

1 http ://nces. ed. gov /pubsearch/pubsinfo. asp ?pubid=200 3 060 2http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/ articles/2007/03/11 /as_chinas _po wer_grows_ so_do_ chinese _programs _in_public_ schools/ However, it is especially challenging for American students to learn Chinese. The

Foreign Service Institute of the Department (FSI) of State categorizes foreign languages into four groups, based on the length of time it takes to achieve a certain level of proficiency. Group One languages in the FSI categorization include French, Spanish,

Italian, Norwegian, and Portuguese. Group Two includes Bulgarian, German, Greek,

Indonesian, and . Group Three languages include Czech, Hebrew, Finnish, Polish,

Russian, and Turkish. Finally, Group Four is composed only of , Chinese,

Japanese, and Korean.

In order to define levels oflanguage proficiency, FSI uses a set of descriptions of abilities to communicate in a language also known as The lnteragency Language

Roundtable {ILR) scale. It was originally developed by the United States Foreign Service

Institute, and it consists of descriptions of five levels of language proficiency, ranging from 0, indicating a novice with no functional ability, to 5, suggesting proficiency at the level of an educated native speaker (Omaggio Hadley 2001 ). The following table is the comparison between ILR scale and American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages

(ACTFL) scale.

2 ACTFL (American Council of Teachers ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable) pf Foreign Languages) revised guidelines guidelines Novice Low so no proficiency Novice Mid Novice High SO+ memorized proficiency Intermediate Low Sl Elementary proficiency lntermediate Mid Intermediate High Sl+ Elementary proficiency, plus Advanced Low S2 Limited working proficiency Advanced Mid Advanced High S2+ Limited working proficiency, plus Superior S3 General professional proficiency S3+ General professional proficiency, plus S4 Advanced professional proficiency S4+ !Advanced professional proficiency, olus SS Functionally native proficiency

Table 1. Comparison between ACTFL and ILR scales

3 Level 3 on this scale is equivalent to the Superior level or higher on the ACTFL

(American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) Proficiency Scale. A superior learner is said to be one who can handle the following communicative activities based on the description of FSI scale:

• Use the language fluently and accurately on all levels normally pertinent to

professional needs

• Organizes discourse well, using appropriate rhetorical speech devices, native

cultural references and understanding;

• Can serve as in informal interpreter in a range of unpredictable circumstances

• Use the language with a high degree of effectiveness, reliability and precision

for all representational purposes;

• Can perform extensive, sophisticated language tasks,

• Speaking proficiency is regularly superior in all respects, usually equivalent

to that of a well educated, highly articulate native speaker. 3

4 According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , it takes approximately 575-600 class hours of training for the average native English-speaking learner to reach level 3 proficiency in Group One languages. To reach the same level of proficiency for the languages in Group Two, it takes 1100 class hours, on average. For

Group Three languages, 1320 hours are required to reach a level 3 proficiency. As for

Group Four, which includes the three East Asian languages we are concerned with here,

3 http://www.govtilr.org/ILRscale2.htm#4 4 http://www.acenet.edu/AM!f emplate.cfm?Section=home&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay .cfm&Contentl D=6962 4 to reach a level 3 proficiency requires 2400-2760 hours of training, which is 80-92 weeks in a normal language program.

Thus it is important to start learning a foreign language at an early age because the amount of time spent in working with the language will greatly influence the development of language proficiency (Curtain and Pesola 1994). It is widely accepted that knowledge of a foreign language helps students to prepare for careers in commerce, international relations, law, science, and the arts. In addition, according to Shepherd

(2005: 133), "the irrational structure oflanguage learning in the United States" is one of the major reasons why many American students of Chinese fail to achieve advanced proficiency levels. Students are exposed to the most difficult foreign languages during their college experience, while they ought to begin their study at early ages. Therefore to train individuals able to communicate successfully in Chinese, it follows logically that instruction must begin sooner: at the high school, middle school, and even elementary school levels.

As the enrollment of Chinese continues to grow, many new language programs have been and are being developed. Growing K-12 Chinese programs indicates that there is a need for high-quality, well-designed, and effective Chinese language instructional materials. As most of the Chinese language instructional materials currently marketed in the United States are designed for high-school age students and older, there is a significant unfulfilled segment for instructional materials geared towards young learners aged 5 to 8.

A review of offerings readily available in North America from online retail stores such as Amazon.com and China-specialized Chinasprout.com of instructional materials

5 designed specifically for teaching Mandarin Chinese to young children, especially those in multimedia and visual formats, reveals that the quality and quantity of titles are quite limited. There are a number of materials targeting on overseas Mandarin learners at young ages, but almost all follow the traditional linguistic approaches which lack systematic program for developing functional language skills. Considering the growing enrollment of Chinese in the United States, it seems safe to assume that there is an urgent need for high-quality Chinese language instructional materials following an innovative pedagogical approach.

The purpose of this study is to propose scripts for a model curriculum of Chinese language for grades K-4 based on pedagogy of performed culture, which is based on the assumption that the goal of learning another language is to learn to communicate in the culture and that communication entails not simply using L2, but being able to establish one's intentions and accurately interpret the intentions of others. To design a curriculum with the goals that learners become able to communicate in Chinese and to successfully participate in the Chinese culture, we need to examine how native Chinese speakers at this age communicate in certain social and cultural environments. In Chapter one, different perspectives of "nurture" vs. "nature" in language acquisition is reviewed, and how they can be used in teaching practice is discussed. The second part of Chapter one focuses on the notions of culture, performance, and memory in the performed culture approach and why they are important to second language acquisition, especially learning

East Asian languages as second languages. The theoretical review leads to a qualitative study in Chapter two which reveals important themes, sagas, and cases in Chinese children's life within family environment. Hence the findings provide authentic scripts to

6 the PK-4 curriculum design. Chapter three reviews three sets of popular pedagogical materials, and adaptation to language class of performed culture approach is discussed.

Chapter four is intended to discuss the content of the beginning levels in PK-4 curriculum design and several issues in the implementation of the classroom instruction.

7 CHAPTER 1

LANGAUGE ACQUISITION AND LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

1.1 First Language Acquisition and the Implications for Young Language Learners

During the past 50 years, many linguists and developmental psychologists have studied language acquisition with respect to what is learned, when it is learned, and what variables or factors seem to explain the process of acquisition. In the field of language acquisition, there has been a long-standing debate on the roles of "nature" and "nurture" in influencing an individual's language development. Several different theoretical perspectives have emphasized the roles of nature and nurture to varying degrees to more fully understanding language acquisition (Otto 2006). The nativist and the cognitive developmentalist perspectives emphasize the contributions of "nature" whereas the behaviorist and interactionist perspectives focus more on the contributions of "nurture."

While no one single theory provides a complete and unquestionable explanation of language acquisition, each contributes significantly to better understanding of language acquisition. Otto (2006) provides a comprehension review of nativist, cognitive developmental, behaviorist perspectives.

1.1.1 Nativist Perspective

The nativist perspective emphasizes inborn or innate human capabilities (i.e.,

"nature") as being responsible for language acquisition. Linguist Noam Chomsky is the

8 major theorist associated with the nativist perspective. He proposes that universal grammar, the universal elements, principles or properties of all human language, is an innate property of the human mind, and that all people inherently have the capacity to acquire language due to cognitive structures that process language differently from other stimuli. Language acquisition device (LAD), an inborn mechanism specific for language learning, is thought to enable children to process and acquire language through innate knowledge of grammatical classes, underlying deep structure, and ways language can be manipulated (Brown 2000).

The nativist perspective encourages teachers to provide a curriculum that will have extensive opportunities for children to explore language and engage in hypothesis testing of their developing knowledge oflanguage. In order to activate a child's LAD, teachers should provide enough opportunities to use and explore language in both its oral and written forms, and encourage children to communicate and created meaning based on their ideas of how language works.

1.1.2 Cognitive Developmental Perspective

The cognitive developmental perspective, based on the work of Jean Piaget, assumes that language is learned using the same mechanism that the child use for other learning. The close relation between cognitive development and language is based on the belief that, for language to develop, specific cognitive growth must occur first.

Thus the cognitive developmental perspective encourages teachers to develop a curriculum that recognizes the importance of the development of specific cognitive mechanisms as precursors to the onset of language. Children need activities that

9 encourage them to represent their world using oral and written symbols through speaking, drawing, and writing.

1.1.3 Behaviorist Perspective

Behaviorist perspective emphasizes the role of "nurture" and considers learning to occur based on the stimuli, responses and reinforcements that occur in the environment. Reinforcement of a child's verbal and nonverbal responses to language directed at him is responsible for the language learning that occurs. Thus, language is taught through situations in which children are encouraged to imitate others' speech and to develop associations between verbal stimuli and objects (Brown 2000). Using the contributions of behaviorism as a basis, recent research that has explored the context of young children's language acquisition has identified specific ways in which different contexts and the people in those contexts interact with children who are acquiring language and learning to communicate.

The behaviorist perspective encourages teachers to focus on the stimuli and reinforcements that children experience in early childhood settings that involve language use. Activates should be developed that encourage children to communicate verbally through imitation and repetition. Positive reinforcement will enhance children's language development and is often accompanied by enthusiasm from both the teacher and the children.

1.1.4 Interactionist Approach

The interactionist approach contends that children acquire language through their attempts to communicate with the world around them. According to Bruner (1983), there are three aspects of children's language acquisition: the first is in terms of well-

10 formedness: that he or she is becoming able to make utterances that conform to the rules

of grammar. The second aspect oflanguage is its capacity to refer and to mean. The third

is pragmatics. "When we say that a child is acquiring language, we must account for

another aspect of what is being acquired-that is, its function or communicative intent or

how to "get things done with words." (Bruner, 1983: 18) In order to become a "native

speaker," these three facts of language are the ones that the child must master, and they

could not be learned independently of each other. The interactionist perspective

contributes to our understanding of the ways in which children acquire pragmatic

language knowledge: language is acquired by individuals out of a need to function in

society and an accompanying need for knowledge of how language functions in that

society (Reutzel & Cooter 2004).

The primary role of social interaction in language acquisition is based on the

observation that children acquire an awareness of specific communicative functions or

intentions (such as indicating, requesting, and labeling) before they are able to express

themselves linguistically (Bruner1990). The early understandings of how language

functions provide a foundation on which the linguistic competencies are acquired. As

Bruner suggests (1996), it is principally through interacting with others that children find

out what the culture is about and how it conceives of the world.

Bruner holds that while there very well may be, as Chomsky suggests, a Language

Acquisition Device, or LAD, there must also be a Language Acquisition Support System

(LASS). In Child's talk: learning to use language, Bruner cites the examples of a well­

known childhood game, in which the mother, or other caretaker, disappears and then

reappears, "peek-a-boo". Through this ritual, which at first may be accompanied by

11

uniform set of characteristics that describes a group; it also creates shared meaning for members of a group through a process of negotiation.

We understand the intentions of specific behaviors of others because our cultures provide possible performances in which to situate that behavior. As Walker (2000) argues, "what we do in our cultures can be understood by our intentions and our understanding of the intentions of others (that is, our interpretations of them)."

According to Tomasello (1999), culture is the forum in which meanings are negotiated and hold salience as well as the framework for communicative interaction for its members in that it informs its members' choices and decisions. Culture as a shared framework creates joint attention contexts, which in tum provides meanings, intentions, goals, and roles for the members of the group.

Based on the notions discussed above, Shepherd (2005) proposes his definition of culture: culture is the framework of a set of learned default values, created through interaction within a group that is used by individuals for interpreting information.

Therefore, to learn how to successfully interact with members of the target culture, one must has the ability to interpret and manipulate cultural knowledge. Language is only the vehicle for using the meaning in communication which is forged within the framework provided by culture.

Hammerly (1982) divides discourse of culture into three major categories: achievement culture, informational culture, and behavioral culture for the purpose of language teaching/learning. Achievement culture refers to the hallmarks of a civilization, usually the literary and artistic accomplishments of a society. Some representatives of

Chinese achievement culture include calligraphy, the Great Wall, traditional Peking

18 Opera, herbal medicine. Informational culture refers to the information and facts that are widely known in a culture. Examples of Chinese informational culture are the population of the country, the political system, the public transportation schedule of Beijing city, the procedure of applying for Chinese working visa, and dietary regimes. Behavioral culture refers to the behavior of members of a culture as they function in their everyday life. In

Chinese, this would include a person addressing his younger acquaintance by xiiio

''younger" plus his surname, people asking about what is going on recently but do not expect a real answer when greeting each other, and etc. This is usually the type of cultural behavior people would identify as "Chineseness." Christensen and Warnick

(2006) explain that it is the way people behave within their own group (in-group) and in interactions with others (out-group). It also includes the things that a person does on a daily basis to negotiate various events and situations in society.

Hammerly's three categories of culture are important because they provide an operational definition of culture for language pedagogy: "culture is what we do." For the performed culture approach, learners do not learn a foreign language - they learn how to do certain things, how to perform certain tasks, and how to achieve their goals in that language. Therefore, language learning should be culture-bound, and it should be closely related to behavioral culture. That is, behavioral culture should be the core aspect of culture to be learned in a language program, and treated as an approach to informational and achievement culture. According to Walker (2000), a group's culture includes both the behaviors typical of the members and the accompanying cognitive orientation that informs those behaviors. It is the knowledge of a culture which helps to interpret and analyze the culture; knowing of how to do things is the base of participating in the

19 culture. Shepherd (2005) explains why the behavioral culture is important for the foreign language learners: each culture has its own valued activities and rules for how those activities take place and for how people are expected to act while participating in them.

Thus, to be successful in professional interactions in the target culture, non-natives must make behavioral and interpretive calibrations; they must do things in ways recognizable to the natives.

As Walker and Noda (2000) have pointed out, learning to speak an East Asian language is really a process of learning how to behave in the target culture. "The implication of this concept of performed culture for language study is that no one really learns a foreign language. Rather we learn how to do particular things in a foreign language; and the more things we learn to do, the more expert we are in that language"(2000, 190).

Based on this definition of culture and Hammerly's three categories, Walker (2000) further divides behavioral culture into three types according to native's attitudes toward the sharing of culture: revealed culture, ignored culture, and suppressed culture.

Revealed culture refers to those aspects of culture that natives are anxious to share with foreigners; these are the aspects of their lives, traditions, and country that they are proud of and wish others to know about. They are basically the things you may know before you visit this country from the travel books: all the positive aspects of the country and people. According to Christensen and Warnick (2006), revealed culture includes many of the elements of achievement culture and informational culture, presented by natives in a positive, sometimes biased viewpoint. For instance, almost every Chinese is proud of the

20 long history of the country, and what they most likely recommend to the foreigners are

Chinese food and herbal medicines, as well as the popular tourist attractions.

Ignored culture refers to behavior, practices, or customs that native members of a culture may believe are universal until they encounter someone from another culture behaving contrary to expectations. They include many of aspects of behavioral culture that foreigners think special but natives do not think so. These are things that probably will not be listed in the tour book or travel guide written by natives, and foreigners will notice the difference once they are in the country. For example, there is no toilet tissue in most of the public restrooms in China, which is unusual in western countries. Chinese would more likely to talk about personal matters that westerners would see as private, such as marriage status and salaries.

Suppressed culture refers to characteristics that natives are not eager for foreigners to know about; behavior or conditions they are typically defensive about and feel they have to justify. For example, an American classmate asked me again and again why the

Chinese government would not think of Taiwan is a country, which made me very uncomfortable, sitting in the class full of Americans and Taiwanese. Few Chinese would tell foreigners that in China some people cut in lines, talk loud in public, or smoke in non-smoking areas.

By far, many textbooks introduce much about informational culture and achievement culture, but very little of behavioral culture. They either treat behavioral culture as informational culture, such as providing notes of how to address people belonging to different age groups, or provide few opportunities for the learners to practice the behavioral culture. Many teachers, especially native speakers, are comfortable teaching

21 informational and achievement culture. However, as discussed above, behavioral culture should be the core aspect for language learners because communication is so dependent on the conventions of behavior, linguistic as well as nonlinguistic. Similarly, revealed culture is introduced in most of the textbooks and discussed by most language teachers, but ignored culture and suppressed culture are rarely discussed.

1.2.2 Performance

Walker (2000) defines the "staged events of civilized behaviors" as "performable chunks'', or performances, which is the key to teaching learners to communicate in another culture. He points out that language teachers can identify and stage performable chunks of the cultures when guiding learners to approach the target culture or when presenting the behavioral culture in the language classroom. As Walker writes, "as a subject of study, language that is framed in culture and inextricably commingled with action demands performance as a pedagogical necessity rather than inviting it as an option" (Walker, 2000:227).

Performances provide the participants the personal experience of doing things in a specific context, which allows them to construct knowledge schemas of the events that can be drawn on and elaborated in future encounters with similar contexts (Walker,

2000). A performance can be viewed as an event in a process, which involves teleological agents-a performer and a symbiotically linked audience-accomplishing the repetition of dialogic segments of a shared culture (Shepherd, 2005: 14 7). In this sense, the concept of performance can be used to make culture more tractable for language learners: a performance is the enactment of a script situated within a specified cultural context. According to Walker (2000), a performance is defined by five specified

22 elements: (1) place of occurrence, (2) time of occurrence, (3) appropriate script, program, or rules, (4) roles of participants, and (5) accepting or accepted audience.

Performances can be seen as a series of social events that people of all cultures enact all day: greeting colleagues, answering telephone calls, having dinner with family members, visiting an old friend, and discussing future plans with your supervisor. Each of these performances takes place in a specific, recognizable context defined by the five elements mentioned above, and "it is these contexts that allow people to understand the intentions of others" (Ekeberg, 2004: 23). It is these five elements that define or create a specific social cultural context for a certain performance. Thus in order to perform appropriately in a particular Chinese context, learners need to specify place, time, script, roles and audience. Changing of any element may lead to a totally different performance.

Take the most commonly encountered scene of a greeting in the office as an example: if the roles were changed from colleagues to supervisors and subordinates, the script must again change. If the roles were not changed but the place is different, two colleagues greeting each other in the office interact in a different manner than the same to colleagues meeting outside of work.

This definition of performance indicates that there is more to communication than the linguistic code and thus teaching should involve more than just telling what sentences mean. When we are interacting in a language and culture, these elements of a performance determine not only what is said, but also how it is said and the behavior appropriate to the communicative situation. According to Christensen and W amick,

"because performance is such a basic part of communicating, it makes sense to have learners learn by doing; that is accomplished most effectively in culturally appropriate

23 contexts" (2006: 33). Therefore it is important for foreign language teachers to coach learners what to do, how to act, and how others respond in a given contextualized situation. In a foreign language class, the instructor should provide enough opportunities for the learners to rehearse the performable chunks within certain contextualized situations.

Thus language teachers need to specify these five elements in class when setting up context to elicit students' performance. It is very important to emphasize that learners should remember all five elements in order to perform appropriately in the target culture, not only some of them. Also, memorizing scripts does not mean that one can perform them successfully because the other four elements are equally important. Without the other four elements, a script cannot be a performance. As Christensen and Warnick suggest, "if the elements of a performance are not all taken into consideration when communicating in a foreign culture, learners risk misunderstanding and/or offending the interlocutor" (2006: 20).

Also, language teachers need to encourage students to learn a foreign language by doing things, or performing. Textbook writers and teachers need to present what they think is important for their students to know in the form of performances. The teachers are preparing learners for the performances that will very likely to happen in the future when they communicate in the target culture. Learners need to internalize these performances by enacting them in the contexts set up by the teachers in the classroom in order to behave appropriately when they encounter the same situation or context in the future. In short, the performances learners learn from the teachers in the classroom are the same as what they will encounter in the target culture. The difference lies in that now

24 they perform in the classroom settings but when they travel to the foreign country, they will need to perform in the real social environment within the target culture using the memories they have compiled through their learning experiences. The classroom is a safe place to enact the performance, to make errors and correct them, as well as to experience the cultural differences in behavior in the target culture. According to Ekeberg (2004), the task of language teachers is to identify useful performances, and to present and explain them to learners. However, it is sometimes difficult for them to decide which performances a learner will need in order to participate successfully in the target culture.

Ekeberg suggests that the performances selected for pedagogical purpose should be the ones that a particular group of learners are most likely to experience should they have the chance to interact with people from or in that culture. For example, it is more likely for the young learners to encounter the situation in the target culture that they are invited to play a game with someone else than join a meeting or a banquet with business people.

According to Walker and Noda, "Performances that are appropriate to a specific culture are not simple to stage" (2000: 191 ). One of the most important reasons is that in the everyday life of culture, the behavioral culture is largely invisible. We learn to do things in our daily life in the way native to us, in the same way as how we learn to speak, and we do things such as greetings, apologies, and questioning automatically. One does not need to pause and think about which form we need to use in order to greet an elder female colleague before he/she really does the action. Even if he/she does pause and think about it for a while, he/she would not pause again the next time encountering the same situation. However, it is difficult for us to explain why we choose to perform this way but not the other way, why we behave differently with a certain group of people than

25 the other groups. Therefore, Ekeberg proposes that it is difficult to select and present culturally appropriate and useful performances because this kind of culture, which exists in a series of social events, is ignored behavioral culture, "so ingrained in members of a culture as to be almost invisible". This is exactly what learners need to learn and why it is important for them to learn.

1.2.3 Play Games in C2

Therefore, it is important for both teachers and learners to distinguish the performances that are more valued by the second culture from those that are more common in the given culture. Walker and Noda (2000) use an analogy of playing a game to illustrate how to establish, recognize and interpret the intentions within the C2 context.

To play games in C2 successfully, one needs to know the rules and scoring system well because different games have different shared rules and expectations. Then successful players have to practice consistently under the experienced coach's guidance in order to be skillful in the game. Only through practice can the players improve their skills and performances so that in the game they may have chances to get a higher score, and only through practice can the coach correct the players and teach them how to use a variety of strategies successfully according to different situations that might occur during the game.

Walker and Noda emphasize that a game can be understood as nothing more than a performance with an agreed-upon scoring system. That is, the players on both sides have to recognize the "performance" and agree on the scoring system to make it a game.

Therefore, the players should be aware that if they do not follow the rules, they will fail to get a point in a game. In this sense, when one plays tennis, he/she has to follow the rules of a tennis game, but not those of basketball even though he/she may be better at

26 playing basketball. Similarly, if we do not teach or coach learners how to behave following the social norms or cultural rules in the target culture, they will very likely follow the default rules-those of their native culture. This is like a volleyball coach using basketball rules to teach his/her players to play volleyball. The result will not be desirable.

Shepherd (2005: 155) argues that the 'game' metaphor is useful in describing and understanding that there are certain focal performances that are keys to becoming part of a social group and are integral in accumulating valued resources, or affecting members' status, movement, or ultimate success within the group. In this sense, games are frequently engaged-in, culturally emphasized activities that have become institutionalized over time. In addition, Shepherd emphasizes that social activities, similar to games, involve participants in various recognized roles, and they are carried out by conventionalized rules within recognized frames of meaning. In order to reach the goal-to win at the game, we need to be aware of the rules which provide an interpretive framework and of the means to and reasons for maintaining social relations. Culture games also have scoring systems-a culturally accepted mechanism for evaluating successful and unsuccessful performances. For example, if the host toasts to the guest with respect in a banquet, the guest is supposed to accept it in an appropriate way­ expressing the appreciations, and finish the wine in the cup-based on the scoring system of a banquet in Chinese culture. If the guest did not recognize the intention of the toast from the host-welcoming him/her with respect, or respond to it in the appropriate way with the necessary behaviors, he/she will fail to "catch the ball" and "kick it back".

27 That is, the guest will loose points in this kind of culture game because they are not able to established intentions and have them recognized by the other party.

From this example, we can easily see the importance of the game metaphor for language learners: it enables us to view interacting in different cultures as involving different sets of social norms. That is, people have to change the way they behave when the game changes because different games have distinct sets of rules and ways of participation. Most pedagogical materials or instructional regimens fail to teach learners how to participate and do things appropriately in the target culture, which rules are different from their native culture. Thus learners have to use their own rules until they find out these rules are not transferable or applicable for the new game. As Shepherd suggested, language learners need to "calibrate their behavior, the equipment the use and the discourse strategies they apply according to the immediate field of play" (2005: 160).

1.2.4 Compile C2 Memories

In order to learn to successfully participate and communicate in a culture that one has never experienced, he/she needs to have the opportunity to build a cultural memory in the classroom that will be used in the future. To learn a culture can be viewed as constructing a long-term memory of one's experiences in that culture the way a practice regimen prepares an athlete to play a game. In this sense, memory and development of memory are crucial to the language-learning process. In the following section, I will discuss the process of creating and compiling cultural memories from Jerome Bruner's

(1990) and Tomasello's (1999) viewpoint that learning, internalizing events into memory system, occurs when individuals negotiates with the culture by participating in activities using the "cycle of compiling culture" proposed by Walker and Noda (2000).

28 According to Shepherd (2005:207-8), learning a language is a mental process, conscious or subconscious, through which cultural knowledge is accessed, memorized, analyzed, acquired, internalized, and automatized. This notion also reflects the four levels of "knowing" a story proposed by Walker and Noda (2000), ranging from ignorance to automatic inclination, as illustrated in the well-known progression: (1) don't know you don't know; (2) know you don't know; (3) know you know, and (4) don't know you know. Leaming new cultural rules does not mean simply adding information to old stories. Shepherd argues that the stories we learn in a second culture and the memories we create of our experiences in that culture must be indexed separately as a new type of story that applies to a new type of game.

In order to achieve the highest level of automatic inclination-' don't know you know', learners need both declarative and procedural memory, a distinction similar to that between declarative and procedural knowledge. Procedural memory is the memory of how to do something. It is the long-term memory related to procedural knowledge which is the knowledge of rules of actions, skills and procedures. Declarative memory, one the other hand, is the memory that stores discourses about experiencing the procedurals. It is the memory about things or about how to do things. People can develop declarative memory about procedural knowledge, and declarative memory is useful in helping to build procedural memory especially at the early stage of acquisition of the procedural knowledge. However, once the procedural memory is built, it is essentially the procedural memory that is in effect to guide people to perform a task or an action.

Declarative knowledge may be thought of as the theoretical component and procedural

29 knowledge as the practical component, or the application of theory (Christensen and

Warnick, 2006: 58).

One characteristic of procedural memory is implicitness. That is to say, not only procedural memory can be easily verbalized, it also means that when people are performing a task or an action using their procedural memory, they are neither consciously aware of how it was learnt, nor are they consciously aware of exactly how it is being performed. Thus a single experience may be sufficient to acquire declarative memory, but procedural memory often requires repeated exposure or practice

(Christensen and Noda 2002: 14). For example, Chinese learners may know, either hearing from the instructor or by reading the textbook, that they should modestly tum down the compliment by using niili niili 'where where' (declarative memory). However, they need repeated practice to develop the ability to comfortably tum down a compliment without necessarily using the declarative knowledge (procedural memory).

Language teachers, according to Walker and Noda (2000), need to provide opportunities to help learners build both declarative and procedural memory, as well as to build a memory of the process of compiling their memories into a retrievable, usable form. A solid memory of the process of compilation is important for the learners because learners will use it when they interact with members from the target culture in the future.

Walker and Noda explain,

When they encounter new situations, they are able to identify the elements of performance, recognize the new elements, incorporate them into their culture and language knowledge, develop a new story through performance, and compile the new story into the structure of sagas and cases to adjust their own knowledge structure of the target culture. This equips them to critique their performances in light of

30 reactions from members of the target culture as well as from their own knowledge and to seek ways to modify their story. (2000:209)

In addition, the effective and independent life-long foreign language learners are the ones who know how to continue his/her learning after they leave a formal classroom setting. The compilation process, according to Ekeberg (2004 ), allows learners to continue their learning without guidance from instructors after the program ends because the cycle reflects the continuing spiral of interaction between agents, activities, and memories that must occur in order for learners to compile memories of performances and of the process of compilation. The cycle, as shown in the following figure, starts with the agent of the persona, which refers to the reality that learners have multifaceted personalities that vary from context to context and over time within one context. The second step, cultural knowledge and language knowledge is the memory based on information about culture and language. Learners, with individual persona, and the existing culture and language knowledge, come to classroom, and they will encounter performances/games. Performances and games, as discussed above, formed the most part of classroom activities. Students are expected to enact the performances or games, and then with the teacher's correction, enact them at a higher level to build antomaticity.

Stories are personal memories of having experienced a performance or a game. In foreign language learning, we provide opportunities for students to create such personal memories, stories, in the pedagogical environment so that they can recall and apply to the future opportunities when they interact with people from the target culture. That is, learners remember the stories which they would encounter in the target culture in the future. In this sense, the stories they have experienced in the instructional environment

31 are the foundations of memories they can use in the future. Stories, later being organized in terms of sagas and cases, will help learners to aware and realize that there are different ways to do things across the cultures. In addition, once they have the connections among those stories, they will have memories of these stories they have experienced more easily. As learners gain the ability to tell stories and to put stories that they have learned together, they begin to compile individual stories to form larger domains of knowledge.

Teachers can utilize drills, exercises and role plays to expand what learners have learned and associated the newly experienced stories with previously encountered ones.

T '

1·:erlorJ'1anCe/ 1· Game l.. . i . r ,___ L_ ,./ ...... ,, j ( Story ~-- •I Comptlalion \ _...,/I L ______

Figure 1 Cycle of Compilation (Walker and Noda 2000: 197)

According to Walker and Noda (2000), sagas and cases represent what a learner is capable of dealing with in the target culture, and help learners to construct, manage, and

32 categorize the memories of target culture. A case refers to a collection of stories about doing something in a culture. For example, ordering food in a restaurant can be a case which has a series of stories such as reading menu, negotiating with the waiter, or exchanging information with your partner. Cases are compiled into knowledge structures of the world-what you know of the world and what you can do in it, thus they are rich with notions and functions. As Walker and Noda suggest, cases can be compiled by direct presentation, by extracting elements from dialogs and narratives, and by combining these elements with previously learned knowledge.

A saga is a series of stories about a specific set of people or a specific location.

Sagas represent what a learner knows about behaving around particular people or at par­ ticular places. A saga is composed of stories happening to certain groups of people, such as colleagues, peers, or family members, at particular settings, such as the office, the classroom, or the home. The notion of saga helps learners to identify different groups, and understand different ways of dealing with people, setting in communicative activities and interactions within social cultural context because sagas in memory may reflect many aspects or features of a person, a group, or a certain place. According to Walker and Noda (2000), "the concept of saga reflects a commonplace notion that we perform better socially with familiar people and in familiar places." They advocate that the compilation of sagas in the course of language study gives learners the impression of continuity and connectedness in their studied language even though the quantity of information in their knowledge of the target culture is much less than natives of that culture. Walker and Noda (2000) propose that saga can be presented by using successful

33 films, television programs, short stories, and novels which are coherent treatments of sets of characters often in particular settings-that is, they create sharable worlds.

A theme is a cultural worldview, underlying abstract cultural norms that are represented in the actions and the interpretations of actions. Compared to the concepts of case and saga, a theme is a more abstract and general statement of certain features shared by more than one story in a culture. That is, a theme can be extracted from several stories about different people doing different things. Understanding the themes around which the stories revolve better equips students to understand Chinese people and culture. Some

Chinese cultural themes include hierarchy, harmony, and facework, which may re-occur throughout cases and sagas. These themes usually are unspoken, and in many instances are unconscious for the native speakers. Themes can be explicitly presented in the culture part of the textbook or implicitly through multiple stories.

Once learners have complied cases or sagas, they are able to internalize and take the stories as part of their culture and language knowledge, which then helps to construct the second-culture worldview. As the second-culture worldview changes the way they continue to learn the new language and culture, the learner's persona that they bring to language learning will be influenced as well.

1.3 Teaching Children

It is widely believed that children are effortless second language learners and far superior to adults in their eventual success. Many believe that children naturally "pick up" the language, no matter whether it is their first or second language, by immersing themselves in the C2 environment. Actually, children's widespread success in acquiring second languages lies in a tremendous subconscious effort devoted to the task (Brown,

34 2001 ). Children exercise a good deal of both cognitive and affective effort in order to

internalize both native and second languages. According to Brown (2001, 87), the difference between children and adult learners lies primarily in the contrast between the

child's spontaneous, peripheral attention to language forms and the adult's over, focal awareness of and attention to those forms. Therefore, in the popular notion of children's

effortless success, effort refers to focal awareness attention.

In order to successfully teach children a second language, instructors need to employ special skills and intuitions that differ from those appropriate for adult teaching.

Brown (2001) proposes five categories which may help give some practical approaches to teaching children.

A. Children are centered on the here and now, on the functional purposes of language,

but not rules, explanations, and other even slightly abstract talk about language. They

certainly cannot grasp the metalanguage we use to describe and explain linguistic

concepts. Therefore, grammatical explanations, especially the terms like "present

progressive", or "sentence particle" should be excluded. It is advisable to show them

certain patterns and examples. And more repetition is needed than for adult learners.

For example, repeating the same patterns in different context under the condition that

children understand the meaning and relevance of repetitions (Walker, conference

notes, 2006).

B. One of the salient differences between adults and children is attention span. We say

children have short attention span in the situation when they are reading something

boring and unattractive for them, not when they are watching cartoons. To make

language class interesting, lively and fun, a variety of activities should be designed to

35 capture children's immediate interest, and to keep interest and attention alive. The

teacher needs to be animated, lively, and enthusiastic because on the stage of a

classroom, the teacher's energy, as the lead actor, will be infectious.

C. Children need to have all five senses stimulated. The classroom activities should be

visual and audio vivid, or even go well beyond the visual and auditory modes that are

usually sufficient for a class of adult learners. It is thus important to include physical

activities, especially having students act out things, or Total Physical Response

activities. Singing should go along with physical movements; many hands on

activities help children to internalize language. Small group projects, for example, are

excellent ways to get them to learn words and patterns in a meaningful way. It is

advisable for the instructors to use nonverbal language, facial features, gestures,

which children are sensitive to. The teaching aids should include the smell of flowers,

the touch of plants and fruits, the taste of foods, and audiovisual materials such as

videos, pictures, tapes, music, which are all important elements in children's

language teaching.

D. Children are often innovative in language forms, but many times they are extremely

sensitive especially to peers. Children are in many ways much more fragile than

adults. Therefore, teachers need to be cautious in order to help them to overcome the

potential barriers to learning. For example, educate children not to laugh at others

when they make mistakes. Be patient and supportive yet at the same time be firm in

the expectations of students. Use various elicitation techniques to elicit as much oral

performance as possible from students. Encourage the quieter ones to participate by

providing plenty of opportunities for them to try things out.

36 E. As mentioned above, children are focused on the here and now, especially on how

this new language can actually be used. Therefore, language needs to be firmly

context embedded. Story lines, familiar situations and characters, real-life

conversations, meaningful purposes in using language-these elements all help

establish a context within which language can be received and sent and thereby

improve attention and retention. According to Mari Noda (Personal communication,

2007), for adult L2 learners, the socialization may start from interactions in the more

peripheral places to intimate environment such as family. However, the young

learners might go a reverse way when they approach the second culture. It would be

easier to set the classroom settings the more intimate environment more than with

adult learners.

l.4 Summary

In sum, different theoretical perspectives help us to understand the nature of first and second language acquisition, and the idea is that when teaching languages, linguistic code, social context and cultural behavior cannot be separated. What is important for

foreign language learners is the ability to recognize, interpret, and enact shared meanings and intentions in ways appropriate in the target culture for typical contexts of interaction.

The fundamental unit of analysis of such abilities is the performance. Meaning is situated in shared social contexts and our knowledge of our social experiences is compiled in memory in story form. The performed culture approach is concerned with facilitating the development of culturally appropriate behaviors in the target culture. The goal of this approach is to train students to do things in Chinese which requires significant attention to behavioral culture and procedural knowledge. Therefore, it is important to examine

37 how native speakers communicate with each other within shared social contexts, and what the essential performances, sagas, cases are in their life reflecting the underlining themes.

38 CHAPTER2

A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF INTERACTIONS BY CHINESE CHILDREN WITHIN FAMILY ENVIRONMENT

2.1 Introduction

A large number of quantitative and qualitative studies have been conducted to examine the acquisition of different languages in the last two decades. However, very few studies have been done to investigate how Chinese is used in the interactions between young native speakers and their parents and teachers with an eye on its applications to foreign . This qualitative research study is designed to collect, present, organize, and analyze the linguistic forms produced by 3-8 year old Chinese speakers in specific social and cultural environments in order to provide authentic scripts for curriculum design.

2.1.1 Literature Review

Since about 1970 some studies have addressed the issues of how social and international factors might influence the nature of language acquisition. Many social- interactionists theorize that adults play an important part in children's language acquisition. Katherine Nelson (1973) has posed the argument that children acquire language already equipped with concepts related to action: "the functional core model

(FCM)." She essentially proposed that the child came to language with a store of familiar

39 concepts of people and objects that were organized around the child's experience with these things. Because the child's experience was active, the dynamic aspects would be the most potent part of what the child came to know about the things experienced.

Catherine Snow's (1993; 2005) studies focused on vocabulary and grammar acquisition, and especially on ways in which social interactions within the family support

literacy acquisition. She argues that children do not have to deduce the principles of

language from impoverished and ungrammatical scraps of talk, but are presented with the

evidence they need through parent-to-child interaction. Snow suggests that parents' most important contributions to their children's literacy development may come through

language interactions, such as storytelling and interactions that foster vocabulary development, rather than through print-related activities. For example, Snow's study in

1993 investigated predictors of growth in toddlers' vocabulary production between one and three years of age by analyzing mother-child communication in 108 low-income families. She examined different variations in growth across children. Observed variations were positively related to diversity of maternal lexical input, maternal

language, and literacy skills, which is negatively related to maternal depression.

However, maternal talkativeness was not related to growth in children's vocabulary production in this sample.

It also has been long investigated how properties of mother-child interaction contribute to child's language development. However some researchers claim that the empirical data on which theories of social interactionism are based have often been over­ representative of middle class American and European parent-to-child interactions, and the settings or contexts are usually limited to toy playing, story telling or book reading.

40 Hoff-Ginsburg's (1991) study was designed to investigate the effects of both social class and communicative setting on mothers' interactions with their children in a single, naturalistic study. To investigate the effects of setting, working-class and upper-middle­ class mothers were video-recorded in didactic interaction with their 18 to 29-month-old children in 4 settings-mealtime, dressing, book reading, and toy playing. All the interactions were observed in four different settings: mealtime, dressing, book reading, and toy play.

Additional, Qi Wang has conducted several studies to compare the interactions in

European-American and Chinese families. Wang's latest study (2005) explores the functional variations in mother-child conversations of emotionally salient events in

European-American and Chinese families. Wang and Fivush (2005) examine the style and content of conversations of highly salient emotionally positive and negative events between Euro-American and Chinese mothers and their young children in order to explore the multiple functions of parent-child emotional reminiscing in cultural contexts.

American mothers initiated more interactive and elaborate conversations that focused on the child's roles and predilections in the story, and they employed a 'cognitive approach' to emotional regulation by providing explanations for the cause of children's feeling states. Wang and Fivush conclude that U.S. children have more interactive and more elaborate conversations than Chinese children do. Chinese children would talk less about the past, less about themselves, but more about other people and behavioral norms.

Chinese mothers took a directive role in posing and repeating memory questions and focusing on social interaction, and they used a 'behavioral approach' to emotional regulation by emphasizing discipline and proper conduct to their child. This study

41 indicates that growing up in such different narrative environments, Euro-American and

Chinese children as young as age 3 appear to be already internalizing different values and styles from their parents in talking about emotional experiences.

Wang and Fivush categorize parents in terms of both the style and content of parent­ child reminiscing. High-elaborative parents often initiate lengthy conversations with their children, provide detailed memory information and feedback to scaffold children's participation, and model to children the ways and importance of constructing a coherent story of oneself. Low-elaborative parents, in contrast, tend to have short and directive conversations with their children during which they take a leading role in posing pointed questions and often switch topics without commenting on children's responses, with the conversation resembling a memory test. Importantly, parents who are highly elaborative early in development have children who come to remember and tell their personal stories in more detailed and narrative coherent ways by the end of the preschool years.

Wang and Fivush summarize that memory conversations also differ significantly in thematic content, particularly between genders. Parents with daughters more frequently situate the past event in an interpersonal context than do parents with sons, who place a greater emphasis on the autonomous role of the child. In addition, when discussing emotional events, parents with daughters often make more references to the child's feeling states and are more elaborative and evaluative than parents with sons.

Wang and Fivush propose that cultural differences exist in both the style and content of parent-child reminiscing. Chinese culture values group solidarity and social harmony, where the existence of an individual is viewed as being realized through reciprocally relating to significant others. The development of the related aspects of the self that focus

42 on one's social roles, duties, and responsibilities is thus crucial in this cultural context.

Many cross-cultural studies have also revealed that Asian (Chinese, Korean) parents often resemble low-elaborative parents in that they less frequently engage their children in talking about past events and often pose and repeat factual questions without providing embellished information (Wang and Leichtman, 2000). In comparison, Euro-American parents more often use a high-elaborative style where they elaborate on and supplement children's responses and invite children to co-construct the story together. Furthermore,

American parents tend to focus on the child's roles, predilections, and opinions in the memory event, whereas Asian parents frequently discuss social interactions and collective activities and refer to behavioral norms and expectations to children.

In another cross cultural study, Wang (2000) focuses on both mother-child conversations about recent past experiences and storytelling from a picture book in China and the United States. 41 American and Chinese mothers were asked to talk with their 3- year-old children at home about two shared past events and a story. Results revealed between-culture variation in the content and style of mother-child conversations when sharing memories and telling stories. American mothers and children showed a high­ elaborative, independently oriented conversational style in which they co-constructed their memories and stories by elaborating on each other's responses and focusing on the child's personal predilections and opinions. In contrast, due to the relative de-emphasis on individual uniqueness and expressiveness in Chinese culture where group activities have importance over personal experiences, Chinese mother-child dyads would be more likely to focus on social values and behavior standards when sharing memories and telling stories. Chinese Mother-child dyads employed a low elaborative,

43 interdependently oriented conversational style where mothers frequently posed and repeated factual questions and showed great concern with moral rules and behavioral standards with their children.

Even though several cross culture studies have examined parent-child interactions and discuss about cultural differences within family environment, very few studies have been conducted with the purpose of investigating linguistic forms, social norms and language functions in different kinds of interactions that happen within a certain social and cultural environment. This lack of information is unfortunate because it is very useful for providing authentic oral performance scripts for the Pre-K-4 Chinese language curriculum designing as the number of children who are learning Chinese as a second language is growing all over the world. To address the need for information regarding curriculum design of Chinese language for young learners, the present investigation sought to provide linguistic data on the development.

2.2.2 Proposal of the Current Study

To explore the multiple functions of parent-child interactions in cultural contexts, the current study examines how Chinese parents interact with their children. In interviewing

Chinese mothers about their children's daily routine activities, and what they observe of their children's interactions with other adults or children, the researcher expects to present stories and cases that frequently happen in the family environment. Wang (2005;

2001) proposes that Chinese mothers tend to use more didactic talk to help children regulate emotions and behavior, and focus more on conflict resolutions and moral lessons in order to establish social harmony and proper conduct. The present study also aims at

44 year. All the children go to the daycare for the whole day, starting at the age of two or three. Two children went to half day kindergarten. All of the eight children had many

Chinese classmates and friends, and seven of the mother said their children spent a significant amount of after school time playing with Chinese friends. Most of the time all of the eight children used Chinese to communicate with their parents at home. Two mothers said their children spoke some English with their siblings at home.

•Female DMale

Figure 2 Gender of the children participants

100 -r------.,..,,...,, ...... ------80 ------60 40 20 0 A B C D E F G H •Age (months)

Figure 3 Age range of the children

46

DVD. The interactions in the recording were transcribed and the scripts in unit of stories were organized by cases and presented in this report, and listed in the Appendix A (refer to Appendix A).

2.3 Results

2.3.1 Interviews

I. Parent-to-child interactions

When asked what were the most commonly used utterances in daily conversations, six mothers mentioned how they asked their children to eat more at dinner: :!ff :!ffl!Z;tft hiiohiio chifan, to eat in an appropriate way (or to eat more). It seemed eating is very important for the mothers. Several mothers mentioned that children are likely to be told about consequence of not eating well:

~:!ff :!ff llZ; ti f$ml;-lE:~ ~ Bil hiiohiio chifan nT jiu zhiing bu giio You cannot grow tall if you do not eat well.

The other didactic talks include: be good, it's time to go to sleep, do not fight with other children, hurry up and finish what is being done. For example:

M~Di'.%7 o Giinjln shilijiao le. Hurry up and go to bed.

~~ J!~ o ~:!ff :!ff H~ 1J\ RJt~>+tJ ~ o Bilyao zheyang, yao hiiohiio gen xiiiopengyou xiiingchu. Stop that. You'd better get along with your friends.

~. IJJflt 0 Guiii, t'fnghua. Be good. Do what you are told

Other common parent-initiated conversations included making requests, asking about past events, asking about preferences. For example, 49 **1E-¥~ 7tzfll13? Xiiin qu bii shou x'ile hiioma? Go wash your hands first, okey?

~7(f£~JLtmllZ~~ 7? .Jintiiin zai youeryuan chi shenme le? What did you eat in daycare today?

:a: 5CX fil: B

1$~~~jf~.g.g? Ni ai miima haishi baba. Do you love Mom or Dad?

ft~.g.gjf~~~ 0 Wo ai baba haiyou miima. I love both Dad and Mom.

The child-initiated situations that occurred frequently were situations of making requests, expressing their feelings, state of being and conditions, inviting parents to join what they are doing, and asking questions (how and why are the most commonly asked questions).

~~ft~JJZ~$:~o Miima, wo yao chi b'ingjiling. Mom, I want to eat ice-cream.

~ ~ffl,RlU~ --J81m P~ o Miima n'i gen WO yiq'i wan ba. Play with me Mom!

~~ftJJ±-=f'at7 0 Miima WO duzi e le. Mom I am hungry..

~~ft/1'~~7 0 Miima wo bU giioxing le. Mom I am sad. (I was happy).

50 Miima weishenme? Why? Mom?

,... h ~-"'r-pllX? 1c; A>.t<. a Y.J • Zenme luy'in ya? How do you record it? As for the routine activities between children and mothers, almost all the mothers described the same activities in the same order. Usually a normal day starts with the mother waking the children. Most mothers would use commands and imperative sentences to do so, because time would not allow them to use complex linguistic forms.

Many mothers said they had to use good excuses to get their children of, such as

"breakfast is ready", or "your friends are waiting for you".

Mtk~1*7 o Gankuai qlchuang le. Hurry up and get up.

tk~1* pZ; 11i 7 0 Kuai qlchuang ch'ifan le. Come on. Get up. Breakfast is ready.

M~~~e, ~ JL Im (fl ~!Ji1J/J'.IDt~: ~~lf 1$11M o Ganjfn qllai, youeryuan de laosh'i xiaopengyou dou dengzhe nf ne. Hurry up. Your teacher and friends are all waiting for you in the daycare.

Getting up is also an event in which children most often use refusal forms, from simply stating it is not his/her intention to get up, to refusing to go to the daycare.

~/F~~1*1~/F.it~~'* 0 Wo bu xiang qfchuanglwo bu yuanyi qfchuang. I don't want to get up.

J.lt:IF*l:~JL!rn7 o Wo buqu shang youeryuan le. I am not going to daycare (today).

51 One mother said that her son likes to use ;JIC;mi;/FT- W6 jiu bu gan, (No, I am not going to. I No, I don't want to. I You can't make me.) to refuse her request or commands.

After the children get up, mothers would send them to the daycare with or without breakfast. One mother said that her son often negotiated how he went to daycare, asking which bike he could ride. Here is the conversation this mother mentioned in the interview:

W?iW?i: JL-=f PIHfJ~J:~7 o Miima: Erzi zimmen yao shangxue le. Mom: Let's go to school, son. JL-=f: !l-13 W?i!Jt /J, fil: $fr 11!3? Erzi: Miima qi xiiiohongche xingma? Son: Can I ride the red bike Mom? W?,W?,: W?,W?,~il$*/F&7, /F!Jf$7o Miima: Miima yao giinche laibuji le, bu qiche le. Mom: No, Mom needs to catch the bus so you can't ride that bike.

Eating dinner is the only time during the day that all the family members can get together, and it is also an event in which many parent-to-children interactions occur.

Many children would like to express their intentions, likes and dislikes, and preference to the food. Besides what they want to eat, the children also negotiate with parents how much they want to eat. On the other hand, parents always ask for preferences, and encourage children to eat more food, especially more vegetables. At the same time, when parents negotiate with their children, they use conditional sentences, or express prohibitions.

W?iW?i: 1fl\~llZ;~~ 11i? ·~llZ;~~? Miima: Ni xiiing chi shenme fan? Xihuiin chi shenme? Mom: What do you want to eat? What do you like?

3' JL : ;JI(;~ llZ ltm o Nller: W6 yao chi suiinniii. Daughter: I want to eat yogurt.

52 =9: J L: :fJl :;f llZ 7 , llZ :;fr 7 o Niler: Wo buchi le, chibUxia le. Daughter: I won't eat it, I'm full. WW: :;ffi, ~:;f@~~··*oWWDm~To Mama: Buxing, nT bU yinggai langfei liangshi, mama yao fa nT le. Mom: No, you have to finish it. You should not waste food. Mom will punish you for it. Y:JL: ~~ft~~*$ 7, ftllZ:;f-F7 o Niler: NT gei WO chengde taiduo le, WO chibuxia le. Daughter: You put too much food in my bowl so I cannot finish it.

JL·T: ft:;f~PZ;1:~o Erzi: Wo bu xiiing chi shengcai. Son: I don't want to eat the lettuce. WW: :;f~f, ~D:J!:;fllZ1:~~1JSWt:;filfllZ;!l!f o 7t~~llZ 7 f&J§7J'f3~11Z; !l!fo Mama: BiJxing, nT yaoshi buchi sheng cai de hua jiu biJxu chi xia. Xian bii cai chfle ranhou caineng chi xia. Mom: No, you have to eat it. You cannot eat shrimp if you do not eat the lettuce. You can only eat shrimp after you finish your vegetables. When eating dinner, most parents are likely to talk about schooling with their children. They would ask about what has happened, what their children eat, how is it going with their friends. Many mothers mentioned that children would like to compare themselves with their friends, in terms of appearance, clothing, or academic studies. For example,

Y:JL: W3W. ~*~~ifi*~ft 7 o Niler: Mama, jintian liioshi biiioyang wo le. Daughter: Mom, the teacher praised me today. WJW: ~~7(1£rJJJLlfilT-1t~ 7? Mama: NT jintian zai youeryuan gan shenme le ? Mom: What did you do today in daycare? Y:JL: ~Wfl~fttm/J,m7 o sunny lH&$/J,m, WW~-t!?.~ft1'L1&$1&$ /J,mn~o Niler: Liioshf gei wo shu xiiiobian le. Sunny you henduo xiiiobian, mama nT ye gei WO zha henduo henduo xiiiobian ba. Daughter: My teacher helped to comb my hair and did up pigtails. Sunny has many pigtails. Could you comb my hair into many pigtails too?

53 After dinner, most mothers would like to take their children to the playground or shopping. Children would make requests of where and what to play, whereas mothers are likely to educate their children telling them to avoid confrontation with their friends.

Some mothers said that they always remind their children about safety concerns before going out.

3z:JL:JJ~~fflf-ft.Z.. -*"~? Niler: Na women gan shenme qu ne ? What are we going to do then?

W3~:~ffJ~0lrrAmo ~tlf::&nll~ffJ:IE7. ~ffJili-*:%7 o Mama: Women qu gongyuan wan. Chuan hiio yifu women ZOU le, women chiiqu wan le. Mom: We are going to the park. Put on your coat. Let's go. Let's go and play.

~~:~tlfM~lVJ,M/im. /Fi'ftf~o Mama: Yao hiiohiio gen xiiiopengyou wan, buxu diijia. Mom: You should get along with your friends. Do not fight with each other.

~~q:1tt.UL. ~Lll@, i3:JL~'Li'$o Mama: Man diiinr, bie piio, zher dangxfn che. Mom: Slow down. Don't run away. Watch out for the cars. Every child loves asking questions. They are curious about everything around them. As mentioned above, children are good at asking what, why and how questions.

The mothers also mentioned that their children asked what and why questions because they do not know the English equivalent of a certain Chinese words or vice versa.

)3:~ {g .Z,. @] $P;f? Zhe shi zenme huishi ya ? What happened?

Ice-cream 9=1 )(~ft .Z.. IJl!iil? Ice-cream zhongwen shi shenme a? What is the Chinese word for ice-cream?

~ft.Z..tr~M/iM/F~~mmA$7~? weishenme dii xiiiopengyou jiu bu key[ wan wanjuche le ne?

54 Why can't I play with the car after fighting with my friends?

II Child-to-child interactions

Half of the mothers said they did not pay attention to how their children communicate with others. One mother said that when her son played with boys they did not talk a lot. If they played a game, they used body language more than verbal language.

The most commonly heard interactions between children include claiming ownership, inviting someone else to play, expressing likes and dislikes, discussing the quality and quantity of something (toys or food), talking about the time and sequence of actions, and comparing with each other.

A:J3:-f-*g§~M-o A: Zhege dongx'i bUhao. A: This is not good. B:J3:-f-M-, 33:-f-~M-o B: Zhege hew , zhege bUhao. B: This one is good. This one is not.

a m-t9 :§-~ n~ o Women y'iql kimshu ba. Let's read a book together.

mt mt f~(~~~ iUYIH~H~O*mll!f? Tiimtian nl yaobuyao dao jiejie }iii lai wan ya ? Tiantian, are you coming to play at my place?

J3: -t- ~a a

·~~9-~7, {$~~oft~{$-~o Wo j'intiiin chuiin qunzi le, nl meiyou. Wo bl nl piiioliang. I wore the skirt today, but you didn't. I am prettier.

55 Wode shangmian you xlngxlng, nide meiyou. Mine has stars on it, but yours doesn't.

Kan,~. -~~~-~.-~-~-~~~-~~*·wo bi ni chide kuai. Wo chide kuai jiushi ylnwei wo bi ni da. Look, I eat faster than you do. I eat faster because I am older.

a~xx~-t-. Wo xihuiin zhege. I like this one. a7tm-~ JL¥l~~m:M~? Wo xiiin wan ylhuir zai gei ni wan hao ma ? Let me play with it for a while, and then I'll give it to you, OK?

One mother indicated that her daughter loved playing pretend with other girls.

When they pretended, they assigned roles, identified places and objects, talked about responsibilities, and discussed the sequence of actions.

8=*1$:W3W3. ~*f$:.g.g. Wo lai zuo mama , ni lai zuo baba. I will be the mother, and you'll be the father.

~~•m.~~~~~~.~1. ~~. Zheshi shiingdian. Zheshi nide shubiio. Haole, zou ba. This is the store. Here is your bag. OK, let's go.

Lai women xiiin qu mai dongxl , zai zuofan ba. Come on, let's go shopping first, and then cook dinner.

-~~gjfj, ~~~#:. Wo shi laoshf, ni shi xuesheng. I am the teacher, and you are the student.

III Child-to-other adult interactions

If it is the first meeting, the first two things that most adults are likely to ask about are the child's name and age. The third one varies from asking about the child's likes and dislikes to school, but in general, the third question tends to ask about the 56 children's personal life. Children seem to be nervous talking to adults who they do not know well, and only one mother said her son liked communicating with visitors. Other mothers said that only after their children get to know the adult well will they talk more with him/her. They tend to show off their belongings (toys, clothes, shoes, or food), and offer things generously.

~ll4ft-Z.1';~? NT jiao shenme mingzi ? What is your name?

~1-if~::kT? IJL~ T? NT finnian duo da le ? I .ff sui le ? How old are you?

{f)\__t ~ T ¥9: fl"? NT shangxue le meiyou ? Do you go to school yet?

~~~X-:Ftr-Z.11Jf? NT xlhuiin gan shenme ya ? What do you like to do?

4-::R7f/f'7f1Ci'? J:l!1J~JL-:t::9t T? Jfntiiin kiiibUkiiix'in? Shang niir qu wan le ? Are you happy today? Where did you go to play?

J:~:m~ft-Z. T? Shangxue dou xue shenme le ? What did you learn from school?

it:fl:~ l¥J JI/th: ~iiJ ? Shei shi nTde pengyou a ? Who are your friends?

~~. J!:fl:fJt(J{J¥1, Wf 1¥1 o Ayi, zheshi wade xie, xinde. Auntie, these are my shoes; they are new.

57 tJ)1{ ;J)il ffi\llZ n~ o ~ ~q'.J

2.3.2 Themes and Cases

Compared with adult society, children have a simpler and easy-to-deal-with social life. There are not as many rules and themes as in adult society, but parents educate their children about the rules and themes all the time. As discussed in Chapter 1, children acquire their native language as well as the native culture through their interactions with the environment, parents, peers, and other adults. In the following section, several important themes in Chinese culture will be presented and discussed in terms of how they are reflected in the commonly seen cases selected from the recording.

The full scripts of these cases are listed in the Appendix A.

An important underlining theme in Chinese culture is social harmony and group solidarity. Mothers constantly emphasize maintaining and keeping good relationship with others when they educate their children. In the recording, a mother told her five year old daughter that she was invited to a birthday party, but the daughter did not want to go because she did not like the girl. Her mother persuaded her to sign the birthday card and to go to the party with a gift because of the importance of group solidarity. She emphasized that her daughter should be nice to all her friends, including the girl she did not like.

There are several cases included in this "birthday" story. First when the mother mentioned they were invited to a party, she asked if the daughter was going or not, which belongs to the case of asking about or expressing intentions, and making suggestions.

Case: Asking about or expressing intentions I making suggestions.

58 Saga: family. With parents. Time: Sunday Morning Place: Home Roles: Mother and daughter Scripts:~~: rlf-t: Susan 1¥Jj: 1::1 party, f$~:;f~~~1JOlfPJ? Miima: Xiawu qu Susan de shengri party, ni xiiingbuxiiing ciinjiii a ? Mom: There will be a Birthday party for Susan this afternoon. Do you want to go? :kJL: Susan U~ft::k, ft:::f~-t:o Niler: Susan bi wo da, wo bUxiiing qu. Daughter: No, I don't want to go because Susan is older.

Audience: Other family members. For the case of asking about or expressing intentions, the verb ~, xiiing, "want" is often used. For example, the daughter refused to go and explained why she did not want to go by using T le to express a change of state; that is, she does not want to play with her friend any more:

ft:::f~ *To ft:::f~H~~ -#cm To Wo buxiiing qu le. Wo bUxiiing gen tii ylkuai wan le. I don't want to go. I don't want to play with her. Children often make their "intention" statement directly, which fosters a simpler communicative world that is much simpler than that of adults. However, their intentions are often declined by their parents. This is very common in Chinese families because parents always want their children to do things which they think are good for the children. For example,

JL-=f:ft~UZl'l}(. Erzi: Wo xiiing chi bing. Son: I want to eat ice( cream). W3~:ftifJ~¥9:1f. >EPe'., ll[HfJUZ~*Pe'.. Miima: Womenjiii meiyou. Zou ha, zanmen chifan qu ha. Mom: We don't have it. Come on, let's eat dinner. In the above example, the mother was making a suggestion of eating dinner instead of ice-cream, which is not very effective. She used a sentence-final particle Pe!,

59 ba, together with the first person plural Pl3 if] zanmen, to "achieve the effect of soliciting the approval or agreement of the hearer" (Li and Thompson, 1981: 307).

In the following example of the interactions between mother and daughter, the mother used an "A-not-A" question with the sentence-final particle llJiiJ a, to check if her daughter was going or not. "IJl!PJ a", unlike "Pe1, ba", used in this kind of question, has the semantic effect of softening the query. Here is another example using the same structure which belongs to the case of making suggestions:

Miima : Na nl xianzai xiiingbi.txiiing huahua a ? Mom: Then do you want to draw a picture now? To maintain a good relationship within the group, Chinese parents often tell their children to be polite and not aggressive or offensive. In the interview, most mothers mentioned that they educated their children not to fight or argue with other children at school or at the playground. They also tell their children to be modest in order to keep harmony in the group. For example, this is what a mother told her son before they went to the playground.

~~:~M-M-~l1J,Jl1Locm. /Filf1T~o Miima: Yao hiiohiio gen xiiiopengyou wan, bi.txu diijia. Mom: You should get along with your friends. Do not fight with each other. /Filf bi.txu, together with ~lj bie, /F~ bityao and /f'fj~ bimeng, are often used by the parents when they prohibit children from doing something. Here is another example from the case of prohibition. The mother thought her son talked too much during dinner, so she started "table etiquette" education.

~lj iJl it ' pZ i1i B

60 To continue with the "birthday story'', the mother spent some time persuading her daughter that she should go to the party, in order to show her friendliness, but the daughter did not want to simply because she did not like the girl who invited her.

Finally, the mother lost her patience and asked an "A-not-A" question to seek for the confirmation that the daughter was a good girl, which indicates that if she went, she would be a good girl.

Case: Seeking for the confirmation Saga: family. With parents. Time: Sunday Morning Place: Home Roles: Mother and daughter Scripts: ~:if:J!/F:J!~~Ef

~~= ~B~*~x~~~?:ifm/Fm~? Mama: Shengri kuaile zhongwen hui xie ma? Huai jibujide? Mom: Can you write Happy Birthday in Chinese? Do you remember how to write it? This is a commonly seen case in children's life because they usually are very proud of whatever they have newly learned, and would like to share it with their peers and parents.

Later in this story, when the mother mentioned that one of the daughter's friends can write his name in Chinese, and the daughter responded that she can do it as well, using the model verb ·nr ~ keyi:

61 ~-tJ?)lT!?J.~ § C.8

One mother (Xiangcao Xianzi, 2007) wrote in her blog that American children would like to be the most popular one, but Chinese children would like to be the best one because Chinese parents always want their children to be the best. In order to achieve what the parents expect, the children are often told to make effort in doing all kinds of activities including the academic studies, dancing or drawing classes, even having a balance diet. Some of the mothers mentioned in the interview that they felt embarrassed if their children were not as good as other children in terms of their Chinese study or dancing. In the recording, when the five year old daughter signed on her friend's birthday card, she made mistakes spelling her friend's name, and her Chinese handwriting was not accurate and neat. Her mother told her she needs to work harder to improve it in order to save "face". This story also reflects how important it is to make effort in order to be good in the group.

From both the interviews and the audio recording, I found Chinese parents emphasized much on how well their children eat, whether they can eat as much food as parents expected, or how balanced their diet is. This is pinpointed in the didactic talk of the parents, especially when the family members were having dinner together. Chinese parents would like to make preferences for their children. The following directions were from a mother to arrange what her son should eat:

M'MUEJJ~-t-i~~llZT. Ganjin ba nagefirou chi le. Hurry up. Finish the chicken. ~~nz:~B

Case: Expressing reasons Saga: Family. With guest. Time: Weekend Place: Home Roles: Guest and daughter Scripts: '/;.A: W?,W?,:g~]\{$nq? Keren: Miima xfhuiin nf ma ? Visitor: Does your Mom like you?

3cJL:#~~ilJ o Ni'ier:Xlhuiin a. Daughter: Of course. '/;.A: ~ft.Z,.P~? Keren: Weishenme ne ? Visitor: Why?

3cJL:Em~fJtllffm o Ni'ier: Yinwei wo tinghua. Daughter: Because I am good. Audience: Other family members.

There are many stories that the children refused to commands. In most stories, they prefer the direct way ofrefusal by using :;f~ bUyao. For example:

Case: Refuse the commends Saga: Family. With parents. Time: Morning Place: Home Roles: Mother and son Scripts: W?,W?,: Jl:Q* 7 f,ltifl~:i-3f 7. Miima: Qflai le women qu kilnya le. Mom: Come on. Time to get up. We are going to see the dentist. 63 JL-=f: !it/f'~~*· !it/f'~~3f o Erzi: Wo bUyao ql lai, wo buyao kanya. Son : No, I won't get up. I don't want to see the dentist. Audience: Other family members

Chinese parents tend to compare their children to others, or pick one as an example to educate them. Accordingly, competitions are nourished in Chinese culture among children, and parents often tell their children to do something in order to be the best one in the group. For example, in the "birthday" story, the mother indicated that the daughter's friend can write her name in Chinese, and the daughter immediately competed with her friend saying that she can do it too. There are many examples in the recordings that belong to the comparison case. Some are looking for similarities whereas others are provoking competition. For example, the daughter in the birthday story had been competing with her friend for a long time, and she felt uncomfortable when she heard her friend's birthday was coming earlier than hers. She insisted she was older than her friend, but her mother corrected her mixing the two different concepts: being older vs. being taller. They both used the structure "verb bt +noun/pronoun+ adjective" to make comparisons in the following interaction.

Case: Making comparisons Saga: Family. With parents. Time: Sunday Morning Place: Home Roles: Mother and daughter Scripts: ::9:JL:!itbt~:A, W?JW?Jo Nil.er: Wo bl tii da miima. Daughter: I am older than her, Mom. ~13~1?i:f$bt~(Wj, fil~~btf$:A-22o f$bt Jessica :A, f$bt Y Y :A, ffi~~j!¥9:1$~ o Miima: Ni bl tii giio, danshi tii bl nl da yl diiindiiin. Nl bl Jessica da, nl bl Yiiya da, danshi tii hai mei nl giio.

64 Mom: You are taller than she, but she is a little bit older than you. You are older than Jessica, and Yaya, but she is not as tall as you are. Audience: Other family members.

Chinese children do not care much about how popular they are, but they do care if they can develop the good relationship with others. They tend to seek for similarities in order to achieve and maintain group solidarity. For example,

f,!tlf-1-' f$fillf-1- 0 Wo you y'ige, nf ye you y'ige. I have one, and you have one too. As mentioned above, Chinese children are expected to be good at various aspects. Their parents want them to follow their way for their being good: eating a fair mount of vegetables, going to bed on time, and being good in class. There are many stories in the recording in which parents negotiate the schedule with children, and arrange the sequence of the actions by telling them to do this first and then that. For example:

A,R PZ;:JG 11i llt'Ji!: o .!'intiiin ch'iwanfan shuijiao. You will go to sleep after lunch today. Chinese parents want their children to be competitive, and care much for the schooling. One of the important topic occurs at the dinner table is about the activities children have done in school. Here is an example of the conversation between mother and daughter about what the daughter did in school. Both used T le as completion marker at the end of the sentence.

:W3~: 1$A,:XtE~t5ff·ft~ T? Miima: NT j'intiiin zai xuexiao gan shenme le ? Mom: What did you do at school today? }(JL: fJtA,:XtE~~~~fg To Niler : Wo j'intiiin zai xuexiao tu yanse le. Daughter: I did coloring today. 65 The other important theme emphasized by Chinese parents is to recognize hierarchy in the group. They teach their children to use the appropriate term of address in order to recognize the hierarchy among people. The most common type of didactic talk used by Chinese parents is to ask their children to greet others using appropriate terms of address. For example,

114~~M Jiao shiishu hao Say hello to Uncle.

In the other example, the mother was checking if her son had said hello to his grandmother when they tried to connect through internet using the videoconference. Her son responded negatively using the sentence-final particle PM ne to soften the confrontation.

~~: 1$Ji!~~~tr1£11ifTll!?J? Miima: Nl gen /aolao da zhiiohii le ma ? Mom: Did you say hi to your grandma? JL-=f: ¥)[:ff PM. Erzi: Meiyou ne. Son: Not yet.

To maintain group harmony, Chinese tend to make it unclear about the ownership, especially for something many people are interested in. For example, if someone in the office needs to use the adhesive tape, and asks whose it is. The owner probably would not answer the question directly as "it is mine"; instead, he/she would say it is all right to use it, which indicates that I own the tape, and I offer it to you. However; this is not true in the child's world. They would like to claim the ownership to make everyone know clearly who owns what so that later when they have quarrel or fight about a certain toy, it

66 would be easier to judge who is aggressive. The following interaction is between a boy and a girl playing together, talking about the ownership of a certain toy.

Case: Claiming the ownership Saga: Family. With peers. Time: Afternoon Place: Home Roles: Son and his friend Scripts: A: J!:J!ita

In order to maintain good relationships within a group, Chinese children are often educated to be polite when making request, invitations, and asking for permissions. Here are three examples for these cases:

• Making request: PZ;:Yct&it~ili-t:m, lQ)()(- ·~mo Chiwanfan WO yao chuqu wan, he Wenwen yiqi wan. I am going out after dinner. I want to play with Wenwen.

• Inviting others: ~~1$.5.1~it-~1T$t~llJJ!o Miima ni gen wo yiqi dii chebiiio bai. Mom, do you want to play chebiao with me?

• Asking for permissions: itffl~1-tr/Ft'f~? Wo yong zhege xingbitxing a ? Can I use this?

Chinese are willing to help others, especially the elderly, the handicapped or young children. Chinese children all learn from the traditional values, and they are always ready to help those who are younger. In the following story, the boy was offering help to his friend coming to visit, a girl who is younger, to take off her shoes. There are not many 67 such stories of the offering help case occurring in the recording because most children subjects do not have younger visitors or siblings. What is most interesting is the boy cannot help at all, and he started to complain about the way her shoes were tied.

~lfflft*W~, ft*nE.ft*W~a Siishcm wo ltii bang ni, wo lai ba wo lai bang ni Susan, let me help you. Come one. Let me do it.

~~~;t;0.~~~B

There are cases that belong to the practice cases, such as talking about locations, time, numbers, and colors. They are important because children would like to talk about objects using these cases, and they are what they usually learn from school as well.

2.4 Pedagogical Implications and Limitations

The results indicate that for the young Chinese learners, many cases that are important for adult learners are not necessarily important for them. However, in order to establish and maintain the relationship in Chinese culture, young learners need to pay attention to some crucial cases, such as inviting, making suggestions, making comparisons, and expressing intentions, likes and dislikes. Among the commonly seen cases for Chinese children, some are universal, but some are more important for the L2 learners, for example, using the appropriate terms of address to greet people. For the young learners, they need to learn in order to recognizing the hierarchy in the society, they need to show respect to adults by using terms such as ~~' ~ilJ ~' ~~' mm'

(uncle, aunt, grandpa, grandma) in the greetings instead of calling the first name.

In the audio recording, the researcher found that children are good at imitating their parents' way of talking to them. Some children use the same linguistic pattern within the

68 same context in the pretend game. For example, their parents tell them to eat more vegetables; otherwise they can not grow tall. They use the same sentence in the pretend game to educate their "pretend" children during the "pretend" dinner. Children, no matter boys or girls, love the "role play". They assign a role to each participant in the game.

Therefore, in teaching Chinese as a foreign or second language to children, it is important to make sure that children follow the model when they practice and rehearse.

In addition, children are good at recognizing the context; they tend to rely much on the context when they imitating their parents. So it is crucial for the instructor to set up the context for the performance, as well as when introducing vocabulary. It is also very important to have each child assigned a role, and they understand the relationship between the roles they are playing.

As for the limitations, first, the audio-recording only has two hours of child-to­ child interaction. It happened to catch the interactions among two children, one 6-year­ old boy and one 4-year-old girl, playing and eating together, their mothers talking to each other, as well as talking to the two children. It would be better ifthere are more child-to­ child interactions, even those between siblings. One mother of two children told me after finishing the recording that she did not record any interactions between siblings because they use English for most of the time. Even parents use English from time to time, or code-switching and code-mixing when they talk to their children, especially when they tell stories. It would be better if the research is done in the pure Chinese environment, such as families in China.

Second, the audio-recording keeps the records of the sound of what has happened, but sometimes there are not enough clues for the context. The researcher has

69 to depend on the linguistic elements and background noise to figure out what was going on when transcribing the stories. It is always difficult to record what the children are doing since they keep moving around and making all kinds of noise. Some of their talking is only comprehensible for their parents within a specific context. In this sense, audio-recording is not as good as video-recording in terms of keeping records of performances.

Third, interviewing parents of what they observe of their interactions with children, how children interact with each other, and how they interact with other adults is a good way to collect information. However, when asked about the specific situation, most mothers cannot think of particular examples right away even for everyday routine activities. Some mothers even said when their children play with others, they did not talk at all. Children use body languages to communicate, and there are gender differences in the ways they communicate with others. However, verbal communication plays an important role. Mothers also tended to talk about their children's behavior, preferences, rather than re-stating what their children or they would likely say.

To sum up, it is better if future studies examining the language use in children's interactions or child-adult interactions use video-recording to collect data. In presenting and analyzing the data, software for sorting and categorizing cases should be employed.

The purpose of this study is to provide authentic scripts for the pedagogical materials, so in the following chapter, three sets of materials will be reviewed, and the adaptation to the performed culture approach will be discussed.

70

123-129). Based upon the review and evaluation, the researcher will propose the adoption of these materials for performance-based classroom instruction.

3 .1 Structure-based vs. performance-based approach

In this chapter, the word "materials" is used instead of textbook to refer to the pedagogical materials including the traditional paper-bound textbook, workbook, teacher's manual, audio program, as well as interactive software if applicable. Most of the materials on the current market include multi-media materials that accompany the textbook. However, Christensen and Warnick (2006) found that many materials, including the most popular multi-media ones, follow a structurally based, traditional approach, and primarily focus on the forms of the language (the linguistic code).

Christensen and Warnick presents comparisons of various approach to language teaching in a table. The following is a portion of comparisons between structurally based approach and performance-based approach. (2006: 172-173).

72 Structurally Based Aooroaches Performance-based Approaches 1. Begin with structure 1. Begin with the whole Learners memorize vocabulary and Learners familiarize themselves with • patterns • the context and five elements of performance that surround the situation 2. Place the parts into the whole 2. Performance of the whole Learners memorize or learn Learners perform the dialogue, • dialogues or study reading passages • paying attention to how the that use the vocabulary and patterns vocabulary and patterns fit into the context of the communicative situation 3. Communication: focus on language 3. Communicative practice use Learners practice using the language Learners strive to use the language • in realistic and authentic • learned in meaningful communicative situations. communicative situations

Table 2 Comparison between structurally based approach and performance-based approach

According to this chart, many materials do not include performance or cultural characteristics. However, one should be able to determine, at the very least, if a set of materials can be adapted for performance-based instruction. The checklist proposed by

Christensen and Warnick (2006) includes general considerations that help to decide which materials will be the easiest to adapt and use in the classroom while Kubler's list has more skill-specific considerations (1997:100-105). Since the beginning level of PK-4

Chinese curriculum focus heavily on listening and speaking, part of the list by Kubler is not useful. In addition, the purpose of review and evaluation in this chapter is to provide an overall view of different kind of materials, and discuss the adaptation to the performed culture approach. Since the overriding principle in selecting good materials is whether or not the materials are adaptable to a performance-oriented approach, the former checklist

73 will be used in the review and evaluation of the materials in this chapter. One question is added to this list is whether the materials are easily accessed.

3.2 Overall features of the three materials

Three sets of materials are reviewed and evaluated in this chapter: Nihao (book one),

Chinese Paradise, and My first Chinese Words. Nihao is widely used by K-12 Chinese programs in the U.S. even though it is originally from Australia. Chinese Paradise is on the top of the list of most popular textbooks in 2006 by The Office of Chinese Language

Council International. My first Chinese Words serves as PreK-Gradel materials in the K-

12 curriculum designed by Better Chinese.

Nihao is a series of materials designed for beginning learners. It claims to develop communicative skills in both spoken and written Chinese at a basic level. The communicative approach is applied in the design of this series of books. Nihao book one is the first level, which is designed for learners without any experience of learning

Chinese. The target learners are students in upper primary or lower secondary school.

Chinese characters are used extensively throughout the text and are accompanied by pinyin which acts as a guide to pronunciation. Pinyin is gradually omitted as the student becomes familiar with the characters and vocabulary. The authors state that this book is also quite suitable for adults who have no prior knowledge of the language and are interested in learning Chinese. Level one materials include a textbook with a CD, students' workbook, teacher's book, software (student software focuses on listening and speaking skills, providing role play; school software features a variety of games which are designed to help students memorize the vocabulary, learn the structure patterns, and practice writing characters). The reason I choose to review Nihao is that many teachers,

74 in both high school and lower grades in K-12 Chinese programs, are asked to use it. It has been published in several editions, and been one of the most widely-used materials in

North America. The other popular set of material in North America is Integrated

Chinese, which is widely used in high schools and colleges, but not suitable for learners at young ages. Therefore, Nihao is chosen to be reviewed in this study.

Chinese Paradise is produced by Hanhan, the China National Office for

Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language. It is designed for young learners at the beginning level in English-speaking countries. The goals listed in the preface include that learners will be able to understand and speak some simple Chinese sentences, sing

Chinese songs, recite nursery rhymes and poems, write simple characters, and gain an understanding of Chinese culture. It also claims to follow the communicative approach of teaching language, and integrate language learning and cultural introduction with playing games. The distinguishing feature of this set of materials is that it includes many games and hands-on activities which are appealing and interesting for young learners. This set of materials includes a textbook, workbook, teacher's manual, CD, and a package of props (for example masks, stickers, Chinese knots, a shuttlecock, flashcards, tracing paper and wall pictures). There are many other materials published by Hanhan. The reason this one is chosen is that many of other materials designed by Hanhan targeting on other age groups or heritage learners.

My First Chinese Words is designed for PK to grade one learners in non-native

Chinese speaking environments. The authors claim to teach language through story telling. Therefore, the whole set of materials is designed to present 36 stories, and includes 36 story books, an audio CD, an interactive CD-ROM of animations,

75 workbooks, a teacher/parent guide, props (posters, flash cards, worksheets, and other teaching aids), and online resources (online stories, songs and rhymes, on-line curriculum for instructors and administrators). The stories, or narrations, are written in simple language with unclear story lines, and they are presented in both the storybooks and flash animations. This set of material is chosen because the way it presents the materials: the textbooks are basically the storybooks, and the drills and exercises are presented in the multimedia CD.

Even though the three sets of materials are much different from each other in terms of the format and content, the topics, or the functions of the language they include for the beginning level of instruction are very much the same. Many of these notions are commonly seen in the children's interactions with their peers or parents as discussed in

Chapter Two. However, many other important cases are missing such as making suggestions, inviting others to join a game, making comparisons, etc.

76 Nihao My first Chinese words Chinese Paradise

(topics of the stories) • introducing yourself • Family Members • Greeting teachers and and others • Animals friends • numbers • Numbers • Self-introduction: • identifying people, • Colors exchanging names asking a person's age • School Supplies • Numbers • identifying objects • Nationalities • Age • talking about family • Fruit • Identifying body parts and pets • Foods • Using opposite • asking about • School Activities adjectives to describe country/nationality • Clothing objects • asking/responding • Transportation • Identifying people about likes of sports • Body Parts • Identifying place • talking about friends • Simple Action Words • Identifying stationary • asking/responding • Time • Talking about about preferences of • Months Of The Year preference of food food • Rooms In A Home • Talking about • Emotions preference of • Days Of The Week beverages • Locations • Opposites • Weather • The Senses

Table 3 Overview of cases and topics in three sets of materials

77 Generally speaking, all three sets of materials claim to be communication­ oriented but actually feature some characteristics of the structure-based approach described by Christensen and Warnick (2006). They all use the bottom-up approach with the emphasis on vocabulary and structures. All three use colorful illustrations in the textbook and workbook which appeal to children, and multimedia supplementary materials to facilitate communicative teaching and learning. However, none of them present authentic contextualized communication for learners, or provide opportunities to practice language use in a meaningful context. Nihao, My first Chinese words and

Chinese Paradise include songs, games, animations, and rhymes, which engage the young learners. It would be better if the materials provided more opportunities for learners to use the language they learned from these activities for communicative purpose. In the next section, these three sets of materials will be evaluated using the checklist provided by Christensen and Warnick.

3.3 Review and Evaluation

• Is the language introduced natural and authentic?

According to Noda (2007), authentic language refers to that "originally produced by and intended for native speakers of the target language" It may also include natural use by nonnatives. If the language is unnatural and not authentic, it will be difficult for learners to use it in the realistic communications. In Nihao, the language in the text seems too formal and cannot fit in the daily interactive situations. In some lessons, language introduced would not be used in realistic situations. For example, in Lesson Ten, Lanlan is introducing her friend Wang Meiyi:

78 Ta de yiinjing hen da , zufba hen xiiioo Her eyes are big, but her mouth is small. titkEJ

It is obvious that these two sentences are designed to introduce the opposite adjectives big and small, long and short. However, such sentences would never be used in real life by either native or nonnative speakers to introduce a friend describing the appearance this way.

In My First Chinese Words, the authors attempt to write stories in order to introduce language, which sometimes is not successful in terms of introducing authentic language. For example,

W6 jiao xiiiomaoo My name is Kitten. lJtJJ4/J\~o W6 jiao xiiiog6uo My name is Puppy. lJtll4/J\~. W6 jiao xiiioniiio. My name is Birdie. lJtJJ4/J\~o W6 jiao xiiio}io My name is Chick. It would be better if the authors would use people's names instead of animals' in the story. At the same time, both My First Chinese Words and Chinese Paradise tend to simplify the language by shortening the sentences. Actually children can use rather long sentences with complex structures to express their ideas as shown in the examples in

79 Chapter Two. Therefore, it might be good to start with simple sentences, but in order to keep the language authentic and natural, it could be longer under certain circumstances.

• Is there a significant cultural component to the material?

This is to question if the language is placed in a realistic social and cultural context. There is very little supportive information in these materials to describe the roles of the speakers, when, where, and with whom the language is likely to be used to communicate, and the specific behavior that would be a part of this kind of communicative situation. However, the illustrations in the textbook may indicate some of the elements of a performance. For example, in Lesson Nine of Chinese Paradise, the illustration shows that the setting is the classroom, where three children are painting, and a teacher is welcoming a girl coming into the classroom. Two dialogs occur in such a situation: one is between the teacher and the girl, while the other one is between two of the children. It successfully illustrates when to use .x-1/F~ duibuql, (I am sorry), and~

~* meiguiinxi, (It's all right.): a boy knocks over the bottle and the watercolor splashes onto a girl's skirt. He says )(ij/f'~ duibuql, (I am sorry), and the girl says~=** meiguiinxi, (It's all right.)

All three materials have culture notes or tips in each unit of lesson relevant to the content of the texts or dialogs. However all the cultural portions, including both the informational culture and the behavioral culture, are presented to the learner in the form of informational culture. That is, the information is provided, and the behvrioral culture is discussed and introduced without opportunities to practice. For example, in Lesson

Eight of Nihao, the terms of address are discussed in terms of how and to whom they should be used, but no opportunity is provided to practice in the context. In Lesson Six of 80 Nihao, the "one child" policy is introduced in the culture notes because this lesson focuses on introducing family members.

• Are the skills treated separately?

Many exercises in these materials mix the four skills. For example, a game in Lesson

Nine of Chinese Paradise combines listening and reading. The instructor will give each student a character, and when she/he says a classroom instruction such as "Please sit down", the children who have these characters will stand together to form the sentence.

Nihao u_~~filllustrations in the listening exercise.s to avoid mixing listening with reading.

Many of the animation games in My First Chinese Words mix listening with reading too.

According to Christensen and Warnick, "there is a time and a place for mixing the skills because they can reinforce each other, but care should be taken" (2006, 184). If the learner has to read the questions and choices in the target language in the listening exercises, the exercises are actually evaluating both listening and reading comprehension. Thus it would be difficult for the teachers to diagnose where the problems are.

• Is new material introduced in digestible amounts?

The problem of introducing too much new material in one lesson is that the instructor has to select part of it or spend more time on each lesson. Christensen and

Warnick (2006) emphasize that new material should be introduced in amounts that can be learned, and learned well, in a reasonable amount of time. It is also important to always include old elements introduced in previous lessons in the new ones so that what has been learned can be reviewed and reinforced.

81 Nihao introduces more new material in each lesson than the other two materials.

In the fifth lesson, there are more than twenty new words introduced and fourteen supplemental words listed for learners. It would be difficult for beginning learners at a young age to memorize and learn how to use so many words at one time. Chinese

Paradise teaches one or two Chinese characters, ten new words and a basic sentence pattern in each lesson. My First Chinese Words is designed in the format of repetition. It uses a spiral-up structure to provide repetition of sentence patterns and vocabulary while remaining varied and interesting.

• Is the material interesting and practical?

If we check the list of the topics and functions covered in these three materials, it is obvious that many appear in all three sets such as colors, numbers, food, family, etc. All three materials use color print to make the textbook look interesting and appeal to young learners. The layout and presentation of these materials all have a good pedagogical design in the way that there is enough space to write notes for learners and instructors, and the important information is highlighted. My First Chinese Words and Chinese

Paradise also include props to facilitate teaching, which enhances the effectiveness of the materials.

• Are there a variety of communicative situations included?

To be comprehensive, materials should provide a variety of examples of different genres of discourse, both written and spoken, both informal and formal. Most of the discourse introduced in My First Chinese Words and Chinese Paradise is informal.

Nihao, as mentioned before, includes some formal language usage. However, there is no explanation of when and under what circumstances the formal language is used. For

82 example, in Lesson Six "Introducing the Family Members", the texts are monologues, which looks like the written language but the context is not provided. It could be a student who is doing a presentation about his family to the class; or it could be someone writing to his/her pen pal introducing family members. If the context is not specified, learners would not know how to use this genre of language appropriately.

• Are vocabulary items presented in contexts that show proper usage?

According to Christensen and Warnick (2006), vocabulary should be presented in appropriate cultural contexts, and explanations should be thorough enough to show how and when to use each word or phrase. For young learners, it is difficult to explain complex linguistic phenomenon, but it is always easy to show them how to use a certain word by providing examples. However, none of the materials presented enough information on the social cultural contexts when they introduced the vocabulary. For example, all three sets of materials cover the topic of addressing strangers. In Lesson

Eight of Nihao, the term for adults to address a little girl is introduced as: 1J\~~' xiiiomeimei, which literally means little sister. The book only lists the English translation as "little girl", but no more information is provided such as who can use this term to address whom under what circumstances.

• Are the video and audio materials presented naturally?

It is important that audio and video materials be presented at natural native speed.

But the audio and video materials in these materials are slowed down, which does no favor to the learners. Learners should listen to the language in the way it is actually used in the target environment because it helps preserve natural pronunciation and intonation patterns. My First Chinese Words and Chinese Paradise have native children do the 83 recording, but at a slow and unnatural speed. According to what the researcher has observed from the recording of the daily conversations between children and parents, the children sometimes did slow down or pause when they were hesitant, but they use natural speed most of the time.

• Are the materials easily accessed? Are the activities ready to use?

All these three sets of materials can be purchased in North American. However, not many bookstores sell these materials, but can be ordered online through their publishers or the commercial websites such as Amazon or Chinasprout. These materials are not very expensive compared with textbooks of other languages, but if the workbook and other materials are included, it would not be affordable by many students. Registering for the online stories of My First Chinese Words is a monthly cost of nearly $40. Even though we assume that every classroom and family have computers, some of the online resources are not easily accessed by students without the instructor's or parents' guidance.

Since PK-4 teachers typically do not have much time to plan classroom activities, materials that provide many ready-to-use activities would be useful. In all three materials, many ideas and teaching props are provided in the workbook and teacher's manual.

3 .4 Adaptation to the performance-based instructions

The three sets of materials are all adaptable to performance-based instructions, and there is much to recommend them as discussed above. However, the instructors need to work on different aspects in order to make these materials compatible with the performed culture approach.

84 Nihao Book I has covered many interesting and practical topics with authentic and useful scripts presented in the illustrated contexts. However, some of the monologues can be used as textual performance scripts when the written language is introduced rather than as oral performance scripts. The culture section does include much information and explanation; however, explanations of the behavioral culture, such as how to reply modestly to compliments, need to be added by the instructors. One of the major problems is that too much new information is introduced in each lesson for young learners to successfully handle. The instructor thus needs to select parts of scripts and vocabulary and then decide what to introduce to the students and how to introduce it.

Finally, the contexts of the scripts and vocabulary need to be expanded upon and added so that learners can know how to use the words in an appropriate way. As for the exercises and drills, there are many designed for reading and writing skills in the workbook so the instructor needs to create more communicative activities for listening and speaking.

Nihao has many feasible activities in the workbook which can be used in PK-4 classroom such as cut and paste, coloring, and matching activities. Nevertheless, Nihao

Book I best fits learners of grade 5 and above because learners at that age have higher L 1 reading proficiency so that they are better self-learners.

My First Chinese Words features a variety of topics, useful online resources, multimedia materials designed for young learners, as well as ready-to-use props for the instructors. However, instructors need to work on creating more communicative situations, specific contexts, and writing new dialog scripts based on the stories in order to use it in a performance-based curriculum. Therefore, in order to adapt My First

85 Chinese Words to the performance-based curriculum, the instructor will need to expend a significant amount of effort. The one advantage is that it gives the instructor a great deal of control over the performance scripts that the learners will enact. The stories can also be used as the textual performance scripts to introduce the written language. In addition, the instructor can create oral performance scripts when organizing group activities such as Pfjif]-jl§P~~n~ Zanmen yiqT changge ba, "let's sing a song together", *ilt T Giii wo le, "it is my tum to do it." The online games and activities are useful for learners to preview and review at home, but not many of them have interactive functions. Therefore, the instructor needs to design more meaningful interactive classroom activities.

My First Chinese Words can be used as supplementary materials to intensive and extensive reading; the online resources and multimedia materials can be used for individualized instruction as well as classroom instruction. Therefore, the ideal way to use this set of material is to rewrite the stories into short, leamable oral performance scripts, or have students play different roles in the story. After the students are able to do some basic performances, the instructor can use the storybooks which have the same content to teach reading and writing.

Chinese Paradise has highly contextualized oral performance scripts with rich visuals. The scripts are also largely authentic, useful, and feasible. The amount of new materials introduced in each lesson is appropriate for young learners. However, some of the scripts are over-simplified. The instructor may want to create more contexts to introduce additional functional language. For example, when talking about food, only positive answer to the question of asking if the food is tasty is provided. The instructor can also introduce the negative answers and how to express preferences about food. 86 There are many useful and feasible hands-on activities in each lesson, but the instructor can create oral performance scripts which are useful for organizing the group activities.

In addition, illustrations in Chinese Paradise have presented some elements of Chinese culture, especially the behavioral culture, such as how to greet teachers and peers, when and how to say sorry and respond to it. Instructors should point out the importance of doing so, and build on the pedagogical culture to show learners how to use the information illustrated in the book. As mentioned above, there are many hands-on activities, songs, stories and a variety of games in the textbook and workbook, but the instructor needs to create more meaningful contexts for young learners to perform what they have learned. Finally, there are not many opportunities for performance-oriented practice in the materials designed for review. It is important for the instructors to integrate the old information with the new and constant review sessions should be integrated into the curriculum.

Chinese Paradise is designed for non-heritage learners, but can be used for heritage learners at young ages as well. When used for non-heritage learners, the instructor can choose to teach oral language first, and after students acquire some listening and speaking abilities, the written language can be introduced in the second round using the same content as the review of what has been learned in the first round. For the heritage learners, the instructor can start the four skills at the same time with the emphasis on reading and writing.

3.5 Summary

The perfect pedagogical materials do not exist, as the needs of each group of learners are different. Therefore, it is important to evaluate and adapt materials for

87 performance-based classroom instruction. To implement a performance-based curriculum and succeed in guiding students to communicate in Chinese culture requires the presence of contextualized, authentic, useful and feasible performance scripts that contain cultural rich points, as well as the explanations of the cultural and social contexts to support the learner's performance (Ekeberg, 2004). It is important for the instructors to evaluate, adapt and create useful performance scripts for the learners, as well as implement Chinese instruction in the performed culture approach and create a learning environment for young learners.

88 CHAPTER4

A PERFORMANCE-BASED CURRICULAR GUIDE FOR PK-4 CHINESE TEACHING

As the demand for a K-12 Chinese language program increases in the United States

over the past several years, there has been an emerging need to improve program design

and implementation, further developing K-12 Chinese language instruction. This guide

aims at proposing some basic considerations in the designing of curricula for teaching

Chinese at PK-4 level to English-speaking students in the United States based on

performed culture approach. A wide range of factors will be considered and discussed

from the performed culture perspective in terms of content of the curriculum and

methods of instruction.

As Mari Noda points out, what learners do with the materials is the most

6 important issue when developing pedagogical materials • Similarly, when designing the

curriculum, it is important to take into consideration what teachers will do with the

materials. "Simply covering the material will not enable learners to successfully communicate in Chinese culture, or to be able to interact with members of the target

culture to continue developing their language skills." (Ekeberg, 2004: 99) Therefore, in a

curriculum based on the performed-culture approach, it is necessary to include both the content of instruction and the guidelines of instructional practice for teachers. This chapter, serving as part of the K-12 curriculum design, will center on two aspects: the

89 content of instruction by defining the first three phases of a curriculum and the methods

of instruction by addressing various issues in creating PK-4 foreign language

instructional environment.

4.lProgram Goal

The goal is to teach young learners how to do things in Chinese, and then they will be

able to communicate with children from China successfully. That is, they will be able to

recognize, establish and interpret the intentions when using Chinese to interact with

native Chinese speakers. When communicating with people from the target culture, the

successful learners are expected to make them comfortable. Also, learners are expected

to be able to function easily and effectively in a culture by using the language accurately,

fluently, and their behavior should be culturally appropriate.

The short-term goal, especially for the beginning level Chinese program for PK-4

learners, is to build learner's motivation oflearning a foreign language and culture, as well as to familiarize them with the performed-culture based instructional environment.

Numerous psychological studies have indicated that children in the PK-4 age group are

much more willing to take linguistic risks than older children or adults. Therefore, this period is in many ways an ideal time for introducing a tonal language like Chinese

(Kubler, 1997). Also, this is the golden time for them to try everything out by modeling and making up their own performance. All beginnings are challenging, and it is the same when one starts learning a foreign language, or starts performing in front of others.

Hence building learner's motivation and training them to be active learners with enthusiasm is an important task for the instructors of the beginning level classes.

6 Noda, Mari. Presentation of JSL in class EALL 705. Spring Quarter 2007. The Ohio State University. 90 4.2Defining phases

The curriculum is organized according to the proficiency level instead of the traditional division of academic year. Therefore, regardless of the grade rank of the

student in the school system, no matter in which grade the learners are in, as long as they are novice learners, they will begin with the very first three phases. The administrators can either place students of different grades in one beginning class, which means this class will have a mixed-age group, or have separate beginning classes for different grades.

The levels are defined as "phases" with the focus on different functional tasks. The first three phases are considered the beginning level, which heavily focuses on listening and speaking over reading and writing, interpersonal communication over interpretive and presentational communication, and item-based instruction over strategy-based

instruction. For young learners, it is important that they primarily acquire listening and speaking skills that are useful in communicating with native speakers of the language.

Even for adult learners, it is difficult to start with the four skills of Chinese

simultaneously at the very beginning. The time lag between starting to learn oral and written language helps in learning the target language more effectively in the way that solid foundation in speaking insures steady progress in reading and writing in the future

(Unger, 1993). According to Kubler (1997), the emphasis of PK-4 Chinese instruction should be on listening, speaking, and rudimentary grammatical patterns taught via short conversational exchanges. In addition, the PK-4 period is characterized by much listening, a lesser amount of voluntary responding, and many process-oriented language­ acquisition activities. Reading and writing can be introduced in the third or fourth year

91 after young learners have acquired some listening and speaking abilities.

For PK-4 learners, the major communicative tasks for them basically belong to the mode of interpersonal communication rather than interpretive and presentational communication, which will be covered at a higher level in the curriculum. However, it is also useful to work on presentational communication such as a mini theatrical play,

singing, or introductory welcome speech. At the beginning level, the priorities of instruction are items, such as phonology vocabulary, structure patterns, useful phrases and conversations, to help to build a repertoire so that as learners make progress and move into the higher level of instruction, the curriculum will be slowly expanded to include basic and then more advanced strategy-based instruction. In the following

session, the phases are defined in terms of goals and content.

4.2.lGoals

Phase one is designed to familiarize learners with the learning environment, and help learners to get used to enacting target performances. For example, in the first several classes, students need to know how the classroom is arranged. Teachers are expected to set a stage, an area for performances, and gradually guide students to feel comfortable standing on the stage performing. The goal of phase one is to socialize students step by step into the pedagogical cycle and make them increasingly aware of and be able to take learner's responsibility. Also, phase one aims at motivating learners to explore the language and culture. The focus of this phase is instructional language which allows the entire class to be conducted in the target language. Therefore, only one saga-school-is introduced in this phase. The functional tasks of this phase primarily include those

92 associated with getting to know in the target language people around in the school

settings: peers and teachers.

After learners become familiarized with the environment, they move onto phases two

and three which focus on how to do things in the environment. Following phase one, phases two and three still focus heavily on listening and speaking. As the learners get

used to performing in class, they are expected to lengthen their performances and create their own based on models, to use the existing knowledge to build toward longer and

more complex performances. Based on what have been covered in phase one, these two

stages include more complex structure patterns and introduce more basic vocabulary,

such as words of common things young learners are interested in. For example, phase

one covers the structure .:g~, xihuan (like)+ noun phrase, whereas in phase two, the more complex structure which has the similar function is introduced: ~~j\ +verb phrase

+noun phrase. A new saga, family, is added, and the existing one can be expanded to

more functional tasks. Although these two phases start to introduce the instructions of

strategy, the focus is till items, such as vocabulary, structure patterns, and pronunciations. It should be emphasized that all these items have to be taught in a

contextualized and meaningful way. The strategy here refers to learning strategies allows

students to be able to learn the language independently. For instance, the most useful

strategy for beginning learners is to ask how to say a certain word in the target language.

4.2.2 Cases and sagas

The notions of cases and sagas has been discussed in Chapter One. The major

part of the beginning curriculum is designed based on the real life communicative tasks.

Under some cases, for example "first meeting", there will probably be many sub-cases- 93 "Asking about/respond to names", "asking about/responding to age'', and "exchanging

more personal information". It is also possible that a certain case can be addressed in

each of the three phases, and be revisited in the higher-level curriculum as the learners

move on toward more complex performances. In the following chart, cases

recommended for the first three phases are presented.

• Greetings: with children, teachers, and other adults • First meeting: Asking about I respond to name Asking about/responding to age Exchanging more personal information

• Using terms of address appropriately • Introducing each other • Instructional language • Identifying things in the instructional environment • Identifying food, fruit, drinks, etc . • Counting from 1-15 • Identifying colors • Expressing likes and dislikes • Expressing intentions • Talking about time and schedule • Inviting someone • Comparison • Talking about locations

Table 4 Cases of phase one, two and three

94 The most important saga for the beginning learners is school; doing all kinds of

activities at school, such as greetings with instructor and peers, asking questions in class,

going to gym with friends, or working on a certain group project, can be included in the

"school saga." The school saga consists of sub-sagas: classroom and outside classroom

such as the cafeteria, playground or hallway. For children at the age of PK-4, the other

important saga in their life is family; they do a wide rage of activities with their family members at different places. Walker and Noda (2000) propose that saga can be presented

by using of films, television programs, short stories, and novels which are coherent treatments of sets of characters often in particular settings-that is, they create sharable worlds.

95

The concepts of cases and sagas are parallel and interwoven with each other. To

search for a specific story in the memory, both case and saga help to locate the story in the cultural memory coordinate system in which they respectively serve as X and Y axis.

For example, to locate the story of student greeting a teacher in the classroom, one needs to search among the stories categorized under the school saga and the case of greeting.

The case of having a meal with other people can have multiple stories depends on where this kind of events happens. For example, it can be having a lunch with peers in cafeteria at school under the school saga, or having a dinner with parents in a Chinese restaurant under the saga of family.

Sagas Story: having a lunch with peers in cafeteria at school School Saga

Story: having a meal with parents in a Family Chinese restaurant Saga

Having meals Cases with other people

Figure 5 Examples of how to locate stories using cases and sagas

97 4.3 Implementation

As Kubler (1997) points out, Chinese instruction differs according to different local conditions and learning environments. In the following sessions, a wide variety of factors are discussed in terms of how to implement Chinese instruction and create the learning environment for PK-4 learners.

4.3.lPedagogical cycle

In order to guide learners through the steps in the learning process, in the performance-based approach four developing stages are necessary for the pedagogical materials: presentation, performance, application, review and evaluation. (Christensen and Warnick, 2006) In presenting the performance, it is advisable to familiarize the learners with the communicative situations, and the five elements of the performance: time, place, role, script, and audience. Performance is the essential part in the whole pedagogical cycle. According to Walker and Noda, "the more one rehearses a predictable behavior, that is, some communicative situation that one will likely encounter in the target culture, the more he/she can remember how to conduct himself/herself when the same situation occurs in the real world" (2000: 209). It is important that learners know how to use the language in a variety of situations and contexts. Therefore, in the application stage, instructors will change some of the elements in the dialog to create a new communicative situation in which learners can improvise and extend what they have learned from the material. In the review and evaluation stage, it is important to constantly assess students' performance and application, as well as to give feedback which helps learners to improve their performances.

98 According to Kubler (1997), one basic assumption is that learners study Chinese not just to learn vocabulary, grammar, or functions, but in order to use this knowledge as a tool for communication. Therefore, performances of interpersonal communication are the first items that learners need to learn. As Ekeberg (2004) proposes, in a performed culture curriculum, the instructional cycle thus begins from meaning and context. The teacher has to guide PK-4 students through five stages of the pedagogical cycle discussed in the following session so that students can understand the constituent elements of a performance, experience a performance, receive feedback from the instructor, have the chance to correct their performance, and then expand on their abilities.

I. Stage preview (five performance elements) 2. Dialogue rehearsal 3. Drills (classroom activities) 4.Dialogue/drill practice 5. Expansion

~ ACT Final Performance' • Dialogue performance • Class exercises • Improvised exercises

Figure 6 Pedagogical cycle

99 As suggested by Kubler (1997), it is crucial that we focus on the instructional processes-how to learn-by taking into consideration of the following questions:

• how to prepare for class;

• how to make the most efficient use of classroom time (e.g., paying attention to

students' errors, etc.);

• when and how to review;

• how to use (and how not to use) the various instructional materials available to

learners, such as textbooks, audio recordings, video recordings, and computer

software.

PK-4 learners are different from other precollegiate and college students in the way that most of them are probably not able to take the responsibility of previewing the target performance before go to the class. Therefore, the pedagogical cycle has to start with preview of a stage in class. The preview can be a brief view of the context in which the target performance is set. The instructor then can present the target performance. The ideal way of presenting the target performance is to use authentic video materials with clear audio which appeal to the young learners. Cartoon flash animation is the first choice in that it provides the richest context, as well as the visual cues, and more importantly, children are easily attracted by the flash animation. When presenting the performance, the teacher needs to explain the five elements-and how they influence the nature of the performance. Students need to know who the people are, when and where they are interacting, and what they are trying to do. When presenting the performance, the video or audio materials are especially important if an instructor is not a native speaker. 100 The next step is dialogue rehearsal which helps to memorize the performance as a

scaffolding exercise aiming at building up the automaticity. This allows teachers to use all kinds of drilling techniques focusing on the accuracy of pronunciation such as backward buildup. For the young learners it is not possible for them to memorize or practice as much as adult learners do outside of class, so teachers have to make very good use of class time to present the performance and give students enough time to practice. Hence every student in the class should be given enough time and attention on error correction.

As for the drills, the teacher needs to design interesting and effective scaffolding activities and exercises to help with memorization of the target performance, and at the same time to avoid mechanical repetitions. Kubler ( 1997) suggests that at this age, children's learning is achieved mostly through hands-on, aural-oral activities that are integrated into regular classroom work. The language components, which are not always free-standing units, are cameos of Chinese language and culture. Examples include singing, dancing, games, and arts and crafts. Classroom activities thus should include games, songs, multimedia presentation, and various physical activities, which are designed targeting on performances of interpersonal communication.

Foreign language classes for young learners need repetition in order to develop automaticity. The pace of the instruction will be flexible, but each activity cannot take too much time because the attention span of children is relatively short. However, it is always good to review something previously covered in class then adding some new elements. For example, use the activity children already know to practice new

101 vocabulary or structure patterns is better than introducing a new game for the new items.

Hence, it is possible to use the same activity for different purpose at different levels.

Once students have memorized the dialogue and drills, they are ready to perform. At this level, the teacher should use as much Chinese as possible, and try not to use English in class. For example, when setting up the context, using visual aids is much better than using English to explain the context. When students are performing, the teacher acts as director giving suggestions, praise and criticism, answering questions and asking the learners to repeat the performance, taking the suggestions and corrections into account.

Learners need both the rehearsal and performance stages because they will need ample feedback from the teacher in order to achieve a successful performance.

After the learners build up automaticity, they should be able to respond to contextualized situations in non-mechanical but guided ways. This is the ultimate goal of the entire pedagogical cycle. Ekeberg (2004) proposes three main forms of expansion exercises for high school curriculum which are also applicable to PK-4 level. The first form is substitution in which the performance is essentially the same with the exception of one or two substitutions. The instructor can change some elements in the context or in the target performance. For example, in a performance of giving directions, the student's original response of taking a bus can be substituted with other means of transportations.

The second form of expansion requires learners to change parts of the scripts on their own because an element of the performance, such as time, place or roles is altered. For example, a performance of greeting teachers in the classroom can be changed into that of greeting peers. This kind of expansion will help students become aware of the influence of the five elements on the nature of the performance. The experience of performing

102 successfully is what allows learners to create the memories that will ensure appropriate interactions in the target culture in the future. The final variation, in Ekeberg's model, is to integrate the new and old materials which are a crucial compilation exercise that helps learners to organize the stories they have created into retrievable and usable forms. As

Ekeberg advocates, the pedagogical cycle is designed to support learners in successful enactments of both the original performances and variations involving substitution, variation, and expansion.

All these steps in the pedagogical cycle finally lead to the ACT performance:

• Dialogue perforn1ance: be able to perform the target performance

• Class exercises: be able to enact the drills

• Improvised exercises: be able to handle different variations based on the target

performance.

4.3.2 Instructional language

The class will be conducted exclusively in Chinese. Students need to know that the Chinese classroom is a place where they can listen to and practice Chinese. High school and college students are expected to familiarize themselves with classroom expressions before they come to class. However, for the young learners, this part has to be done in the first several classes where teachers prepare students with basic classroom expressions using Total Physical Response (TPR) activities or multimedia visual and audio aids. Thus instructional expressions are the focus of phase one. It is very likely that at first, students cannot understand every direction or instruction spoken in Chinese.

However, the teacher can use models, either video clips, flash animation or students with

Chinese background in class, to guide students through every steps in the pedagogical

103 cycle. By using the target language in every classroom activity, and repeating the most commonly used instructional phrases, students will get familiar with them as they participate in these activities. Setting a routine for the class also helps students acquire classroom expressions. For example, always start a class with singing a song together.

Students will automatically know "Pi::l1fJ7t*Pi'§llJX" means "let's sing a song first."

English is used as a form of scaffolding, for example, to set context in class.

Students should learn how to ask questions related to language learning in Chinese, for example, how to ask what a Chinese word means, how to say an English word in

Chinese, and how to pronounce and write a Chinese character. This allows class to be conducted in Chinese and also enables students to learn the language from the environment by their own.

4.3.3 FACT vs. ACT

Procedural knowledge involves the ability to perform an "act," that is, it has to do with knowing how to do something. Declarative knowledge involves the ability to explain a "fact," that is, it has to do with knowing how to describe the ability to do something. According to Kubler (1997), procedural knowledge ("act") and declarative knowledge ("fact") are acquired in very different ways, which language instruction must take into account. For most adult learners, an appropriate amount of declarative knowledge (e.g., about the sound system, grammar patterns, and cultural behavior) can facilitate acquisition of the procedural knowledge that is so essential to intercultural communication. However, for the young learners, it is difficult for them to understand and gain the declarative knowledge. Therefore, it is important to spend the great majority of class time on practicing and using the language ("ACT") rather than explanation

104

successfully capture the interest of the students, they would be willing to continue with the study of the language and the culture. At higher levels, strategy-based instruction will be expanded, and eventually learners will be able to learn Chinese from the surrounding environment by their own. The teacher's goal is to help them become self-managed, self­ reliant, long-term, or even lifelong language learners. To achieve this goal, as suggested by Kubler (2006), we need to teach our students the processes (how to learn) as much as the outcomes (what is learned). We must give our students a "tool kit" they can use to continue learning Chinese themselves after they leave the formal learning program in which they are enrolled. It is the same as learning a musical instrument. What a violin learner learns at the first stage includes how to read musical notes, how to move the bow smoothly, how to place the left hand appropriately, which are the basic items that can lead to advanced levels. However, these skills or items are not enough if the learner wants to become an independent violin player. He/she needs to learn the strategies such as how to train himself/herself, how to approach a new piece, how to learn from other players, and how to manage his/her practice.

4.3.5 Using romanization

Since the beginning level instruction focuses on listening and speaking, a romanization system should be used, which allows the learners to concentrate on oral language. However, the conventions of pinyin romanization should not be taught or talked about explicitly in class. Hopefully students will get used to using pinyin without paying too much attention on the differences between this romanization system and

English, their first language. Again, teachers are encouraged to present the target performance using the video modeling, and to set the context using as much as visual

107 aids as possible, which is the ideal way to avoid using English or pinyin.

Students need to learn how to read and write their names in the first classes, which is the first time they are exposed to the writing system. Teachers may decorate the classroom using posters which has Chinese characters, pinyin, and English glossaries.

For example, hang on the wall a poster of panda with "fm~, xiongmiio, panda" under the picture. The other example of decorating the classroom with Chinese is to post students' names or the name of class such as "-if:€;&, yinianji, grade one", or"& PrtJJE, hanyubiin, Chinese class".

4.3.6 Leaming environment

Teachers should create learning environment as facilitative as possible so that they can make good use of the class time. Instructional technology, such as Smart Board (a touch board combining the traditional board and marker with the computer software), computer, projector, video and audio devices, can be used to meet the needs of teaching a foreign language. Also, teachers need to arrange a learner-centered, learner-friendly and pressure-free classroom environment. Ideally, students need to have a large enough space to perform, a stage where to enact the performances and the teacher needs to make everyone know clearly from the very beginning that they will spend much time performing in this area, so that later when the teacher is pointing to the stage, students will automatically know it is the time for performance. For the young learners, they will not spend much time reading and writing, so they would not use the desk and chair as much as adult learners do. Instead, they need a large space to move around and do many physical activities. It is also good for the teachers to arrange students seated, either on the floor, a piece of carpet, or chairs, in a circle so that everyone has opportunities to practice 108 and perform with teacher's attention.

After students get familiar with the classroom environment, the teacher can introduce them to the new environments, such as the playground, library, and cafeteria; and if it is possible, class can be conducted in the new environments. Gradually, the learning environment can be expanded to the whole school. The benefit of doing so is that when teaching stories under the school saga, students can perform in the "real" and authentic context, and teachers do not need to use any visual cues to set the context.

Similarly, using places outside school would greatly facilitate the learning process in the same way. For example, having a class in the Asian grocery store or in a Chinese restaurant provides many opportunities for children to communicate directly to native speakers. More extracurricular activities can be conducted with the help from the local

Chinese community, such as the weekend heritage language school.

4.3.7 Project-based and content-based instruction

At higher levels, the focus and the goal of instruction can be moved on to "real­ life" tasks. The ideal instruction at the advanced level can be designed to integrate subjects, such as Mathematics or Science, into the language class. Students are encouraged to talk about subject matters using the target language. Eventually, they are expected to accomplish a certain tasks, for example a science project, using the high-tech video conference devices through internet by communicating with their Chinese counterpart in China. Teachers, now acting as "the coach in a live game'', need to guide students during the working and learning process to use their linguistic and culture knowledge, particularly that of behavioral culture, to corporate with native speakers.

109 During the "break session" in a game, it is important to guide learners observe the way that native speakers establish, recognize and interpret the intentions, talk about learners' experiences, either successful or unsuccessful, and discuss the plan for the future work.

110 LIST OF REFERENCES

Bingru, Theresa Ma. 2001 My first Chinese Words. Including 36 story books and Interactive CD. Palo Alto, CA: Better Chinese.

Bingru, Theresa Ma. 2001 My first Chinese Words Online Curriculum http://www.betterchinese.com/PresKind_index.htm. (accessed June IO, 2007)

Brown, H. Douglas. 2000. Principles ofLanguage Learning and Teaching. 4th ed. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

___. 2001. Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Bruner, Jerome.1983. Child's Talk: Learning to Use Language. New York: W.W. Norton.

___. 1990. Acts ofMeaning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press .

---. 1996. The Culture ofEducation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Christensen, Matthew, and Mari Noda. 2002. A Performance-Based Pedagogy for Communicating in Cultures: Training Teachers for East Asian Languages. Columbus: The Ohio State University Foreign Language Publications.

Christensen, Matthew and Warnick, Paul, 2006. Performed Culture: an Approach to East Asian Lanuage Pedagogy. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Foreign Language Publications.

Curtain, Helena and Pesola, Carol. 1994. Languages and children, making the match: foreign language instruction for an early start grades K-8. White Plains, NY: Longman Publishing Group.

Defense Language Institute (DLl)-Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT) Program. http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm ?Section=home&Template=/CM/ContentDispl ay.cfm&ContentID=6962 (accessed October 22, 2007)

111

APPENDIX A

CASES IN THE RECORDINGS

The recording was transcribed and sorted by cases. This is a list of the cases appeared in the recording, listed in the order of the frequency from often to less often.

The conversations are initiated either by children or by parents.

• Expressing intentions

J L-=f: !It~ 11zJ* o Erzi: Wo xiiing chi bing. Son: I want to eat ice( cream). ~~:!ltffJ~~1f o }tnE,, P~ffJUZt&"*nE.o Mama: Womenjia meiyou. Zou ba, zanmen chifim qu ba. Mom: We don't have it. Come on, let's eat dinner. JL-7-::lf', t1tmnzo Erzi: Bu, woxiiing chi Son: But I want ice-cream.

Mama: Na nl xiiing zuo shenme ? Mom: What do you want to be? :9:JL:0±o Niler: Gongzhu. Daughter: Princess. t1t:1Fm* 7 o t1t:1FmH&11B-*m7 o Wo biJxiiing qu le. Wo buxiiing gen ta yikuai wan le. I don't want to go. I don't want to play with him.

:If', R~* Kroger. Bu, wo yao qu Kroger. No, I want to go to Kroger.

• Making comparisons 116 WW9M~7. -~~m~&9M~7o Mama chuan qunzi le, nage xiaopengyou ye chuan qunzi le. Mom wears skirt; that girl wears skirt too.

Zanmen bl daxiao ba , shei da ? Let's compare who has the higher position, OK? Who?

ft97*~-,ft97~~*~~~~*~~o~&~o Wo chuanle changtongwa, wo chuanle zheme chimg zheme chang (de changtongwa). Nl meiyou. I wear the pantyhose. It's very long. But you don't have it.

-9:. J L: ft l:ttlt!tk:Wk ~ o Niler: Wo bl ta da mama. Daughter: I am older than her. W~:~l:t:!ll!!i\1i, -Ol~:!ll!!l:t~j(- £,~a ~l:t Jessica j(, ~l:t '( '( j(, f13

Jik:!ll!!~&~i\1i 0 Mama: Nl bl ta gao, danshi ta bl nl da yf diandian. Nl bl Jessica da, nl bl Yaya da, danshi ta hai mei nl gao. Mom: You are taller than her, but she is a little bit older than you. You are older than Jessica, and Yaya, but she is not as tall as you are.

"ff-:J(ft~ l:t1J\1J\Mlt4l ~~~ ~ 0 You yitian wo yao bl Xiiioxiao Jiejie feide hai gao. Some day I will fly higher than Sister Xiaoxiao.

-9:. JL:-3'.7 l:tW3 3'.7 ~:*-® o Niler: Yisui bl liiingsui huan da yfxie. Daughter: A one-year-old is older than a two-year-old. WW: 1#.~7, W33'.7 l:t-3'.7:*o Mama: Shuo cud le, liiingsui bl yfsui da. Mom: No, you are wrong. A two-year-old is older than a one-year-old.

• Making comparisons (seeking for similarities)

~--¥f7, ftjj1~~-¥F~o Kan wo yfyang le, wo gen nl yfyang de. Look I have the same one. Mind is the same with yours.

ftff-~, ~&ff-~o Wo you yige, nl ye you yfge. I have one, and you have one too.

117 • Making comparisons (hierarchy)

nj~:fil:*7 £/f£"°1? Slling zui dale shibUshi a? General is the highest position, isn't it?

• Expressing/asking about ability

Wo hui youyong, ni hui ma ? I can swim. How about you?

fjt~Vlfpi:t<~~Vh 7 Wo chuiin youyongyl}iu hui you le. I can swim if I have the swimming suit.

Emma -aT ~ llZ;~ § B baby 1¥1 *lffi o Emma keyi chi tii ziji baby de dongx'l. Emma can eat her baby food now.

ftfil-aJ~E3 § Bl¥J(~*)7 o Wo ye keyi xie ziji de (mingzi) le. I can write my name too.

• Making suggestions

Mama : Zanmen hai wan shenme a ? Mom: What else can we play? JL-=f: JPFr~mn~o Erzi:Yaobu xia xiangqi ba. Son: How about playing chess?

JL-=f: P~if]J;££JfH!1-flU~o Erzi:Zanmen haishi yong zhe ge biii ba. Son: Let's use this to place (the toys).

Mama : Na ni xianzai xiiingbiJxiiing huahua a ? Mom: Then do you want to draw a picture now?

• Asking about/expressing reasons 118 Keren: Miima xihuiin ni ma ? Visitor: Does your Mom like you?

-9:. J L:lf 5

A: Ni weishenme wan puke ya ? A: Why do you play Poke? B:~jjlJt-lf)(J(~ a B: Yinwei wo xihuiin ya. B: Because I like it.

• Talking about likes/dislikes:

Ni xrhuiin gen tii wan ma ? Do you like to play with him?

lJt~~~filfl~~~. ~~lJt~-"ff)(}(~o Wo xuexiao /[ye you xllanhuii, keshi WO bit xrhuiin chi. Our school has broccoli too, but I don't like it.

• Asking about quantity

i£fl JL-t----£.£-Pfiiij? i£fl__=:: 1-~? Haiyoujige y'idiu diu a? Hai you siinge ma ? How many yiduidui left? Are there three?

W3til3: ~~~PfiiiJ? {$~~:ff~&? Miima: Duobitduo a ? Ni shi1shu you duoshiio ? Mom: Are there a lot? Count them. See how many you have. JL~: itfl=-+11-t-1 119 Erzi: Wo you ershiwu ge I Son: I have twenty-five.

R~~R:ffJL1-, -=.::::P11o Wo kankan WO youjige, yi er siin si. Let me see how many I have. One, two, three, four ...

JJl3 :.ll: +/j'-nq ? ~ 7 nei, ? Nashi shige ma? Duo le ba ? Are there ten? Probably less.

• Talking about sequence of actions

4-x JJZ; 5G i& ot'.% o Jintiiin chiwanfan shuijiao. You will go to sleep after lunch today.

Jf;11•-@,~, ~11f:J-@,~o Xian bai huangse de, zai bai baise de. We will place the yellow ones first, then the white.

Haole women shuijiao le , ni xiiin qu niaoniao ba. OK, let's go to bed. Go to pee first.

ijf, f&J§RJ~JJ13l¥.~o Hao, ranhou WO dao nawu qu. OK, I am going to the other room

• Talking about colors

Taiyang shi shenme yanse de ? What is the color of the sun?

::t m:.ll: tt-g., ~ 1 Taiyang shi h6ngse de ? Is the sun red?

Lande yinggiii shini de , huangde yinggiii shi wade.

120 The blue one should be yours, mine is the yellow one.

• Locating things:

Jlr: :W3:W3P£? Erzi: Miima ne ? Son: Where is Mom? ~~: :W3:W3{EJJ!)~P£o Baba: Miima zai nawu ne. Dad: She is in the other room.

• Claiming the ownership

A: ~H:itl'fJ? A: Zhe shi sheide ? A: Whose is it? B: ~l'fJo ~-1'H:~l'fJ, JJ~-1'H:~l'fJ, /f~:$:~1¥Jo B: Wo de. Zhe ge shi wode, nil ge shi nide, bu yao na wode. B: It's mine. This is mine, and that is yours. Don't take mine.

• Talking about past events, or something not happened

~ -1'kE ~ 1fif!: 0 Zhege hai meiyoujiiing. You have not read this to me yet.

Miima: Nifintiiin zai xuexiao gan shenme le ? Mom: What did you do at school today? ~Jl: ~A,R{E~~~~~ To Niier : Wo fintiiin zai xuexiao tu yanse le. Daughter: I did coloring today.

W3W3: ~Hlt~~fffil!Pf T~? Miima: Ni gen liioliio dii zhiiohu le ma ? Mom: Did you say hi to your grandma? Jlr: ~1fP£. Erzi: Meiyou ne. Son: Not yet.

• Asking for permission:

121 ft -ar ~ nz~ ~M

• Making requests

llZJ6~ft~l:tl~m. *°)()(-~mo Chfwanfan WO yao chuqit wan, he Wenwen yfqi wan. I am going out after dinner. I want to play with Wenwen.

• Describing the existence

i9J Rt lfil l! ff filfH~. o Dongwiiyuan Ii you yiinshu. There is mole rats in the zoo.

• Offering help

~3J!IJ!Jt*fif~, !!t*Pe!,!Jt*fif~o S'iishiin wo lai biing nl, wo lai ba wo lai biing ni. Susan, let me help you. Come one. Let me do it.

• Asking about time

Xianzai jidiiin a ? What time is it?

• Identifying people

~£it~~B

• Talking about plan:

122 RJHt-~-t-~1%-=f o Wo yao biii y'ige giio fangzi. I am going to make a tall building.

• Asking about when an action will happen

fr!3 fr!3, .g.g~ '2-. Bt i~ §I *ll~? Miima, baba shenme shihou huilai ya ? Mom, when is Dad coming back?

• Confirmation

@~~)!;tf Bf ::fx-t? Yinggiii shi zheyang de duibudui ? It should be like this, right?

• Inviting someone to join the game:

9!39!31$H~R-~1T$;t~11_w o Miima nl gen wo yiql dii chebiiio bai. Mom, do you want to play chebiao with me?

The following cases are not commonly used in the recording.

• Discussing about the results of an action

l!t~ 7 Jj(tft::f1JPM 7 o Wo hele shuljiu bU diige le. I do not have hiccups any more after I drank some water.

• Exchanging

it*8~8

• Talking about the weather:

.g.g)!~~~mT o Baba zheshi yao xiayu le. Dad, it is going to rain.

123 • Asking others to wait

~~111'~--~JLo Mama ni deng y'ihuir. Mom, could you hold on one second?

• Complaining by using rhetorical questions

~Whf$;t ,Z. ~~!JtP~ o Mama ni zenme bUdeng wo ne. Mom, why didn't wait for me?

{$~~;t-Z.~f$~B

• Demonstration

!lt~~--- *, -ft!?.J»t r *7 o r&m :p} ~~ ...... Wt* 7 o Wo zheyimg y'inong, ta jiu xialai le. Ranhou zai zheyangjiu hiio le. I'll make it this way. Then it falls. Then make it like this ... OK, we are done.

• Complimenting

~~1$E38

• Offering food:

~~~~~!JtB

{$ ~ll it!Jj~ 1-N!X ~? Ni zhldao nage ge ma ? Have you heard of this song? • Refusing the commends

124 Mama: Qilai le women qu kimya le. Mom: Come on. Time to get up. We are going to see the dentist.

JL.:r: ft::f~~*· lt::f~~3f o Erzi: Wo bUyao qi lai, wo buyao kanya. Son : No, I won't get up. I don't want to see the dentist. The conversations about the following cases are usually initiated by parents:

• To hasten an action:

M~1EJJ~1-~~llZT o Ganjin ba nage jlrou chi le. Hurry up. Finish the chicken.

ft~f$1lZllfiiiJ' 1$tkllZ~ 0 Wo pei ni chi a, ni kuai chi a. I will eat with you. You hurry up. • Commends:

-:tre-=r-~- r o Qu ba shou xi yi xia. Go to wash your hands.

1$~1lZ~l'.J{]' ::fllZ~::flf l'.J{] 0 Ni yao chicai de, bU chicai bUxing de. Eat some vegetables. You are not allowed not eating veggies.

• Seeking for confirmation:

1$i'.EJ! ::f }!~~I]{] jfE 3t 3i ll)f? Ni hai shibUshi mama de guaibaobao ya ? Aren't you Mom's good girl?

llEJ 1fJ *::f fil ~ fllJj if? 1113 ? Zanmenjia bU yeshi lia chuanghu ma ? Our house has two windows, doesn't it?

• Asking for desire/willing

~~: JL.:r1$Itl!::fNR~~l#.~? Mama:Erzi ni genbUgen lliolao shuohua ? Mom: Are you going to talk with grandma, son?

JL.:r: ft~m~~. ilit!ft~:t!~Jt*ll>f o

125 Erzi: Wo xiiing gen liio/iio , danshi wo yao diiflmu ya. Son: I want to, but I am playing the blocks.

• Prohibition

~ §i1J ~ ~ ~l;JJ T ~ o §i1J l;JJ §i1J l;JJ o NI bie gei mama dong le a. Biedong biedong. You cannot touch it, OK? No, don't touch it.

~~~111-~~·~M. ~~~W•o Chifan de shihou buyao he yinliao, chiwanfan zaihe. You can't drink the beverage when eating the dinner. You can drink it after the dinner.

jjlj i$l i!' ~ ~ ~ 111 f'* :IF fl~i$l i! 0 Bie shuohua, chifan de shihou blineng shuohua. Don't talk. Don't talk while eating.

• Making suggestions:

Hill~~ ill "* nei, , M nei, ? Gen mama chiiqu ba, haoba? Let's go out, OK?

126