When hearing Chinese people’s job of teaching the foreigners to learn Mandarin, some of the Chinese people may look down upon this job. This kind of feeling comes from the idea that any people who grow in China and is able to speak English can do this job. In the daily life, you may hear Chinese people say ‘It is just teach the foreigners to learn Chinese in China. My Chinese is good and I passed the grade six of College English Test. Of course, I can also make this job done perfectly’.
There are many teachers do their job with such attitude. However, as soon as you start this job and insist for a period of time, they will find it is not so easy at all. They will absolutely feel that not everyone can be a good Chinese teacher to teach foreigners. As a matter of fact, it has never been easy to teach Mandarin language to foreigners. The most obvious example for the difficulties they meet is that the questions raised by the foreign students in class might be those you never met in your present life.
Therefore, if you want to be a good Chinese language teacher, you should be more understandable than other Chinese people or even than yourself. But the fact is that much Chinese language knowledge only known by those teachers who have rich experience in teaching Chinese. The ordinary teachers and those who just begin in this job may not know so much Chinese language knowledge. Since the teachers themselves do not understand the language points so profound, they will also feel confused when they show the foreigners how to learn Chinese language and the students will learn in confusion.
In the following parts, several points that the Chinese teachers should pay attention to will be discussed. Firstly, sometimes, even though the students have no problems in articulating the four tones correctly, they always fail to articulate the pronunciation of the character 二. The teachers should know that the pronunciation is the first lesson when they teach the foreigners to learn to speak Chinese. After helping the learners understand the initial consonants and simple or compound vowels, the teachers should also spend more time in helping them in tones.
Even the foreign learners who are in advanced level may fail to articulate the standard tones. Therefore, it is not so easy to master tones completely. However, the strange thing is that the pronunciation of the word 二is not good enough even though they master the four tones so that it hears like a thick-tongued person.
As a matter of fact, most teachers neglect the particularity of the syllable er. It is very interesting to articulate this pronunciation because we should open the mouth slightly and to roll up the tongue. However, with the change of the tone, the mouth should be opened bigger and bigger. Since it is the fourth tone, that is, the falling tone, the mouth should be opened bigger than that of the level tone. If you do not explain this point, the students will never pronounce it as good as you. You can’t learn such knowledge even in the best Chinese language course because it is summarized after a long period of practicing. When foreigners learn Chinese one-on-one and also attend to the online Chinese course. They always keep asking until they get a clear explanation for understanding.
In the teaching process, there are more knowledge points that the ordinary Chinese teachers do not know. Therefore, the foreigners should pay attention to the teaching quality when they choose Chinese school in China. Your Chinese language skill will be greatly improved if you choose the good school.